Partnership: PP 'at risk' of losing recycling acceptance

Polypropylene is one of the most widely used plastics in packaging. But difficulties with recycling are potentially putting its acceptance at risk.

At least that's the view of one of the leaders of the Polypropylene Recycling Coalition, a new industry group aiming to change the trajectory of PP recycling and keep it accepted in the marketplace as a sustainable packaging material.

"We're at risk of losing polypropylene as a recycled and accepted recyclable material," said Ali Blandina, director of circular ventures at The Recycling Partnership. "We believe that there are actions to take to improve the circularity of this material so that it doesn't go away."

Blandina's group is the lead organizer of the new PP recycling group, which formally launched in July with $35 million in funding from coalition members including Keurig Dr Pepper, Braskem and the Walmart Foundation.

She spoke on a panel on recycling issues at the 2020 Plastics News Caps & Closures Conference, held Sept. 21-25, and she outlined the goals and challenges facing the coalition.

One of the immediate catalysts for bringing the PP coalition together was the decision in January by the Sustainable Packaging Coalition to downgrade the status of PP from "widely recycled" to "check locally," a change that potentially sends a big signal to local recycling programs. SPC noted "uncertainty" around PP recycling.

The first goal of the effort will be to regain the "widely recycled" status, Blandina said, as she outlined some of the larger challenges facing PP recycling.

"The Sustainable Packaging Coalition has downgraded polypropylene from 'widely recycled' to 'check locally,' and different activists are challenging the use of polypropylene in general as a recycled material," she said. "As well … we have communities and recyclers that are dropping 3-7s, which includes polypropylene, from their recycling programs.

"There's just this immediate need to ensure the long-term viability of polypropylene as an accepted and recycled material," she said.

Longer term, the group wants PP to be in the same recycling position as PET and high density polyethylene and has set an official goal of having PP packaging hit a 30 percent recycling rate.

That would be more than 10 times the current rate, though.

Statistics from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency say that polypropylene containers and packaging had only a 2.7 percent recycling rate in 2017, the last year statistics were available. EPA said 7.7 percent of PP bottles were recycled in 2017, compared with 29.1 percent of PET bottles and 31.2 percent of HDPE bottles.

But the coalition is aiming for 30 percent for PP packaging because that's the rate target set by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and its New Plastics Economy project, she said.

Many global consumer product companies are partnering with EMF on their plastics sustainability goals and meeting the foundation's targets will be key for them, she said.

"Reaching that 30 percent recycling rate [is important] because we know that all the companies and brands and manufacturers that are signed on to Ellen MacArthur have to hit that for their packaging to be considered recyclable," she said. "We want polypropylene to be part of that."

The partnership is an industry-funded organization based in Falls Church, Va., that provides grants, technical advice and research around boosting recycling.

While Blandina noted the substantial challenges around PP recycling, she and others on the panel pointed to what they see as opportunities to build on.

There are end markets for PP recyclate and the demand is there, if more of it can be tapped, Blandina said.

Estimates from the polypropylene coalition say there's about 1.65 billion pounds of PP used in packaging in U.S. single-family homes. That's only one-third of the amount of PET used, but the group argues it's still a very sizable base to draw from.

They also argue that more demand for recycled PP is coming, as consumer brand companies and packaging makers have set much higher recycled content targets for plastics packaging, including PP.

The Association of Plastic Recyclers estimates that collecting about 350 million pounds of PP a year could support a national recycling effort.

Others are not so sure. Greenpeace issued a detailed report in February that showed, based on surveys of 367 materials recovery facilities in the U.S., that only about half of them accepted PP for recycling, compared with 100 percent acceptance for PET.

The environmental group argued that the economics of collecting PP don't make sense for municipal programs, particularly after China cut off imports of lower-value plastic recyclate in 2018.

Blandina acknowledged the questions around PP recycling but told the panel it can have a place in a circular economy for plastics. Polypropylene has unique performance qualities that make it a good material for many packages, she said.

"There are definitely people left wondering what is the future of this material, but we want people to know that its viability in a circular economy is real," Blandina said. "Recycling facilities are definitely facing issues in terms of access to advanced sortation technology, like optical sorters for polypropylene, but it is a valuable commodity to recycle and it can be remanufactured into new products."