Recycling systems and processing infrastructure in the U.S. are quickly falling behind ever-growing sustainability trends — something the “2020 Recycling Economic Information (REI) Report,” released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), says is just one of many challenges facing recycling.
Recyclers are familiar with sorting used packaging according to whether or not the material is recyclable and then throwing the non-recyclable material into the trash. The Hefty EnergyBag program, designed by Dow and Reynolds Consumer Products, innovates a circular economy for hard-to-recycle plastics by converting them into valued resources. This is possible by incorporating curbside collection of these plastics into existing recycling efforts across the country — establishing a way for communities to contribute to the future of sustainability.