At Revolution, we talk a lot about post-consumer recycled (PCR) materials and their benefits. But when you look at the code on the bottom of your plastic bottle, have you ever wondered what it all means?
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Simply put, PCR plastic materials are created by cleaning and reforming materials from the refuse from consumer goods. Your milk jug, soda bottle, or shrink-wrap gets cleaned and reformed into a material used to make another consumer good. The newly minted items are of the same quality as those produced with raw materials. They just didn&#;t start as virgin material.
Honestly, recycling has been around forever. When something could no longer function in its original capacity, our forefathers would scavenge the pieces to use in other areas. Clothing became rags became pillow stuffing. People have been sorting and reusing items for centuries.
It was only in the second half of the twentieth century when recycling post-consumer waste came to the forefront. Mostly, this was in response to the consumer culture created after World War II, where people began to discard old items rather than reimagine uses for them.
By the s, the United States began to focus on post-consumer recycling of plastics, glass, and paper products with campaigns like Keep America Beautiful and the development of the now-familiar three-arrow Mobius recycling symbol. Curbside recycling soon followed in the early s. Now, Americans recycle or compost about a third of the waste they generate.
But why even bother? The answer is that recycling plastics saves space, energy and provides health benefits to our world.
In the s, Americans sent millions of tons of garbage to landfills each year. The space required to house waste on this scale is staggering. Today&#;s recycling efforts divert around 5.1 billion pounds of plastic waste away from landfills in .
Compared to the production of new plastics from raw materials, recycled PCR resin products result in a 53 percent saving of non-renewable energy sources such as crude oil, natural gas, and uranium compared to raw materials production.
Items in landfills also break down, making a toxic soup called leachate that could drain out of the landfill and contaminate groundwater supplies. Recycling plastics cut down on the amount of leachate generated. It also decreases the carbon dioxide emissions, greenhouse gas emissions, and ground-level ozone exposure that occurs from plastic production using raw materials. All of which is better for the health of the earth&#;s ecosystems and populations.
But it isn&#;t just one-and-done for recycled plastic products. Plastic can go through several recycles before they are downcycled. Downcycling is when recycled material is not as structurally strong as the original product made from virgin material. However, this reincarnation can be used to produce a different commodity. For example, a plastic bottle can be reformed a few times before it doesn&#;t make a good bottle. However, the recycled plastic is still valuable for making carpet fibers, composite lumber, or fleece textiles.
Today, companies like Revolution provide recycled PCR materials that end up in a variety of familiar products. Because of the meticulous reclamation process, PCR resin can produce thin gauge films. Among the products produced with Revolution&#;s recycled resins are poly mailers, reusable carryout bags, constuction films, trash liners, bubble wrap, protective films on retail packaging, and pallet wraps.
By responsibly recycling your plastic products, you are doing your part to make the world a better place. Who knew you were so powerful? Want to learn more about Revolution and its recycled plastic resin?
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Sustainability isn&#;t just a trend &#; it&#;s our responsibility. Not only is it the right thing to do, but we want to go about it as transparently as possible.
Throughout , we&#;re transitioning the housing of all our new products (and some of our best-selling products) to use 73-75% recycled materials. This will reduce plastic product housing CO&#; emissions by up to 67%. By transitioning our products from last year to incorporating 73-75% PCR materials, we saved an estimated 636 metric tons of CO&#; emissions. Great news, right? But with the term &#;recycled plastics&#; becoming more and more common, we thought we&#;d use this post to focus on the ins and outs of recycled plastics, and what this term really means. What are they, why do we use them, and how are they better for Belkin than the alternatives? Read on for the answers to all your questions!
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At Belkin, sustainability is fundamental to our organisation, which is why we&#;re continually improving the products you love (and new products you&#;ll love in the future) by integrating PCR plastics and other low-impact materials into them. But what do we mean by &#;PCR&#;, and why is it an important part of the bigger picture?
In the context of plastics, &#;PCR&#; stands for &#;post-consumer recycled&#;. This means that when you&#;re ready to dispose of a product, instead of going to landfill, the plastic in the product is recycled into pellets. This allows it to be used again to make another product. In other words, PCR is plastic that&#;s made from plastic that already exists &#; although to make sure the plastic is still great quality after processing, the recycled pellets are often mixed with new (&#;virgin&#;) plastic.
There&#;s another important concept at play here, and that&#;s what&#;s known as the circular economy. This is the idea of keeping materials in use for as long as possible. This decreases our need to constantly source virgin raw materials, while also designing waste out of the system. This &#;closes the loop&#;, diverting materials from landfill, giving them a new life so they can be used again. There&#;s a great animation from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation that explains this in more detail.
The circular economy mirrors the natural world, where materials are building blocks that form part of a continual cycle in which living things grow, die and return to the earth to grow again into something new. Taking this idea and applying it to manufacturing, we can see that recycling is a key part of the circular economy.
To reduce our dependency on the world&#;s natural resources for products that get disposed of in a few years, we need to recycle them into new products. Along the way, that means finding ways to process materials so that they can be used for other things, while maintaining their original quality. Quality is important &#; a charger that easily breaks after regular use could end up as e-waste quite quickly. Products that are built to last can continue to be used for much longer.
The circular economy lies behind our decision to transition all our applicable products to PCR plastic, both new and existing, instead of simply making a new line of products from this material and continuing to use virgin plastic as usual. In doing so, we can better contribute to the circular economy and make a much bigger impact on reducing waste and emissions.
PCR plastic isn&#;t the only type of recycled material out there, so what about the others? Here&#;s a look at some of the top contenders.
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