WASHINGTON, DC — The amount of non-bottle plastic recycled in 2009 was one-third higher than the previous year, brought on by increased demand for post-consumer plastic.

In its third annual report on non-bottle rigid plastic, released this week, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) also identifies what barriers are preventing more plastic from being recycled and reused in the United States.

The 479 million pounds recycled in 2009 was almost 33 percent higher than the 360 million pounds recycled in 2008, and almost 50 percent more than from 2007, the first year the ACC started covering non-bottle plastic.

The increase in non-bottle plastic collected — like plastic pallets, buckets and food tubs — was due to a combination of recyclers and associations that worked to get more communities to recycle more types of plastic, along with an increase in the number of companies that gave recycling information to Moore Recycling Associates Inc., which conducted research for the report.

Sixty companies provided data for the report, while 45 had given data in 2008. Two-thirds of those that reported where their recycled material came from said it was from pallets, crates, large buckets and electronic housings, with the rest coming from food packaging.

Some recycling companies have started taking non-bottle plastic since more companies are competing for existing amounts of plastic, primarily in the form of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) bottles, the two most commonly collected plastics.

U.S. recyclers got access to only about 19 million pounds from the increase as export rates went above 2007 levels, returning from a drop in 2008. Overall, 51 percent was recycled in the U.S. and Canada, with the rest being exported, mainly to China.

One aspect of exporting that is hurting domestic efforts is poor quality standards for bales of plastic, the report says. Since exporters in the U.S. sell to brokers, the final buyers in China never have contact with the sellers, and therefore can't give feedback on the quality of what they received. A lack of quality standards leads to poor quality plastic domestically as well, the report says.

"But we should not wholly rely on China as our market for plastic scrap," the report says. "By doing so we are exporting jobs, and other downstream benefits, and we are essentially exporting energy. Recycling benefits strongest when local."

For improved domestic recycling, the report says, the companies that end up using recycled plastic need consistent supplies of quality plastic. To that end, the Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers created bale specifications for different types of  mixed plastic it hopes that material recovery facilities (sites that sort recyclables) adopt.

_{Plastic - CC license by Montgomery Cty Division of Solid Waste Services (Flickr)}