What’s In a Bale?
March 25, 2025
Demand for recycled food-grade PP is growing, driven by policy shifts and brand commitments to incorporate more recycled materials in their packaging. But a significant lack of data on the available volumes of recycled food-grade PP in the recycling system has made it difficult to amass sufficient quantities of food-grade PP to meet growing market demand.
This study helps to fill these historical data gaps. Led by the Closed Loop Foundation and Closed Loop Partners’ Center for the Circular Economy, in collaboration with technology company Greyparrot and four U.S. materials recovery facilities, the study leveraged AI-powered vision systems to characterize the polypropylene (PP) recycling stream with unprecedented detail.
Findings revealed what was in the PP recycling stream captured at the recycling facilities, including the volume of food-grade and non-food-grade items, as well as color, format and other critical identifying features. Nearly 45 million individual PP and non-PP objects were characterized over the course of the study, revealing newfound granular details on the PP comprising the stream. The results aim to drive greater recovery of food-grade PP––and other materials––and keep more of these valuable resources in circulation in local supply chains.