Recycle BC: Managing multi-laminated plastics by recycling

CPP Roadmap Target #3

Project Timeline

2018-2022

The Circular Solution 

After considerable research and development work in the past four years to determine how to manage and process multi-laminated plastics at scale, Recycle BC, a not-for-profit organization responsible for residential packaging and paper recycling throughout British Columbia, through its local plastics end market, is now able to manage all flexible plastics by recycling.

Previously, plastic bags and overwrap was recycled, and multi-laminated plastics were used for research and development to determine how best to recycle this material at scale, and what wasn’t used for research and development was recovered into engineered fuel.

Because all flexible plastics are now managed through the same recycling process, Recycle BC introduced a single collection category for flexible plastics. This new category will simplify the recycling process for residents by replacing two former categories with one single flexible plastics category.

Outcomes

This new recycling end fate of multi-laminated plastics will increase the amount of material managed by recycling and decrease the amount of material managed by recovery. This change moves it one step up the pollution prevention hierarchy and will provide more recycled content for new product manufacturing.

According to Recycle BC’s 2022 Annual Report, it was reported that out of the total plastic collected (34,566 tonnes), 78% of the flexible plastic collected (3,941 tonnes) was successfully sent to recycling end markets.

Next Steps

The Recycle BC is working with CPP Partners to support Golden Design Rule #6 to transition these multi-laminated materials into mono-materials, thereby increasing the recyclability and value of the flexible plastics category.

Learn more about how Recycle BC was able to streamline the recycling collection process for residents by introducing a single collection category for flexible plastics.