Kickstart: Waste pickers on the front line for recycling

What does a good recycling system look like?

Apparently, that depends on where you live.

In areas such as Europe, South Korea or the U.S., there are fleets of collection systems, material recovery facilities, sortation sites that use artificial intelligence to separate waste streams, and a range of equipment to wash, grind and pelletize plastics.

In other areas, there are waste pickers — people who go out to sort through rubbish to retrieve plastics, metal and glass, and then take that material to collection centers.

And these pickers can be as effective as automated machinery.

Karen Laird, the editor of our sister paper Sustainable Plastics, was at the Plastics Recycling Show India in Mumbai earlier this month and said during the Dec. 12 Sustainable Plastics Live webcast that India's recycling system really works very well. In fact its PET bottle recycling rate of about 90 percent tops the European average rate.

"I had no idea how far along India was with recycling regulations, recycling laws and the number of recyclers," she said.

India began introducing extended producer responsibility laws in 2022 to incentivize the return of packaging, which in turn provides income to the informal waste collection done by pickers.

"It's clear they are a vital part of the recycling chain, and they need to be recognized as such and earn what they deserve," Karen added.

That same system wouldn't work well in more developed regions since there aren't millions of people willing to go out and sort trash for their regular income. But it should be proof that there's not a single answer to building a circular economy.

A California lawmaker thinks the state should adopt a tethered cap requirement for plastic bottles similar to one in Europe.

State Sen. Alex Padilla, D-San Diego, introduced a bill Dec. 12 calling for tethered caps for single-use bottles. In a news release, he noted that caps are easily separated from their bottles, which increases the likelihood they could end up where they're not supposed to be.

"Multiple litter studies and waste audits show that plastic bottle caps are one of the most common litter and waste items — many times greater than their associated plastic bottles," Padilla's office said in a news release.

There's no telling how far Senate Bill 45 will go, although the proposal already has support from environmental groups. (For the record, this is a different Alex Padilla than the U.S. senator, who is from Los Angeles, who served in the state legislature previously.)

Could seaweed be a key ingredient in more sustainable packaging?

Plastics News' Jim Johnson writes that film maker Charter Next Generation is sorting through a variety of new technology offerings to offer greener products. One of those under consideration is a compostable material that uses seaweed as its feedstock. California-based Sway Innovation Co. is the company behind the packaging alternative.

CNG discussed Sway's seaweed material at its Pack Expo booth recently and has already processed it into new films as it looks for options to traditional polymers.