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Plastics News has published our annual ranking of North American recyclers in today's print issue, so let's take the opportunity to look at the number behind the ranking.In print, we rank the top 25 companies, but online we've got data for 226 companies.That's three less than last year.178 of the companies reprocessed a total of 8,873.64 million pounds of plastic in 2012, for an average per company of 49.85 million pounds.Last year, 165 of the companies reprocessed a total of 7,842.58 million pounds of plastic, for an average of 47.53 million pounds.Three companies moved into the top 25 this year:Green Line Polymers of Waterloo, Iowa, moved up 32 spots to No. 9.

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Plastic products get a lot of the blame when it comes to marine debris and litter. So what are the facts?I touched on this topic last week when I wrote: "By volume, single-use grocery bags are not a huge part of litter and marine debris. Look at the results of any beach cleanup, and you'll see that bags are way down the list of problem products." ("Time running out to block bag bans.")Was I right? I guess it depends on what you consider "way down the list," but I'm going to say no, at least not this year.Today, the Ocean Conservancy released the results of its

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Robert Grace, Plastics News' editorial director and associate publisher, put together a flier back in the newspaper's early days to help our readers deal with the media – not just PN, but any newspaper or magazine reporter.It's been popular with readers, and Bob just updated it at the request someone who'd seen it and wanted to share it with members of his group. So we figured we'd share it with Plastics Blog readers to give it a wider audience:Dealing with the media – a host of helpful hintsHandling the interview:• Answer a reporter's telephone call. When a reporter calls you, the reporter has identified you as the best source of information.

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For a long time, when people in the plastics industry talked about plastic grocery bags being recyclable it was a mostly theoretical exercise.Sure, they’re recyclable. They’re thermoplastic. There’s nothing wrong with polyethylene, right?But the reality was that most bags were not recycled. Some were made into low-grade plastic lumber. Some were exported to China. Most had a brief second life as a lunch bag, a trashcan liner or a doggie clean-up device. Then they ended up in the trash.Some, unfortunately, ended up as litter. And that was a big problem. By volume, single-use grocery bags are not a huge part of litter and marine debris. Look at the results of any beach cleanup, and you’ll see that bags are way down the list of problem products.But bags are extremely visible and an easy target for well-intentioned people who want to do something to make the planet a cleaner place.So bans and taxes started to appear.

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Here's an off-beat angle to plastic bag legislation: a financial company is warning that bans are a potential red flag for asset-based lenders.In other words, some lenders might start discounting the value of the machinery that plastics processors use to make plastic bags. But before film extrusion executives climb out on the ledge of their cooling towers, keep reading.Kevin Boland, an assistant vice president with New York-based Tiger Group LLC, wrote in the April issue of the Commercial Finance Association's The Secured Lender magazine that a global backlash against plastic bags "threatens to undermine the recovery value of dedicated merchandise and equipment in this sector."

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Remember the droning "hummmmm" of the plastic vuvuzelas at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa? The good news for soccer fans is they won't be at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.But the bad news is you'll be hearing a new -- and possibly more annoying -- sound next year.FIFA and Brazil's Ministry of Sport have introduced the caxirola, green and yellow (the color of Brazil's national team) rattles that can be banged together. The toys, which are molded from recycled plastic, were created by Brazilian musician and songwriter Carlinhos Brown, and reports say they'll retail for $7 to $15.

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Earth Day is 43 years old, and it's starting to make me believe in the (even older) counterculture phrase, "Don't trust anyone over 30."Why am I so cynical? It's tough to take Earth Day seriously when most of the items I see about the birth of the environmental movement are generated by the PR departments at big corporations.Coca-Cola,

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Let's catch up on some bloggable news today from Pereles Bros. Inc., Paragon Films Inc., Chroma Corp., Plastics Group of America and Uponor Inc.Pereles Bros., a Milwaukee-based injection molder, gets a shout for winning a Central City Business Award from The Business Journal, a weekly newspaper in my favorite Midwest city. Pereles was honored in the Medium Company category. The awards recognize entrepreneurs and commercial businesses whose contributions toward growth, expansion and prosperity are making a difference in Milwaukee’s central city and others across the region.Pereles Bros. partners with the state’s Transitional Jobs Program to create financial security for Milwaukee families and is currently engaged in training local neighborhood participants for long-term employment.

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Wallace "J." Nichols has an attention-grabbing post today: "The Ocean Isn't Full of Plastic."Nichols argues that reports that make the world's oceans sound like they are on their deathbed -- from plastic pollution, oil spills and other serious problems -- are exaggerated. The problem, he believes, is that if the public believes the hyperbole, then people may not believe that they can do something about the real issues.Again, let me emphasize that he's not saying that plastic pollution is not a problem. "The task ahead of fixing what we've broken in nature is daunting and urgent," he writes.

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As a reporter, it's interesting to see how other media cover a topic that I've been covering for a long time. It happens all the time when you're working for a daily newspaper -- when a local TV or radio station decides to report on a story after seeing the print report, or an out-of-town newpaper or wire reporter pops in to do their own version of something I've been covering.In the news business it's sometimes called parachute journalism, although I don't think it's all bad. I've seen plenty of examples of journalists jumping into an unfamiliar topic and doing an excellent job. And after all, that's something that journalists are trained to do, right? To become experts on a wide number of topics, at least to a point where they can report on them accurately and include context that readers need.

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