APR creates catalog to help with global plastics recycling

U.S.-based Association of Plastic Recyclers is launching a new global design catalog to help companies navigate various plastics recycling guidelines around the world.

APR has published frequent updates its own Design Guild for Plastics Recyclability, but has often talked about the difficulties for companies to navigate different guidelines around the globe.

So the Feb. 17 launch of the APR Global Design Catalog creates what the trade group calls "comprehensive resource to access the most current plastic packaging recyclability guidelines for countries and regions around the world."

"Due to the differences in operational recycling systems and EPR [extended producer responsibility] requirements among countries, harmonizing design for recyclability across the globe is a challenging endeavor," APR CEO Steve Alexander said in a statement.

APR had set out, about five years ago, to work with similar groups in other countries to explore standardizing design for recyclability guidelines. But the group learned that is no easy task because of cultural, packaging and processing differences around the world.

"A couple years ago, we realized harmonizing is going to be really tough. Because there's a lot of different organizations involved and those organizations are structured differently," APR Chief Operating Officer Curt Cozart said. "At the same time, everybody needed to know. The people who are designing needed to know what's happening around the world."

Cozart said creating unified standards is more easily accomplished when working on emerging topics compared with intrenched practices and packaging in different countries.

"We realized there's some struggle to that," he said about harmonization. "There are some reasons not everything can be harmonized. But, at the same time, people needed to know what the design guides are."

Cozart called creation of the initial of the design catalog a "first step" that helps provide key information in one location. "it identifies what the differences are, allows you to see what the differences are. It allows us to see what the items are that need to be harmonized or discussed for harmonization," he said.

APR's new catalog contains information from the European Union, Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Plans are to add additional countries in the near future. Plans are to make the online catalog interactive in the months ahead.

Resins covered in the category include rigid PET, rigid high-density polyethylene, rigid polypropylene and flexible PE film.

"Design for recyclability is key to creating a circular economy for plastics packaging," said Alexander, who sees the catalog as a complement to APR's own design guide.

More information about accessing the online catalog through a subscription is available on APR's website at www.plasticsrecycling.org/apr-global-guidance. The subscription is free to APR members.