Closing the loop: using recycled plastics for sustainability

Parts made from plastic are often the lowest CO2 option available: it is thinner and lighter weight than glass, lighter weight and more re-usable than forestry products, and much less energy intensive than metals.

But by using recycled plastics, your product can achieve new levels of sustainability and carbon efficiency.

What types of recycled plastics can be used in my product?

There are two basic types of recycled plastics: post-industrial and post-consumer. Post industrial plastics typically come from scrap plastics from other manufacturing plants. They are called post-industrial, rather than post-consumer, because they’ve only seen the inside of an industrial facility: end-users haven’t used them yet.

Post-industrial plastics are cleaner and, because it is typically a consistent stream, are often easier to process.

Increasingly, however, brand owners are looking to improve their sustainability by using post-consumer plastics. Post-consumer plastics have been used by the consumer and require more work to be re-used: they must be sorted, cleaned, and reprocessed (that is: melted down, filtered, and turned into little cylindrical pellets). But the reward is the highest level of sustainability.

Recycled Plastics and Color

The choice of recycled plastics can affect what colors your product can be. Products made out of PET, for example, can more easily use clear material, because a lot of post-consumer clear PET is processed in states with bottle deposit laws that have “reverse vending machines,” where consumers put bottles into a vending machine and receive the deposit back. That results in a consistent stream of clear PET.

Post-consumer polypropylene and HDPE, however, have more typically been recovered from mixed-stream curbside programs, and are mixed with a great number of colors. That often results in a gray-blue “average” color that can also fluctuate. It’s often best to add dark colorant to this to make it black.

Interested in learning how you can make your product environmentally friendly? Talk with us about your needs!