An engineer scoops a handful of tiny pellets out of a stainless-steel canister at a manufacturing plant in the Netherlands and rolls them around in his hand.
Many waste items provide important value before being tossed into a bin. Discarded plastic products, for example, originally serve as packaging to keep school lunches fresh, lightweight bottles for efficiently transporting fresh water to hard-to-reach areas, containers for soaps and detergents that facilitate hygiene – and much more.
Plastic roads and buildings, the influence of energy and petrochemicals in geopolitics, and chemical and molecular recycling processes that could create a truly circular economy for plastic products were just a few of the topics discussed at AFPM’s 44th International Petrochemical Conference (IPC) in San Antonio last week.
As petrochemicals and recycling advancements give old plastic new life over and over again—from shoes and clothes made of recycled plastic recovered from the ocean, to plastic bottles being chemically recycled into fuel and a raw material to make new petrochemicals—what it means to “recycle” is changing right before our eyes.
Ottawa, Canada — As the fourth session of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-4) to create a global agreement on plastic pollution concluded Monday in Ottawa, AFPM released the following statement.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), the American Chemistry Council (ACC) and the Plastics Industry Association (PLASTICS) released the following statement on the General Services Administration’s (GSA) final rule calling for the reduction of single-use plastic packaging on federally supplied or purchased products.