App designed to help users determine package impact on recycling stream
Plastic Technologies, Inc. (PTI, plastictechnologies.com) has developed a new free iPhone and Android app which helps users calculate the recyclability of their polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles, containers and/or packages. The objective is to determine how compatible a specific package is with today’s recycling systems and its impact on recycled PET (rPET) production.
Brand owners are continuing to push performance boundaries by working with new resins, additives and multilayer structures to achieve longer shelf life and other attributes. The downside is that frequently little consideration is given to recycling stream impact when many of these innovations enter it. (Of particular concern is increasing the yellowness and/or haze of recycled PET.)