The plastic container blow molding machine has a serious problem, but it is not recycled. It is an image problem.

The good news is that there is a solution. The bad news is that even though I have been editing it for years, I haven't seen any progress. Now the image problem is getting more and more serious.

For example: Alaska Airlines announced on November 3 that it would replace disposable plastic water bottles with paper cups and boxed water cartons on its flights. The company claims to reduce 1.8 million pounds of plastic annually, equivalent to the weight of 18 Boeing 737s.

The airline’s logic is that since 9% of the plastic in the U.S. is recycled, they are helping to solve this problem-this part is my description, not theirs-replacing the lighter and easier-to-use PET bottles with heavier and harder PET bottles. Recycled PET bottles-recycled paper.

This is a stupid idea. The 9% recovery rate is irrelevant. What prevents Alaska Airlines from recycling 100% of its PET? No.

But their customers love it. That is the image problem. Consumers believe that replacing plastic with paper is better for the environment.

Sometimes it does. When I see plastic debris on the side of the road, run over by a lawnmower, and destined to be discharged into a rain drain, river, lake, or ocean, I feel troubled.

But no one threw their empty bottles into the sea through the windows of Alaska Airlines.

This is another example of an image problem: on the eve of the COP26 climate change summit, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told a group of school children that recycling and reusing plastic is not feasible.

When I heard politicians talking about plastic recycling, I was scared. They talked authoritatively about the lack of national swords and recyclables markets. Few people (if any) know what really happened today.

It has been eight years since China started cracking down on imports of low-value, heavily polluted plastic bags and other recyclable items. This shook the global recycling market. But that is old news. According to the North American Solid Waste Association, the recyclables market, including plastics, has recovered from the impact of National Sword and is now close to a record high.

According to a report on November 1, SWANA stated that PET bales sold at a price of US$130 per ton a year ago are now priced at US$511. The price of natural high-density polyethylene is US$1,100 per ton, and it is now US$2,169. Polypropylene is 105 dollars, now it is 663 dollars. The report attributed the recycling content targets of major consumer brands to driving demand.

Plastic bottle manufacturers do have recycling-related issues in 2021; this is a supply issue. This is where the solution comes in. Let us support national container deposits, or at least expand existing plans to cover more states and more types of plastic containers.

The National Association of PET Container Resources NAPCOR reported on November 2 that the recycling rate of PET bottles in the United States fell from 27.9% in 2019 to 26.6% in 2020. That was during a period of high demand and rising prices. (For those of you who passed Econ 101, you understand that these facts are relevant.)

I have been talking to NAPCOR members since the early 1990s, and they have long understood that bottle deposits are a good policy for container blow molders. Last year, NAPCOR itself finally joined and quietly stood up to support the bottling bill.

With all the debates surrounding resin taxes, product bans, and extension of producer responsibility, why can’t the industry and legislators support container deposits? This is the solution to the biggest plastic recycling problem in 2021-insufficient supply-and it will help an industry whose image is close to the lowest point in history.

Don Loepp is the editor of Plastic News and the author of the Plastic Blog. Follow him on Twitter @donloepp.

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