Recycling Bioplastics
Recycling bioplastics isn’t always an easy accomplishment. Recyclers fear that non-petroleum-based plastics will corrupt their streams (many bioplastics have lower heat resistance—and that whole biodegrading thing they might do is not desirable in the eyes of recycled plastics manufacturers for fear that the recycled plastic will degrade prematurely).
Most bioplastic manufacturers say recyclers’ concerns are unfounded. In fact, bioplastics are recyclable; bio-polyethylene (given a #4 resin recycling code) is even accepted in many traditional recycling streams. As for bioplastics PLA and PHA (the #7s), they are generally not accepted by municipal recycling collections, but some manufacturers offer to take back their products for recycling. However, there is no infrastructure for individuals to collect and transport the plastics back to the manufacturers, so for those unwilling to mail their bioplastics back to the manufacturer, in the trash it goes!
In essence, current US recycling and composting facilities just haven’t caught up with bioplastics. And in order to give recyclers and composters the incentive to start to invest in accepting bioplastics in their streams or facilities, there needs to be a significantly larger volume of bioplastics to recycle or compost. Basically, the problem has to get worse before it will get better. The current and predicted growth rate for the bioplastics industry (estimated to be upwards of 40% in the next four years by some experts, like Melissa Hockstad), might make that happen sooner than later.