Plastic film recycling program in Lake County, IL, ends due to low participation, highlighting collection challenges for flexible plastics.
Lake County, Illinois, will cease its residential plastic film collection program on June 30, 2025, citing persistently low material recovery rates and insufficient resident participation.
This decision impacts approximately 700,000 residents across the county's 52 communities, eliminating a key local avenue for recycling plastic bags and wraps. The program's termination underscores the systemic challenges municipalities face in establishing viable collection streams for flexible plastic packaging, shifting the burden back to retail drop-offs or direct disposal for consumers.
Lake County’s Plastic Film Program Fails to Scale
The Lake County program, initiated in 2018, aimed to divert plastic film from landfills by providing a centralized collection point. Despite outreach efforts and the established infrastructure, the volume of material collected never reached sustainable levels, making the program economically unfeasible for continued operation.
- The program collected an average of only 3,000 pounds of plastic film annually.
- This volume represents less than 1% of the total estimated plastic film generated by Lake County households.
- Participating residents had to drop off materials at a single facility in Gurnee, Illinois.
- The contracted recycler, Trex Company, requires clean, dry film, a specification often difficult for residents to meet consistently.
- Lake County invested approximately $50,000 annually in program administration and logistics.
Collection Challenges Persist for Flexible Plastics
The failure of Lake County’s program highlights the broader difficulties in collecting and processing flexible plastics. Unlike rigid plastics, film requires specialized sorting and cleaning processes to meet end-market specifications. Contamination from food residue or non-film plastics frequently renders collected material unusable, increasing processing costs and reducing commodity value. Municipalities often lack the infrastructure or budget to manage these complexities, pushing the responsibility onto private retailers or specialized recyclers.
This discontinuation may increase reliance on voluntary retail take-back programs, which themselves struggle with consistency and consumer awareness. Without a robust, easily accessible collection infrastructure, a significant portion of recyclable plastic film will continue to enter landfills or incinerators, despite consumer willingness to participate if convenient options existed.
What This Means for Recyclers
For material recovery facilities (MRFs) and plastic recyclers, Lake County's decision reinforces the need for advanced sorting technologies capable of handling commingled flexible plastics or for more standardized, cleaner source separation at the consumer level. The low volumes collected in Lake County suggest that traditional municipal collection models are insufficient for flexible films without significant investment in public education and convenient drop-off points. Recyclers should anticipate continued reliance on commercial and industrial sources for clean film feedstock, while residential film streams remain fragmented and challenging to aggregate economically. This also signals potential opportunities for innovators in chemical recycling or pyrolysis technologies that can process contaminated flexible plastics, offering alternative end-of-life solutions where mechanical recycling falls short.
