Video illustrates jobs created through recycling plastic bottles

The Carolinas Plastics Recycling Council (CPRC) and the National Association for PET Container Resources (NAPCOR), Florence, Kentucky,  have announced the release of the jointly produced “Your Bottles Means Jobs (YBMJ)” video. The two-minute video tallies the 3,500 jobs in plastics bottle recycling and related fields in the Carolinas, including bottle sorting, recycled material processing and manufacturing of recycled-content products, such as polyester fiber made from recycled PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles. 

“We are pleased to promote recycled plastics processing and manufacturing jobs in North and South Carolina and to see recent investment by industries that facilitate or use recycled plastic material feedstock to create and sustain jobs,” says Chantal Fryer, director of recycling market development for the South Carolina Department of Commerce. “The ‘YBMJ’ video shows us how these jobs add up and is part of an ongoing YBMJ campaign to encourage everyone to recycle just two more bottles each week in support of local jobs.”

She adds, “Although our video is Carolinas-focused, our message of local collection supporting local economies, job creation and infrastructure is relevant across the U.S.”

To produce the video, which can be viewed at https://vimeo.com/190005789  or at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-KCZHAc6lE, CPRC partnered with NAPCOR, the trade association for the PET packaging industry.

“The video walks us through a straightforward explanation of how PET recycling works and shows where jobs are created in the process,” says NAPCOR Executive Director Rick Moore. “We hope people will share it broadly and spread the word that recycling plastic bottles creates domestic jobs, generates tax revenues, supports ‘green’ manufacturing and creates other economic benefits.”

The avoidance of other costs can be one of these benefits, the video producers say. “In addition to job creation and strengthening our domestic economy through increasing plastic bottle recycling, local governments and taxpayers also win through reduction in waste disposal costs of those bottles,” says Blair Pollock, Orange County North Carolina solid waste planner.

The YBMJ campaign is a project of the Carolinas Plastics Recycling Council, with a mission that includes promoting plastic recycling companies operating within the Carolinas. Recent investments in new or upgraded plastics recycling-related facilities in the Carolinas include plastics recycling technology provider American Starlinger-Sahm’s new headquarters in Fountain Inn, South Carolina; Sun Fibers’ recycled polyester fiber production facilities in Chester and Chesterfield counties, South Carolina; and Unifi’s PET bottle processing plant in Reidsville, North Carolina.

"Unifi’s new Repreve Bottle Processing Plant in Reidsville is a major investment in the company’s successful, sustainable product line and it will create more than 80 new jobs here,” says Jan Critz, director of the Rockingham County (North Carolina) Center for Economic Development, Small Business & Tourism. “This is an important project for our community. ‘Green’ products—such as Repreve, which is made from recycled plastic bottles—will only continue to grow and we are proud that Reidsville and Rockingham County are a part of that.”

The new video is the latest addition to the ongoing CPRC campaign to increase plastic bottle recycling in North and South Carolina.