The recycling rate for aluminum cans reached its highest level in 17 years, although an estimated $800 million worth of the metal is still landfilled each year. That's according to a report by The Aluminum Association and the Can Manufacturers Institute examining 2014 performance indicators for aluminum beverage container recycling. The consumer recycling rate reached 56.7 percent in 2014, compared...

E-scrap firms processed slightly more CRT glass from Washington state in 2014 than they did the year before, according to a report. Processors handled 10,666 tons of CRT glass in 2014, up 1.3 percent from the CRT weight processed in 2013, according to the annual report by the Washington Materials Management and Financing Authority (WMMFA), the electronics manufacturer-funded group coordinating...

A leading European trade group has warned that an influx of colored PET packaging is endangering the rPET market. In a press release sent out May 27, Brussels-based Plastic Recyclers Europe says producers of milk, personal-care and home products are increasingly turning toward PET and, as a result, sending upwards of 330,000 tons of colorful and hard-to-sort material into the...

Starting July 1, residents of Toronto will be allowed to put a wide variety of plastic film items in their curbside recycling bins. Toronto's curbside program, which already accepts plastic retail bags for recycling, will soon include sandwich, milk and bread bags and newspaper bags along with dry cleaning bags and diaper packaging. It will not accept biodegradable, black or...

If all non-recycled plastics in the U.S. were converted to oil, the effort would generate enough transportation fuel to power nearly 9 million cars per year. That's according to a video explaining and touting the benefits of plastics-to-fuel technology. The video, "Plastics-to-Fuel: Creating Energy from Non-Recycled Plastics," is from the American Chemistry Council's Plastics-to-Oil Technologies Alliance (PTOTA). The video is...

Coming off a year of record battery collections, Call2Recycle is now looking to expand consumer take-back points and move into more markets. That's according to the nonprofit battery stewardship organization's annual report, which looked both backward and forward.In 2014, the industry-funded group oversaw the collection of nearly 6,000 tons of batteries and cell phones in the U.S. and Canada, a...

A $45,000 grant from the Foam Recycling Coalition will enable a Denver-area company to begin processing expanded polystyrene and possibly open the door to curbside collection of the material. Alpine Waste and Recycling of Commerce City, Colo. will use the money, provided by a Foodservice Packaging Institute initiative, to purchase a densifier to compact EPS into bricks for more efficient...

The U.S. paper recovery rate edged up slightly in 2014, according to data from an industry group. According to the annual tally from the American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA), the U.S. paper recovery rate grew to 65.4 percent in 2014. That's 1.9 percentage points above 2013's rate of 63.5. The paper industry has a goal of reaching 70 percent...

Consolidated Container Co, which recently acquired two major suppliers of recycled resins, plans to make structural and personnel changes at the companies. Rigid plastic packaging maker Consolidated Container Co. (CCC) acquired Envision Plastics LLC and Ecoplast Corp. in June 2014. Now the Atlanta-based company plans to move the Ecoplast business under the Envision umbrella, the company announced. The personnel changes...

Ghana's infamous Agbogbloshie area has become "an international byword for 'African e-waste dumping,'" journalist Adam Minter writes in a recent article. But, Minter states, the district in the middle of Ghana's capital is home to a Pepsi bottling plant, small manufacturers and markets for a variety of goods, in addition to the recycling area."Having visited informal e-scrap processing sites in...