It's time to dig a little deeper into the data collected for our annual recyclers ranking.
This week's print issue charts the top 25 reprocessors in North America, and provides a directory for all 184 firms we've been able to contact. There are fewer firms on this year's list. We said goodbye to a couple of firms that went 100 percent captive in the past year. We also were unable to contact several brokers to confirm their business. If your company is missing, just let us know.
Adding up all that data, we tracked 13.1 billion pounds of material in this list, with more than 78 percent being reprocessed. A few firms increased their mix of reprocessed vs. brokered material.
Waste Management Recycle America LLC went up 11 million pounds, while AR Recycling LLC and In-Plas Recycling Inc. both increased 10 million pounds. Currently the mix between post consumer and post industrial is 40.8 percent to 58.3 percent.
If you want to take the really long view, our very first directory was published in 1993. However, Plastics News started tracking firms by reprocessed volumes in our 2010 issue. So how does that mix stack up? With 121 billion pounds reported since then, its nearly identical with 58 percent post industrial and 41 percent post consumer.
