An Introduction to the Nuances of Post-Industrial Recycled Plastic (PIR)
As a company that specializes in industrial plastic recycling, we try to stay abreast of the latest trends in recycling and industrial plastics. In that pursuit, we recently noticed an emerging term that seems to be getting a lot more media play: post-industrial recycled (PIR). The term is applied to a specific type of plastics that ultimately end up as consumer products.
Using the strictest definition of the term, the regrind we sell to manufacturers constitutes PIR. But when companies talk about the PIR used in their products, they are referring to something different. They are not talking about straightforward post-industrial plastics per se. Instead, what they have in mind is more of a pre-consumer plastic.
Yes, the differences are highly nuanced. Yet they are important differences, nonetheless. Companies like Seraphim Plastics have been buying and selling post-industrial plastic waste for years. PIR has only recently been introduced. It could be more of a marketing thing than anything else.
What We Do
Regular Seraphim Plastics customers know that we buy scrap plastic from industrial suppliers. They could be plastics manufacturers, shipping companies, or any other operation that produces industrial plastic waste. We buy things like plastic cutoffs and purge, plastic pallets, and all sorts of buckets and dunnage trays.
All the plastic we purchase is taken back to one of our facilities for processing. Processing consists of nothing more than sending the plastic through a series of grinders and magnets. Plastic regrind comes out the other end. We sell the regrind to manufacturers.
What do they do with it? Regrind material is mixed with virgin plastic pellets to create new parts. Manufacturers can use a certain amount of regrind in new products without sacrificing strength or integrity.
What PIR Is All About
The PIR philosophy is slightly different. When a technology company markets a new product, let us say a laptop computer, made partially with PIR, the plastics they are referring to are almost always sourced during original material manufacturing.
For example, making cases for those laptops would generate waste in the form of cutoffs. The cutoffs are collected and put right back into the manufacturing process. What you have are pre-consumer plastics sourced almost entirely from manufacturing waste.
Although PIR plastics could contain source materials from industrial processes, that’s not usually the case. It is a subtle difference indeed. Nonetheless, that is the primary difference between the plastic regrind we produce and what tech companies refer to as PIR.
All Recycling Is Good
None of what has been explained in this post is intended to suggest that PIR is inferior or that plastic regrind is superior. We take the position that all recycling is good. When companies can capture their industrial plastic waste and put it back into the manufacturing stream, good things happen.
One of the interesting things about post-industrial plastic waste is that it still has plenty of life in it. There is no logical reason to dispose of it by tossing it in a landfill or having it incinerated. Discarding post-industrial plastic is literally equal to throwing away money.
We are willing to buy post-industrial plastics because we can recycle them and sell the resulting material for a profit. If buying industrial plastic scrap is worth it to us, selling it is probably worth it to your company.
If you produce post-industrial plastic waste that you believe we might be interested in, contact us and let us know what you have. Assuming we can use it, we will be happy to provide you with a quote. We can then go from there.