With cities such as San Francisco and companies like Whole Foods pushing for a ban on plastic bags, one local company is lobbying for plastic — and not because it produces it, but because it recycles it.
“We view the plastic bag as a valuable resource. It can be recycled economically,” said David Heglas, director of material resources for decking and fencing manufacturer Trex.
The Winchester, Va.-based company pays grocers such as Food Lion, Giant and Safeway for their used plastic bags and other plastics containing polyethylene, such as packaging.
Trex provides the recycling bins, carts away the waste and turns the plastic, along with scrap wood, into its backyard products.
Despite bag-ban efforts in 2006 and 2007, Trex saw a 5 to 6 percent increase in volume of recycled plastic bags — and the company predicts a 20 percent increase this year over 2007, said Heglas.
“A lot of it has to do with increased awareness of the ability of plastic bags to be recycled” thatis coming out when communities thinking about bans evaluate their options, said Heglas. Trex has been working with the American Chemistry Council to testify in almost every state about the benefits of recycling plastic, said Heglas.
Overall, Trex recycles about 300 million pounds of polyethylene a year, and plastic bags, at 23 million pounds, or about 1.5 billion bags, comprise less than 10 percent. While Trex uses about 70 percent of all recycled bags, this is a small amount compared with the estimated 1 trillion plastic bags manufactured each year, which are made with petroleum and don’t decompose easily.
But paper bags, the preferred alternative, can have some negative consequences, Trex argues. Ironically, with more paper recycling, there’s less of a demand for virgin pulp wood. This gives timber companies an incentive to clear and sell their land for development, instead of replanting it with trees — which has been happening — said James Wetzel, professor of economics at Virginia Commonwealth University.
“One is not definitely better,” said Tyghe Trimble, news editor of Discover magazine. When it comes to energy and carbon emissions, “plastic bags win hands down,” by using 80 percent less energy in their manufacturing and recycling.
