Study in Canada city shows recycling of foam polystyrene packaging enhanced by see through bags

In a recent report, "The City of Langley 'Blue+2' Pilot" prepared in July for the Canadian Plastics Industry Association (CPIA) and Emterra Environmental by Entec Consulting Ltd, findings show that when households are provided with an adequate supply of see through bags, participation is 72% greater and the plastic bags and overwrap and foam polystyrene packaging captured is nearly doubled.

The Blue+2 pilot project was a collaborative multi-stakeholder project that was designed to assess the implications of adding recyclable empty plastic bags and overwrap (plastic film) and foam packaging (PS foam) to an existing curbside recycling program in British Columbia. The Blue+2 project was developed and funded as a partnership between CPIA and Emterra Environmental. Additional stakeholder partners, CKF Inc, Layfield Flexible Packaging and W Ralston (Canada) Inc provided in-kind services. As well, The Blue+2 project was supported and hosted by the City of Langley, British Columbia, which is a municipality in Metro Vancouver that lies directly east of the City of Surrey.

According to CPIA, the City of Langley pilot area residents were able to quickly understand and participate in additional plastics packaging and the recycling pilot project provided interesting and useful information for use in future curbside program designs. The collection system was not adversely impacted and virtually took no added time to collect the increased volumes of recyclables. The processing of the plastic bags and overwrap and foam polystyrene packaging was done in a manner to understand the ability of the see through bags to prevent further contamination in the material recycling facility, which they proved to do.

"After reviewing the study results, we believe that recycling of plastic bags and over wrap and foam polystyrene packaging can easily be incorporated into the current recycling system across British Columbia as part of the requirement of the Printed Paper and Packaging recycling plan to be implemented by May 2014." said Craig Foster, CPIA British Columbia representative.

Overall, the curbside collection of PS foam and plastic bags and overwrap in dedicated bags had virtually no impact on increasing collection time. One of the operational findings was that the majority of the bags collected were received intact on the tipping floor of the Material Recovery Facility (MRF). And in the City of Langley's case, these materials could be added to the current recycling program without additional collection vehicles.

"The pilot project was successful in demonstrating that the future collection and processing system can incorporate plastic bags and overwrap and foam polystyrene packaging at curbside to collect from residents and deliver them to material sorting facilities. To capitalize on this collection system, MRF's require investment in new technology and sorting infrastructure to effectively manage the growing range and volumes of materials," said Cathy Cirko, CPIA Vice President.