By Bob Lebeaux, President, The Plastics Group of America
February 20, 2012
Recently, the proposal of a statewide ban on single use bags in the state of Washington died in committee. Sounds like good news, but even when the plastic bag industry wins a battle like this, they seem to be losing the war.
There have been reports that the recycling centers in the state, which I believe are the key to improving recycling/recovery rates of the bags and improving their reputation among environmentally sensitive citizens, are also in favor of banning the bags. The reason the recycling centers favor the ban is that thin bags clog screens and wrap around conveyors - learning of this was a big surprise to me. I thought the recycling centers would be eager to add the bags to their stream of scrap products. When properly collected and baled, the used grocery bags are a decent commodity. In fact, grocery chains have been collecting them for over a decade and have found a way to break even on their bag recycling programs, in other words, grocery chains have been able to achieve decent results with their recycling programs that are basically side projects for them. So my question is, if they can accomplish this while being focused on food and goods distribution, why are recycling centers (which are designed to reclaim, consolidate, size reduce, market/sell post consumer scrap, etc.) having such a hard time dealing with these bags?
Bottom line - they shouldn't, and the sooner they can figure out a way to eliminate the clogging and wrap around issues, the better.
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