National Associations Report Increase In Recycling

WORLD WASTES STAFF

Charlotte, N.C. - Across the na-tion, Americans are recycling an increasing amount of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastics, soft drink containers and aluminum and steel cans.

The National Associa-tion for Plastic Container Recovery (NAPCOR) in Charlotte, N.C., has re-ported that 27 percent of all PET containers sold in the United States were recycled. NAPCOR attrib-utes the increase in PET recycling to growth in curbside collection programs.

"As recycling rates of PET containers have increased, so has the need for improved sortation of resins in order to generate pure streams of post-consumer PET containers," said NAPCOR President Luke B. Schmidt. Schmidt said the industry will need automated sortation equipment to separate the plastics made from different resins.

The National Soft Drink Industry, Washington, D.C., has reported that 60 percent of soft drink containers were recycled nationally in 1992. Each container type - aluminum, glass, bi-metal and PET plastic - has continued to in-crease annually. In fact, according to three Washington, D.C., or-ganizations - the Al-uminum Association, the Can Manufacturers Institute and the Insti-tute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc. - A-mericans recycled al-most 63 billion all-aluminum beverage cans in 1992.

And still, yet another material has increased its recycling rate in 1992 - steel cans. The Steel Can Re-cycling Instiute (SCRI), Pittsburgh, has reported that more than 1 million tons of steel were recycled in 1992, due to an increase in curbside collection programs.