Case Study
Uniting system-level thinking with on-the-ground expertise to increase supply of a valuable material

How a focus on polypropylene cup recycling is enhancing an entire value chain

The Challenge

Brands and consumers want more recycled materials in the plastic products they use every day, such as clear polypropylene cups, but the supply of food-grade recycled plastic often trails behind this demand. In many communities, recyclers don’t accept cups, which limits the recovery of food-grade packaging and reduces the availability of recycled materials for future production. Having already made progress tackling paper cups with the NextGen Consortium, we turned our attention to polypropylene cups to address the complex — but ultimately solvable — challenge of nationwide cup acceptance by recyclers.

‍

Millions

of dollars steered to support Materials Recovery Facility upgrades to accept polypropylene cups

>100

local U.S. communities, NGOs and MRFs engaged to drive polypropylene cup acceptance

10%

point increase in acceptance of polypropylene cups for recycling from households in the U.S. in three years

60%

of polypropylene recovered in the U.S. could be reused for food-grade applications

The Solution

To address the infrastructure gaps across the recycling landscape, we joined forces with The Recycling Partnership's Polypropylene Recycling Coalition to help steer millions of dollars of investment in the equipment needed to recover more polypropylene, including cups, for recycling. As the work progressed, we also identified gaps in community guidance: local materials recovery facilities (MRFs) could feasibly process cups, but communities were still being told not to place them in recycling. Tracking these gaps allowed us to engage more cities directly and ultimately move the dial on which communities accept cups — a key lever for the Federal Trade Commission to classify a product as widely recyclable.

To make polypropylene cups more widely recyclable, we collaborated across the industry to improve infrastructure and boost household acceptance by 10 percentage points in three years.

Impact

Our work on the acceptance of polypropylene cups for recycling has helped drive a significant shift: in just three years, acceptance of the polypropylene cups in household recycling has increased by 10 percentage points, with a majority of U.S. households now able to recycle them. This acceptance is powering an ongoing virtuous cycle: as more cups are recycled, the supply of food-grade polypropylene increases. The net effect over time is more cup manufacturers will be able to source the recycled materials they need to offer products made with recycled food-grade plastics.

In addition to driving up acceptance, this work has also filled key data gaps in the industry. Several of our studies on polypropylene are now widely used as benchmarks and have been validated by peers, whose research has delivered strikingly similar results.

Our Role

Research

  • Development of research protocols
  • Bale and recycling stream analyses
  • Evaluation of sortation technology

Design

  • Convening stakeholders
  • Research report creation

Build

  • Steering infrastructure investments
  • Outreach to city government
  • Tracking of MRF acceptance

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We are  part of Closed Loop Partners—which includes the largest privately held recycling company in the U.S. and one of the largest circular economy capital management groups in the world—we’re uniquely positioned to bring research, design, and real-world implementation together.