Plastic recycling

Here is some data from ecomaine on plastic recycling (via The Vigorous North):

The non-colored (natural) HDPE milk jugs (marked with a number 2 on the bottom) are now commanding over $800 per ton ($18,000 per trailer load). We sell a lot of this material to a Company in York PA called Graham Packaging which makes new plastic containers for detergents and cleaners (non-food).

The Colored HDPE #2 containers are sold to various markets (including Graham Packaging) at $600 per ton. Again, they make new bottles out of scrap bottles.

The PET #1 containers are sorted automatically by our scanner and sold at $400 per ton to various markets that make carpet or stuffing for sleeping bags and jackets, etc.

The 3-7 plastic we mix and sell together because we don't get enough of any one of them to substantiate accumulating them in separate loads. These markets are in their infancy (just like the #1 & #2 markets were 18 years ago). However they're the smallest percentage of what we process... See below.

Make up of the Plastics we process:

Colored HDPE #2: 28%
Natural HDPE #2: 25%
PET #1: 25%
Plastics #3-#7: 22%