What does a new study on demand generation for recycled flexible plastic in California teach us about turning EPR into a truly circular system? Shannon Bouton, President & CEO of Delterra, explains.
Think about the crisp packets, pouches, and bread bags that leave a typical kitchen in a single week. In the UK, only around 1 in 6 local authorities collect plastic film for recycling at all.
That isn’t because people don’t care or because the material can’t be reprocessed, it’s because almost no one wants to buy it once it’s collected. Collecting more won’t fix that on its own.
New Packaging Regulations came into force in the UK at the start of last year, and Europe has run Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) programmes far longer than the US, yet both still prop up demand for recycled household flexibles.
Build collection without demand and the bottleneck just moves from the kerb to the warehouse. Material that’s collected but never made into a new product hasn’t been recycled, only delayed on its way to disposal.
In the US, California is about to show how big that gap can get. Its EPR law, SB 54, requires a 65% recycling rate for single-use plastics by 2032; today, fewer than 5% of the state’s flexible plastics are recycled.
California homes produce roughly 550,000 tons of flexible film a year, and existing end markets can absorb only about a tenth of it.
Across the US, film and flexible packaging waste has grown 15% since 2020 and the amount is still growing, yet only about 2% of U.S. households have access to collection, processing, and end markets for it.
The good news is that demand can be built. Delterra and Eunomia’s new Recycled Flexibles Demand Accelerator study identified eight products, from industrial liners to dark-coloured trash bags, that together could absorb about 800,000 tons of recycled household film a year.
The work highlights that to get there, recycled film will need to cost less than virgin plastic, not just the same, for manufacturers to switch. And because the biggest opportunities are in film products, which are harder to make from recycled material, we can’t only go after the easy wins.
Demand is the missing link
Recycling is a supply chain, and supply chains run on demand. Reclaimers, the companies that turn collected plastic into usable resin, invest only when they’re confident someone will buy what they make.
For household flexibles, that confidence has never existed. Fewer than 30 reclaimers in North America recycle polyethylene film, fewer than half can take household material, and most of those turn it into plastic lumber or asphalt additives.
The material is hard to work with. It comes in mixed colours and resins, and it’s contaminated with food, labels, adhesives, and paper. With cleaner, sometimes cheaper, virgin and commercial film on offer, manufacturers won’t switch for price parity alone.
Recycled household film needs to be significantly cheaper than virgin. In Europe’s more mature EPR markets, producer fees help close that gap by supporting reclaimers, so this feedstock can often sell for less than half the cost of virgin.
North America should expect to need similar mechanisms. But first we need to know where this material could actually go. That is why Delterra partnered with Eunomia, with funding from Amcor and Kraft Heinz, on the Recycled Flexibles Demand Accelerator, starting with an evidence-led look at which end markets could realistically absorb household flexibles at scale.
Where the demand can come from
We interviewed more than 20 industry experts and evaluated more than 40 potential applications, from flowerpots to car parts.
We scored each one on four criteria:
- Whether a trial would show something new for North America.
- How much converters would need to change their processes.
- How much reclaimers would need to adapt.
- How much material the application could absorb.
We deliberately left out uses that are already commercially established in the US and Canada, such as plastic lumber and roof coverboard, because they don’t need more proof.
The strongest candidates had clear things in common, they don’t involve food contact, they can tolerate colour variation and minor imperfections, and they can handle a variable mix of polyethylene types.
Eight applications rose to the top:
- Horticulture liners, trays, and pots
- Rigid housewares
- Transit packaging pallets
- Rotational-moulded goods such as bins and large containers
- Industrial liners
- Impermeable construction membranes
- Agricultural heavy-duty covers
- Dark-coloured trash bags
Depending on the application, these products could contain between 5% and 70% recycled household film.
Together, we estimate they could absorb about 800,000 tons of recycled household polyethylene film a year. Three of them account for roughly 75% of that potential, or about 600,000 tons – for example, industrial liners, construction membranes, and dark trash bags.
That finding matters. The biggest opportunity is in film, even though film is technically harder to make with recycled household material than rigid products are. If we want to close the gap, we can’t only pursue the easy wins.
From analysis to action
A list of promising applications is not a market. The next step is to show, in real factories and real products, that these applications work. That means production trials that test technical performance, product quality, and the true cost of replacing virgin resin with recycled material.
Trials will reveal where the roadblocks are and how much economic support is needed to overcome them. That is the information EPR programmes need to design incentives that actually work.
I understand why many companies prefer to wait. The material is unfamiliar, the economics are unproven, and the regulations are still taking shape. But in a market changing this quickly, waiting is its own decision, and usually not a good one.
Companies that engage early reduce their own regulatory and supply chain risk, gain firsthand experience with a feedstock they will likely eventually have to deal with, build relationships with the reclaimers who supply it, and get a say in how the market develops.
Without products to absorb recycled materials, recycling doesn’t happen. California has five years to go from under 5% to 65%. But no market – however, far along its recycling rules – closes that gap just by collecting more bags. We close it by giving those bags somewhere to go.
