Florida legislatures pass bill increasing recovery of post-use, non-recycled plastics
WASHINGTON – The Florida House and Senate this week passed Resource Recovery and Management (HB335). The American Chemistry Council’s Plastics Division issued the following statement, which may be attributed to Craig Cookson, senior director of recycling and energy recovery:
“The American Chemistry Council’s (ACC) Plastics Division welcomes the unanimous passage of HB 335—first-of-its-kind legislation that will make Florida a welcoming environment for innovative businesses that convert post-use non-recycled plastics into fuels, chemicals and chemical intermediates.
HB335 ensures manufacturing facilities that convert these post-use plastics into liquid fuels, chemicals, waxes and lubricants are not wrongly classified as solid waste management facilities. It also facilitates recognition that the conversion of post-use plastics into these valuable products will count as ‘recycling’ and contribute to meeting Florida’s 75% recycling goal.
Traditional recycling of plastics continues to increase in Florida and around the nation. However, there are economic barriers to recycling 100% of any material. New technologies, such as pyrolysis and gasification, are enabling manufacturers to recover more of the energy embodied in plastics.”
Florida recycles nearly 7.4 MMt of municipal solid waste annually.
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