Like many U.S. recyclers, rPlanet Earth faced low demand for its products while competing against a surge of low cost imported material and cheap, oversupplied virgin plastic. These dynamics are driven by two factors: brands pulling away from recycled content commitments to instead buy more new virgin plastic, and by brands choosing to buy imported rPET to meet their U.S. recycled content requirements instead of buying from US recyclers like rPlanet. The result is that U.S. recyclers are being squeezed out of the market at a time when the nation urgently needs more—not less—domestic capacity to build a truly circular economy.
The sad truth is that this closure underscores that plastics recycling is a tough business, and until recycling plastics is equal to or more profitable than making new plastic, the US will not make any significant progress in reducing plastic pollution.
