Nonmetallics

The National Association for PET Container Resources (NAPCOR), Sonoma, Calif., and the Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers have announced that 1.27 billion pounds of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles were recovered for recycling in the United States in 2006, a 9 percent increase from the 2005 figure of 1.17 billion pounds. The two groups say this represents the largest volume of PET containers recovered for recycling to date.

According to the study, the PET recycling rate for 2006 was 23.5 percent, marking the third year the rate increased, albeit incrementally. The volume of PET containers available for recycling in the U.S. also grew last year to 5.42 billion pounds, a 7 percent increase from the previous year.

The study attributes the growth in the recovery rate to an increase in collections in California, the incremental increase from additional bottle sales, the installation of an additional 26 auto-sort units at material recovery facilities and intermediate processing facilities and additional new recovery efforts.

Despite the increase in recovery, most of additional volume was exported, which marks a continued trend. U.S. reclaimers reported a 62 million-pound drop in purchases of U.S. bottles relative to 2005, while export purchases increased 170 million pounds to 618 million pounds, which excludes the PET fraction in mixed-bottle bales.

Therefore, U.S. importers supplemented their domestic purchases with 97 million pounds of imported material in 2006, which came from Canada, Mexico, Central and South America.

Data for the report were obtained through surveys conducted by R.W. Beck and Moore Recycling Associates as well as from NAPCOR, the PET Resin Association and the International Bottled Water Association. The full report is available at www.napcor.com.

Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Secretary Kathleen McGinty has announced the agency has received seven bids to remediate a site where approximately 300,000 tires remain. The site, in Columbia County, had nearly 8 million tires at one time.

McGinty says she expects the remaining tires to be removed by summer of 2008.

"Over the past three years, we’ve been able to remove a vast majority of the tires that marred 14 acres and we did so in a manner that was environmentally sound and economically prudent," McGinty says.

In 1987, the commonwealth issued an administrative order requiring property owners, Max and Martha Starr, to stop accepting tires and to provide an estimate of the number of tires at the site. The Starrs and DEP finalized terms of a legal agreement in March 2004 to clean up all the tires that accumulated on the property during the mid-1980s.

Based on records obtained from the Starrs, DEP identified about 40 tire generators that contributed scrap tires to the pile. Ten entered into consent orders with DEP and removed about 133,000 tires from the site.

In February 2005, DEP filed a "complaint in equity" in Columbia County Court against the remaining 21 generators that were still in existence. Of those 21 generators, 12 have settled with the DEP and have removed 70,217 tires from the Starr site.

McGinty says Northeast Central Rail has been identified as the apparent lowest bidder for the project. A subcontractor of Northampton Generating Station, the company has proposed turning the remaining tires into tire-derived fuel. DEP will work with the company to establish and review plans, security and insurance requirements before awarding the contract.