The future is circular.
We are dedicated to improving polystyrene recycling access and rates through innovation, investments, and partnerships.
What is Polystyrene?
Polystyrene is an essential, sustainable material used in a variety of products that provide life-enhancing benefits, from medical applications to food preservation, energy conservation, personal protective gear, and convenience products for people on the go.
What is the Polystyrene Recycling Alliance (PSRA)?
The Polystyrene Recycling Alliance (PSRA) is a coalition that unites the entire polystyrene (PS) and expandable polystyrene (EPS) value chain to promote circularity for polystyrene products across North America.
Who is the Polystyrene Recycling Alliance (PSRA)?
PSRA welcomes the entire polystyrene (PS)/expandable polystyrene (EPS) value chain, including resin suppliers, converters, consumer brands, equipment suppliers, associations and recycling technology participants, waste haulers and secondary recyclers.
What does success look like?
A circular economy where post-use products like plastic, paper, and other materials can be recycled again and again is a sustainability imperative. We are taking ownership as an industry alliance to enable polystyrene circularity, and it starts with enabling recycling access for consumers to help ultimately drive higher rates of recycling.
PSRA member companies engaged experts at Resource Recycling Systems (RRS) to first establish a baseline for polystyrene recycling access. RRS’ initial findings are promising as they show that 105 million people currently have access to recycle at least one polystyrene item. That’s roughly 1/3 of the U.S. population. This recycling access is available through a variety of channels for consumers, either a residential recycling program, municipal drop-offs, or business drop-offs open to the public.
From this baseline, RRS estimated a range of expected polystyrene recycling access in future years that consider expected increases in recycling capacity across the US. These estimates suggest that recycling access will expand to one half to two-thirds of the US population for one or more polystyrene items. PSRA will work closely with stakeholders to accelerate improvements in recycling access to enable a robust circular economy for polystyrene. For more information, please see our Recycling Roadmap.
Polystyrene Recycling Alliance (PSRA) is an initiative of the Plastics Industry Association, PLASTICS. PLASTICS is the voice of the plastics industry, bringing together the full supply chain to build consensus, advocate thoughtful perspectives and solutions, and provide valuable information to help our members succeed in the marketplace.