Container Recycling Institute, Eco-Cycle, Ecology Center, Eureka Recycling, GrassRoots Recycling Network, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and the Plastic Redesign Project
in this
Calling for a moratorium on PLA bottles
until recycling issues have been resolved
TO: Dennis McGrew
President and Chief Executive Officer
NatureWorks LLC
15305 Minnetonka Blvd.
Minnetonka, MN 55345
Unlike food service ware, for which there is no existing recovery program that would be threatened by bio-plastic utensils and food packaging, there is a recovery infrastructure and a thriving recycling market for polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles. Polylactic acid (PLA) bottles could undermine the economics of PET recycling by contaminating PET bales, by increasing sorting and handling costs, by losing high PET revenues displaced by PLA and by fractionalizing the PET market until one or more segments are too small to sustain a recycling infrastructure.
The existing PET infrastructure generates upwards of $120 million a year for the approximately 9,000 recycling programs a year. Recycling businesses and curbside recycling programs could be jeopardized by a new resin if it could not be recycled as economically as PET. If those recycling programs and the PET reclaimers and end-users are not to be compromised we feel that PLA’s economic recyclability must be demonstrated before, and not after, PLA is introduced into bottle applications on a wide scale.
We the undersigned call on NatureWorks to agree to a moratorium on any further expansion of PLA into bottles until these issues are resolved
Click here to sign this Petition on-line
Any questions, please call (608)231-1100
Signers
| Pat Franklin, Executive Director The Container Recycling Institute |
Eric Lombardi, President |
| Martin Bourque, Executive Director The Ecology Center |
Susan Hubbard, CEO Eureka Recycling |
| Linda Christopher GrassRoots Recycling Network |
Brenda Platt |
| Peter Spendelow, PLA Workgroup The Plastic Redesign Project |
Debbie Mytels Action for a Sustainable Earth |
| Jennifer Sequin San Jose, CA |
Peter Pasterz Charlotte, NC |
| Mary Wolf Boulder, CO |
William Tyson San Diego, CA |
| Mark Bir Berkeley, CA |
Stephen Grealy Encinitis, CA |
| Margarete Malarcher Minneapolis, MN |
Victor Aguiar Santa Cruz, CA |
| Annette Poliwaka San Francisco, CA |
Nancy Macy Valley Women's Club of the San Lorenzo Valley |
| Judith Chock San Diego, CA |
Patricia Bongiovanni Sonoma, CA |
| Jeffrey Smedberg Santa Cruz , CA |
Lisa Loebig Colorado Springs , CO |
| Bob Nelson City of Santa Cruz |
Christine M. Domingo San Francisco, CA |
| Renee Robertson San Diego, CA |
Dan de Grassi |
John Papandrea |
Melissa Beck San Diego, CA |
| Gretchen Brewer Earth Circle |
Portia Sinnot Sebastopol, CA |
| Angie Wood Fortuna, CA |
Thomas Tomaszek Blackstone, MA |