Plastics Recycling Conference 2025: APR announces Recycling Leadership Award winners

The Washington-based Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR) announced the winners of its inaugural Recycling Leadership Awards during the opening plenary session of the 2025 Plastics Recycling Conference (PRC) in National Harbor, Maryland, March 24.

Launched in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the publishing of the APR Design Guide for Plastics Recyclability, the organization says the awards are meant to recognize packaging designers, manufacturers, researchers or innovators who are improving recycling for plastics.

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The APR says award categories focus on unique contributions moving plastics recycling forward. After receiving more than 100 submissions for potential award candidates, the organization chose to also recognize an “Honorable Mention” for each of the four categories.

Debra Wilson, material science director for Evansville, Indiana-based Berry Global’s North American consumer packaging division, received the Outstanding Leadership Award. The APR says Wilson’s “outstanding commitment and passion” have driven more than 33 years of involvement in plastic standardization activities, and that her contributions have been “instrumental in developing the APR Design guidance for rigid polyolefins, ensuring alignment with industry practices for package design, collection and recyclability.”

Matt Levesque, technical director of Merrimack, New Hampshire-based Plastics Forming Enterprises LLC was named Honorable Mention in the category.

Greensboro, North Carolina-based Unifi Inc. was presented with the Recycling Technology Innovation Award. The APR says, “Unifi is one of the world’s preeminent textile manufacturing innovators and a key leader in textile-to-textile recycling. Its Repreve brand has transformed billions of recycled plastic bottles into durable, high-performance textiles including apparel, home furnishings and automotive products.”

Orlando, Florida-based advanced recycler PureCycle Technologies Inc. was the category’s Honorable Mention.

The Package Design Innovation Award went to New York-based Colgate-Palmolive Co. for its rethinking of the design of the global brand’s toothpaste tubes. According to the APR, Dr. Jun Wang led the “groundbreaking innovation” to design and manufacture the monomaterial Samson tube and subsequently share the intellectual property publicly, thereby “rapidly shifting an entire product category to recycle-ready packaging.” The organization notes that, currently, 90 percent of toothpaste tubes and 75 percent of all high-density polyethylene (HDPE) tubes on the U.S. market are designed for recyclability. Avery Dennison Corp., Mentor, Ohio, was named Honorable Mention for its packaging label innovations.

KW Container, the Troy, Alabama-based sister company of KW Plastics, received the PCR Utilization Award for its use of curbside recycled polypropylene (PP) in paint containers at scale. KW Plastics is a leading recycler of HDPE and PP in North America.

The Honorable Mention for PCR utilization was Kraft Heinz Co., which has headquarters in Chicago and Pittsburgh and, in 2024, worked with partner Plastipak Packaging to introduce 100 percent-recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) bottles for its 12- and 22-ounce Kraft Real Mayo and Miracle Whip products.