The American Chemistry Council released the 2015 National Postconsumer Plastic Bag and Film Recycling Report at the 2016 Plastics Recycling Conference, documenting collection of nearly 1.2 billion pounds of post-consumer plastic film in 2015—a 3 percent increase of 34 million pounds over 2014 and the eleventh consecutive annual gain since reporting began.
Moore Recycling Associates surveyed reclaimers to compile the data, finding that film processing in the United States and Canada increased 11 percent during 2015 while exports declined approximately 4 percent—indicating strengthening domestic reprocessing capacity for polyethylene bags, wraps, and commercial stretch film.
Clear polyethylene film accounted for just over half of plastics film recovered in 2015, reflecting continued dominance of retail bag and product wrap streams in store drop-off and commercial collection programs. Multi-material flexible pouches and metallized laminates remained largely outside recovered film tonnages.
Steve Russell, ACC Plastics Division vice president, cited expanding participation in the Wrap Recycling Action Program as a contributor to continued film recovery growth, alongside commercial generator programs capturing stretch film from warehouses and distribution centers.
For flexible packaging converters interpreting 2015 data during early 2016, the statistics confirmed PE film recovery infrastructure was maturing while post-consumer laminate recycling lagged—a distinction that informed material selection discussions when brand owners requested recyclable or store drop-off compatible structures versus multi-barrier PET/PE or OPP/PE laminates.