Collection corner

Preserving polypropylene

A recent partnership aims to take back single-use plastic cutlery, manufacturing new cutlery and dispensers from the recycled No. 5 polypropylene (PP) plastic.

Preserve, a consumer products company based in Waltham, Massachusetts, and UrthPact LLC, a renewable plastics manufacturer based in Leominster, Massachusetts, have partnered to provide a new line of single-use plastic cutlery made from recycled plastic. The cutlery begins with 100 percent recycled PP resin and has been designed to be part of Preserve’s Gimme 5 plastic recycling program.

Introduced in 2007, the Gimme 5 program enables consumers to recycle their PP plastic products at recycling bins located in retail establishments, which are recycled into new recycled-content plastic products.

Supporting a cause

While the average reader of Recycling Today is not a bra wearer, he surely knows a woman who is. Women’s intimate apparel retailer Soma’s bra recycling program has partnered with the National Network to End Domestic Violence since 2010. Collected bras that are reusable are given to women in need—bras are one of the most needed yet least donated clothing item for women in shelters. For bras that cannot be reworn, Soma also partners with The Bra Recyclers, a textile company specializing in recycling and reusing new and previously worn bras, ultimately sending less waste to landfills.

Mail gently used bras to: Soma Bra Donation Bra Recyclers 3317 S. Higley Rd., Suite 114-441 Gilbert, AZ 85297

Making milestones

Replacing a car’s windshield is no small feat, and neither is recycling a record number of them. Columbus, Ohio-based Safelite AutoGlass took the lead in windshield recycling when it implemented its wide-scale windshield recycling program in 2012.

In 2016, Safelite, the only vehicle glass company with such a recycling program, recycled a record number of windshields in one year, diverting 1.76 million windshields from landfill.

Since the windshield recycling program’s inception, Safelite AutoGlass says it has recycled 6 million windshields.