Enlarge / Recycling is sorted on the Sims Municipal Recycling Facility in New York Metropolis in 2015. (credit score: Spencer Platt/Getty Photos)
To jumpstart a paltry marketplace for recycled plastic, governments throughout the globe are pushing corporations to incorporate recycled supplies of their merchandise. Final yr, the UK launched a tax on producers that produce or import plastic packaging containing lower than 30 % recycled plastic. In 2024, New Jersey will start imposing comparable guidelines, albeit with decrease targets. California now requires that beverage containers be made from 15 % recycled supplies, and Washington will enact an identical requirement later this yr. The European Fee, Canada, and Mexico are all contemplating comparable strikes.
At present, most pliable merchandise are derived from freshly extracted fossil fuels, together with crude oil and pure fuel. Incorporating some recycled plastic might scale back emissions, and shrink air pollution in waterways and landfills, consultants say. However amassing, sorting, pulverizing, and melting post-consumer plastics for reuse is pricey. The brand new legal guidelines will probably assist recyclers discover consumers for what would in any other case turn out to be waste.
However regulators might have a greater method to confirm that the brand new legal guidelines are working. Whereas corporations can enlist a third-party to certify their use of recycled content material, most certifiers take a hen’s-eye view, monitoring the supplies throughout a variety of merchandise and factories. Consequently, an merchandise with a “recycled content material” label could be utterly devoid of recycled content material.
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