Veolia’s Bag2Bag Program Recycles 1,000 MT Plastic Bags

Environmental services firm Veolia has delivered the first shipments of recycled trash bags, manufactured with recycled plastics, to residents in London, Recycling Today reports.

Veolia’s circular manufacturing program, called Bag2Bag, allows residents to deposit the plastic bags at various collection points. Plastics manufacturer CeDo then collects and reprocesses the bags into new ones. As of July, 1,000 metric tons of plastic bags had been transformed into 500,000 trash bags, Veolia says.

In a similar program to divert plastic waste from landfills, the Energy Bag pilot — co-sponsored by Dow Chemical — diverted about 6,000 pounds of typically non-recycled items from landfills between June and August 2014.

Over the three-month period, about 26,000 households in Citrus Heights, California were provided with purple bags — known as “Energy Bags” — in which participants were asked to collect plastic items not currently eligible for mechanical recycling, so they could instead be diverted from the landfill and converted into energy. Collected items included juice pouches, candy wrappers, plastic pet food bags, frozen food bags, laundry pouches and plastic dinnerware.

Other Energy Bag pilot program co-sponsors include the Flexible Packaging Association, Republic Services, Agilyx, Reynolds Consumer Products and the city of Citrus Heights.