The biggest barrier to recycling plastic has been trying to find a market to support it. Last week Chicago became an important station on the way to that goal with the opening of a mammoth plastics processing center on the South Side.
The center itself is an example of recycling on a large scale, turning a former Libby food plant into a sophisticated, mechanized operation that also is providing 70 new jobs. But the real impact will be in its purpose: each year turning some 40 million pounds of waste plastic into new, useful products.
The effort is a joint venture of Waste Management Inc. of Oak Brook and the Du Pont Co., a unique and logical pairing of the world`s largest waste hauler and one of the world`s largest producers of plastic resins. It is the second of five such centers the companies hope to open nationwide, moving some 200 million pounds of plastic out of the waste stream annually.
Plastic potentially is one of the most recylable of all materials because of a wide variety of possible uses, but the economics of supply and demand have not supported it on a large scale. With this venture, the companies are creating their own recycling loop. Waste Management is providing most of the plastic from its recycling operations in several Midwestern states, including in more than 30 suburbs. The plant will process it into plastic flakes, which Du Pont can use for new products or sell to other companies.
Some of the most common household containers-soft drink bottles, milk and water jugs, soap and detergent bottles-will be chopped into the flakes. They in turn can be used in more than 100 products, including other such common household items as egg cartons, more soap bottles, VCR cassette cases and, appropriately, recycling bins. Some of it also will be used in an unusual public-private experiment, with the Illinois Department of Transportation contracting to have the material turned into collapsible highway barricades.
The companies are taking a risk with the venture; the Chicago plant and an earlier one opened in Philadelphia are expected to operate at a loss at first. The gamble is that they will encourage more plastic recycling, as the demand drives the supply. If the companies eventually profit from that, so will the public.