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Recycled plastic is now more expensive than new plastic due to the natural gas boom in the US, making petrochemicals cheaper to produce. This is problematic as packaging manufacturers are under pressure to reduce plastic waste. The world has produced 8.3 billion tons of plastic since the 1950s, but less than 10% has been recycled.
Like any forward-thinking environmental movement, recycling has had its milestones, from campaigning to reuse cans and nylon to aid the war effort during World War II, to implementing the first recycling programs in the 1960s.
But the recycling industry recently hit a different kind of benchmark, and from a sustainability standpoint, it’s not good. Recycled plastic is now more expensive than new plastic.
According to commodity market analyst S&P Global Platts, a ton (1.2 tons) of “virgin” plastic is now $72 cheaper than a ton of recycled plastic. The change came for several reasons, including the natural gas boom in the United States which made petrochemicals cheaper to produce.
The trend is particularly problematic as packaging manufacturers are under intense pressure to help reduce the amount of plastic dumped into the world’s oceans. One plan to tackle the problem is a British move towards tax companies that don’t use a large percentage of recycled plastic. There is also a push for more and better recycling facilities.
The plastic scourge:
It takes nearly 500 years for every plastic bottle to decompose.
Approximately one million sea creatures are killed by plastic thrown into the ocean each year.
The world has produced about 8.3 billion tons of plastic since the 1950s, but less than 10% of it has been recycled.
