Plastics recycling must do better by consumers to succeed, professor says

Steve Alexander is the CEO of the Association of Plastic Recyclers, which organizes the annual conference through its Resource Recycling subsidiary.

"I think we have a tendency to make plastics recycling more complicated than it needs to be," Alexander said.

The plastics industry loves to point to lower greenhouse gas emissions when compared with other packaging substrates such as metal, paper and glass. And the plastics recycling industry touts its GHG levels are even lower than when virgin resin is used. Alexander said it should be fairly easy to connect the dots between climate and plastics recycling in the minds of the public.

"We can convince consumers that by putting their plastic in the bin, they are participating, themselves, in reducing their global footprint and reducing global climate change," he said. "That should be a connection we should be able to make. And it should be fairly straightforward."

Read the full article from Plastics News.