Poor recycling market, lightweighting cited in PET recycling drop – Plastics News

Poor recycling market, lightweighting cited in PET recycling drop – Plastics News

Posted on October 16, 2016 by DrRossH in Plastic Waste News

Postconsumer PET container recycling dropped in 2015, most likely due to poor recycling market conditions as well as the impact of lightweighting of bottles, a new study reports.Numbers from the National Association for PET Container Resources and the Association of Plastic Recyclers show that 1.

Source: Poor recycling market, lightweighting cited in PET recycling drop – Plastics News

Negative factors included continued weakness in carbonated soft drink sales, combined with some reductions in single-serving bottle sizes to provide market differentiation and meet consumer demands. Light-weighting of bottles continued to have an impact on some specialty beverage categories, but to a lesser extent than in previous years,” the report states.

While carbonated soft drink sales fell, water bottle sales increased. But because of water bottles are typically of lighter weight “the increase in their sales does not compensate for the loss of soft drink containers in the PET collection stream,” the Oct. 13 report states.