Kickstart: There's been a lot of investments in recycling, but not enough

There's a lot of demand for a more circular plastics industry — a call not only coming from activists, but also coming from inside the (metaphorical) house.

Just consider the news the past few days that Plastics News staffers Jim Johnson and Steve Toloken have been reporting from the Plastics Recycling Conference in Maryland.

The Recycling Partnership is setting up a program to ensure PET bottles collected for recycling actually get recycled, polypropylene recycler SER North America is already planning to double capacity at its new facility in Anderson, Ind., and the American Chemistry Council and legislators shared a stage to talk about extended producer responsibility.

That's in addition to PP recycler PureCycle raising funds to finance a new plant in Georgia, the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council blasting chemical recycling as "greenwashing," an Arizona PET recycler moving into a larger facility to accomodate growth and PET giant Indorama Ventures Public Co. Ltd. saying it is on its way to meet its goal for increased recycled products.

But despite all that, the needle on recycling and a circular economy simply is not moving fast enough, far enough.

The U.S. Plastics Pact released a report March 7 saying that consumer companies that have pledged to have 25 percent recycled content in packaging by 2025 are only at a fraction of that number.

And back at the Plastics Recycling Conference, Emily Friedman from ICIS noted that the industry will need to see "exponential growth" in recycling to meet brand owners' sustainability targets. For 2025 targets, the U.S. will need at least another 145 mechanical recycling plants. For 2030 targets, the industry would need a 45 percent compounded annual growth rate.

"So this is just really astronomical the amount of material that we're going to need," Friedman said.

Meanwhile, ongoing supply chain shortages are prompting one Oregon community to delay its ban on single-use plastic foodservice products at restaurants.

The ban applies to cups and plates, while plastic cutlery will be available only upon request. It was slated to begin at the end of March, but the Newport City Council voted to move the start date to the end of this year because restaurant industry leaders said that there were problems finding alternatives.

"Finding suppliers for these products and dealing with ongoing supply chain challenges are incredibly difficult right now," said Greg Astley, a lobbyist for the Oregon Restaurant & Lodging Association, told Oregon Public Radio.

But city leaders who approved the delay are also saying the new date on Jan. 1, 2023, should be a "hard backstop" to ensure it doesn't get pushed back again.

Satellite images are a great way to get the big picture on what's happening on the ground. But if you want an image of a very specific place that isn't normally available, getting that image can be tricky. Unless, of course, you have your own satellite. Or you have access to a weather balloon.

A New York City startup, Near Space Labs, is using weather balloons to get its proprietary imaging platform — called Swifty — 65,000 feet into the air, get the images, then safely return to land. Unlike satellites and rockets, the balloons can be reused again and again wherever they're needed.

That means lower costs with a smaller carbon footprint, Rema Matevosyan, CEO and co-founder of Near Space Labs, told our sister paper Crain's New York Business.

Near Space doesn't identify its supplier, but balloons able to perform to its requirements typically are made of highly engineered plastic films.