Plastics are essential to our nation’s present and future. These modern materials enable fuel-efficient cars, low-carbon energy, energy-efficient homes, and clean water delivery, contributing to a more resilient and sustainable national infrastructure.
At the same time, we must keep these materials out of our environment. To tackle this challenge, America’s Plastic Makers® have:
- Proposed a comprehensive national strategy to move the United States toward a sustainable, circular economy in which plastics are made to be remade and reused instead of discarded;
- Invested billions of dollars in advanced recycling technologies that can remake hard-to-recycle plastics into new plastics, again and again. These innovative technologies can help recover and remake the 90% of plastics that aren’t recycled today, creating sustainable change at-scale.
To smooth the road toward a circular economy, we could use a little help from Congress.
5 Actions for Sustainable Change
America’s Plastic Makers are embracing change and working toward a more sustainable, circular industry, delivering solutions for cleaner communities.
New federal policies can accelerate a circular economy, creating a pathway for valuable plastic materials to be reused again and again and helping make “single-use” a relic of the past.
Read about the “5 Actions to Building a More Sustainable Future” in Politico.
A Key to Keeping Plastic Out of Our Environment
Advanced recycling enables creation of new, high-quality plastics out of used plastics, reducing our reliance on natural resources and allowing us to remake “hard-to-recycle” plastics.
Today, only about 9% of plastic is recycled. Advanced recycling technologies can target the other 90% and turn used plastic into materials suitable for food, medical, and pharmaceutical packaging…plus countless other valuable products.
Advanced Recycling Today…and Tomorrow
Major plastic makers are investing in advanced recycling, revising business models and production processes to offer plastics remade using advanced recycling.
In addition, multiple entrepreneurial recycling companies are deploying advanced technologies. That’s just the beginning. A 2019 report by the Closed Loop Partners, a N.Y.-based investment firm, estimated that there is a $120 billion-dollar economic opportunity directly connected to the commercialization of advanced recycling technologies.
