Introduction
In 2001, the United States generated approximately two hundred thirty million (230
million) tons of waste (before recycling) – or approximately 4.4 pounds per person each day.
Of this municipal waste, plastics currently account for approximately 11 percent, with plastic
containers and packaging being the chief source, accounting for more than 11 million tons
in 2001 (or about 5 percent) of the total waste generated that year.
Recovery methods for plastics include recycling, reuse, energy recovery, and
composting. In food packaging, re-use and recycling of discarded packaging materials is
severely limited, as the collected items contain an increasing proportion of unique materials
consisting of multi-layered structures developed for purposes of achieving optimal barrier
properties. These multi-layered materials are extremely difficult – if not impossible – to
separate into their respective individual layers for recycling. Further compounding this
problem (in the United States), as shown in the following graphs prepared by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, is the slow rate of plastics recovery when compared
against the exponential growth of plastics generation over the past four decades.