Impact of Multimaterial Barrier Plastic Packaging on the Success of Plastic Recycling, 1990 Polymers, Laminations & Coatings Conference Proceedings

Twenty years ago our company entered the injection molding business and four years later moved into plastic recycling as a means of solving several supply problems which we encountered. We began recycling post consumer automobile battery cases. We then went into the recycling of soda bottles and their accompanying base cups. By the transfer of technology gained from battery cases and soda bottles, we launched an ambitious campaign to recycle milk, water, and detergent bottles. From experience, we realized that large volumes of bottles would be required for this endeavor to be successful and therefore launched an even more ambitious effort to accept mixed baled household bottles from community collection programs. This material would be separated into basically four useful streams - green soda bottles, clear soda bottles, milk and water bottles (homopolymer HDPE,) and detergent, cleanser, and shampoo mixed color type bottles (copolymer HDPE). Obviously trouble is to be expected when collecting post consumer plastics as consumers have not been educated to separate recyclable from unwanted plastics. However, education among consumers is improving. Labeling bottles (SPI code) does help consumers become aware of what is recyclable but not what is being recycled. Therefore early on we became aware of bottles coded “other” which were not consistent with any of our recycling streams and we began to study their effect on the stream in which they entered. This category includes multimaterial barrier plastic packaging.