This report documents that plastic bottle recycling held nearly steady in 2015, with a slight decrease of 0.5 percent from 2014, according to figures released jointly by the Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR) and the American Chemistry Council (ACC). The 26th annual National Postconsumer Plastic Bottle Recycling Report indicates the overall recycling rate for plastic bottles for the year was 31.1 percent, down slightly from 31.7 percent the previous year.
Domestic processing of recycled HDPE continued to grow for the fifth consecutive year. Domestic reclaimers processed over 1 billion pounds in 2015, an increase of 4.4 percent. Total domestic capacity to process postconsumer HDPE grew to 1.46 billion pounds with reclaimers continuing to use assets to process non-bottle HDPE and PP.
