Republic Services, Inc. has announced that its recycled plastic flake produced at the Las Vegas Polymer Center has a significantly lower carbon footprint compared to other recycled and virgin plastics used in U.S. packaging. According to a recent product carbon footprint (PCF) study, the bottle-grade, clear rPET flake from Republic Services shows an average global warming potential that is 54% lower than alternative rPET flakes and 82% lower than virgin PET.
The independent cradle-to-gate PCF study evaluated rPET flake produced at the Las Vegas Polymer Center during the first seven months of 2024. It included comparisons with both U.S.-produced and imported rPET and virgin PET from Asia.
Pete Keller, vice president of recycling and sustainability at Republic Services, stated, “We developed our Polymer Centers to enable bottle-to-bottle circularity and help meet increasing demand for high-quality recycled plastics. The rPET flake we produce is not only helping customers meet goals and requirements for recycled content in their packaging, but also helping reduce their environmental impact.”
Republic Services operates 75 recycling facilities across North America and handles about 5 million recycling and waste pickups daily. Recycled plastics collected from these facilities are sent to Polymer Centers for secondary processing. At these centers, PET is shredded and washed to create bottle-grade, clear rPET flake suitable for remanufacturing into new beverage bottles.
The reduced carbon footprint at the Las Vegas facility is attributed mainly to efficient energy use. The center uses a patented equipment line that consumes less electricity and thermal energy per kilogram of flake compared to other mechanical recycling processes. Additionally, processing is shared with other recovered materials, and the regional utility grid has a lower carbon footprint than both the average U.S. grid and Asian market grids considered in the PCF study.
Republic Services currently operates Polymer Centers in Las Vegas and Indianapolis, with another under construction in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Each center will have an annual production capacity of about 120 million pounds of bottle-grade recycled plastics.
More information on Republic Services’ sustainability initiatives can be found at RepublicServices.com/Sustainability.
“We developed our Polymer Centers to enable bottle-to-bottle circularity and help meet increasing demand for high-quality recycled plastics,” said Pete Keller, vice president of recycling and sustainability. “The rPET flake we produce is not only helping customers meet goals and requirements for recycled content in their packaging, but also helping reduce their environmental impact.”
For further details about Republic Services’ full range of products or its commitments to advancing circularity in waste management services, visit RepublicServices.com.
This press release contains certain forward-looking information about us that is intended to be covered by the safe harbor provided by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “guidance,” “expect,” “will,” “may,” “anticipate,” “estimate,” “intend,” “can,” “could,” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of performance and are based upon our current expectations, which we believe to be reasonable, but cannot assure you will prove to be correct. Among the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the expectations expressed in the forward-looking statements are our ability to realize the expected benefits of our Polymer Centers and Blue Polymers complexes, our expectations regarding the impact of these centers, the volume of plastics they can process, the jobs and tax benefits they create and our ability to effectively scale the centers. More information on factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated is included from time to time in our reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We undertake no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.
