Plastic Bag Manufacturers Sign Sustainability Commitment

U.S. plastic bag manufacturers and recyclers have signed a wide-ranging sustainability commitment for the industry and renamed their coalition the American Recyclable Plastic Bag Alliance (ARPBA). The agreement by ARPBA members includes a target that 95 percent of plastic retail bags be reused or recycled by 2025.

“Today, we are all proud to come together to commit to specific industrywide sustainability goals. Our alliance was founded by U.S. manufacturers who saw the benefits in plastic bag recycling and invested heavily in the infrastructure and education needed to make it a reality. Our members now recycle hundreds of millions of pounds of bags and plastic films each year, and each of us are undertaking many other efforts to promote sustainable bag use,” said Gary Alstott, chairman of the ARPBA and senior vice president at Novolex, in a statement.

“As a result of our industry’s efforts to build recycling infrastructure, nearly all Americans can now conveniently bring plastic bags and other plastic films back to the grocery store to be recycled into new products. We are proud of the progress we have made and energized to do even more. The change to the American Recyclable Plastic Bag Alliance best reflects our members’ efforts as a coalition and helps us continue to share the success story of plastic bag recycling,” said Matt Seaholm, executive director of the ARPBA, in a statement.

In addition to efforts that encourage consumers to reuse bags and working with retailers to place consistent recycling language on all U.S.-made bags, members will increase the amount of recycled content in their products to achieve the pledge of a 95 percent reuse and recycle rate by 2025, according to ARPBA. The members committed to achieving the following minimum recycled content in plastic retail bags: