Kickstart: The recycling dilemma

Let's talk about bottles.

Recycling is at an interesting point in the U.S. On one hand, you've got major brands such as Coca-Cola Co. and Nestle pledging to move to 100 percent recycled PET. (And to top those bottles, post-consumer high density polyethylene is going into caps made by Berry Global Group Inc. and Coke's Dasani brand.)

On the other hand, virgin PET is cheap, which means that post-consumer recycled material isn't the best "business" choice if you're just counting pennies.

Consumers aren't financially rewarded for recycling, except in those few areas with a bottle bill, and even then a lot of bottles aren't covered by deposit systems.

So what's a company to do? Independently, of course, even a company the size of Coca-Cola can't create the infrastructure for recycling. California will require 50 percent recycled content in beverage bottles by 2030, but it isn't setting up any new way to collect or process PET.

So industry leaders are trying to figure out how to support the recycling process, as Plastics Industry Association CEO Tony Radoszewski said in an interview with PN's Steve Toloken.

"It would have a fair funding mechanism so that the infrastructure can be built, research can continue and technology is developed that will hopefully dramatically increase recycling rates of plastic and to find the materials that are best for secondary use," Radoszewski said.

But bottle makers have competition.

PET is the star of the recycling industry. Consumers can recycle it easily (even if they don't recycle it as often as they should) and there's a ready market for post-consumer PET.

But even with so much demand for bottle-to-bottle recycling, the fact is a lot of recycled PET goes into other products. Just a few examples: Ford says it uses the equivalent of 250 bottles per vehicle for seating; Nike claims 20 bottles go into each NBA uniform; Patagonia has been turning bottles into fleece jackets since 1993.

Now blinds.com, owned by retailer Home Depot, has debuted a line of cellular window shades made from recycled PET.

"It takes about 12 recycled plastic water bottles to make one standard size SimplyEco shade," Amber Hall, vice president of merchandising at Blinds.com, said in a news release introducing the shades. "These new shades can help save money on energy bills and help save the planet from accumulating excessive plastic waste."

So I guess what I'm trying to get at here is to note that the work going into creating a recycling infrastructure plan is very important.

Will the next big rush in this pandemic year be for igloos?

I don't mean the kind made of ice and snow, but the geodesic domes some restaurants and bars are installing to winterize outdoor dining spaces for the coming cold months.

Our sister paper Crain's Detroit Business has a story on restaurant owners trying to figure out what they can do to keep business in outdoor dining areas while indoor dining remains limited in many regions.

Tents and the "igloos," which are surrounded by film or sheet to keep diners warm, are of interest, but they're getting more expensive as demand grows.

"Detroit Shipping Co. co-founder John Hartzell found that quotes for the same enclosed tent he installed last year for $45,000 are coming closer to $80,000 this year," writes Nina Ignaczak.