If we want to recycle more plastic, we must design it. Fortunately, many plastic makers are working hard on redesigning packaging and products so they’re easier to recycle.
About half of our cars today (by volume) are made up of rugged, lightweight plastic/composites which helps reduce weight. Just a 10% reduction in weight can improve fuel economy by 6% – 8%. Plus, plastic-based components can boost battery power by up to 30% and extend electric vehicle range.
Nearly 40% of our nation’s energy is consumed in our homes and buildings. Plastic building products – spray and rigid foam insulation, house wrap, window frames, caulks/sealants and more – play crucial roles in sealing a building envelope against heating/cooling losses, allowing us to save more energy and money and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Plastic makers play a key role in rebuilding our nation’s ability to move people, energy, goods and water. From modernizing our ability to deliver clean water to enabling low carbon energy, America’s Plastic Makers are contributing needed materials, technologies and R&D…
while helping drive down greenhouse gas emissions.
America’s Plastic Makers support the ambition to eliminate additional plastic pollution by 2040. To get there, we need to accelerate a circular economy in which plastic products and packaging are sustainably reused or recycled instead of discarded, enabled by a global
agreement that unlocks industry innovation and global investment in plastic circularity.
America’s Plastic Makers have set two ambitious goals:
– 100% of U.S. plastic packaging is recyclable or recoverable by 2030.
– 100% of U.S. plastic packaging is re- used, recycled or recovered by 2040.
Even though production of four common plastics went up between 2005-2027, greenhouse gas emissions from making these plastics went down. By a lot: ~5 billion kilograms, the equivalent of removing one million cars from our roads for one year!
Many of those massive, lightweight yet durable wind turbine blades are made of composite materials that enmesh plastic with other materials (often fibers) to form an advanced matrix. The fibers themselves aren’t particularly useful on their own. But combining fibers with
plastic creates something much tougher than each could be on their own.
The photo voltaic (PV) cells in solar panels are reeeeally fragile. They need protection. For a long time. PV cells basically are enveloped in plastics to protect them from the elements, typically followed by a tough plastic “backsheet.” Then it’s all laminated in an oven to seal and make the system resistant to water. These plastics bond, seal and insulate. And they’re transparent and UV/temperature/corrosion resistant.
Bio-based plastic can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and displace fossil resources with renewables. Bio-based plastic can help American companies reach their sustainability goals more rapidly.
Many plastic makers sell materials that contain recycled plastic. And in a first: One company has figured out how to make strong, lightweight plastic film with 80% recycled plastic!
Many plastic makers are using advanced recycling technologies that can tackle lots of those hard-to-recycle plastics (tubes, foam, pouches, bags & wraps) by transforming them into raw materials that can be used to make new plastic. Again and again.
