Plastic streams are shifting: bottles down, film up. Operators need a new playbook.

Plastic bottle recovery fell in 2024 while plastic film rebounded — a mix shift that matters far beyond commodity charts. As reported by Waste Dive, a new analysis prepared for the Association of Plastic Recyclers and the U.S. Plastics Pact by Stina points to declining bottle capture and stronger film recovery versus 2022. For haulers and MRF operators, that’s a signal to reevaluate where to deploy trucks, what to sort for, and how to rewrite revenue-share and contamination terms before peak-budget season.

Bottle yields slip amid policy churn and market pressure

Waste Dive notes that bottles were recovered at lower rates in 2024 than two years prior, even as policy activity around deposits and EPR accelerated. The report prepared for APR and the U.S. Plastics Pact suggests the bottle stream is not keeping pace with brand PCR demand. Operationally, that shows up as thinner PET and HDPE bales, tighter QC specs from reclaimers, and more rejections when lines are tuned for speed over purity. Deposit growth can also shift PET out of curbside into redemption, reducing the high-value fraction some MRFs rely on to subsidize residue.

For curbside-focused haulers, fewer bottles per household cart means lower commodity revenue per stop and more sensitivity to contamination surcharges and processing fees. On the MRF floor, meeting yield targets may require slowing belts, augmenting optical coverage at the PET/HDPE pass, or adding a secondary QC position — all cost decisions that should be justified against today’s bale prices and rejection risk, not last year’s.

Film is up — but mostly where it’s clean and commercial

Waste Dive reports that plastic film recovery jumped between 2022 and 2024. The practical read: growth is concentrated in cleaner, commercial streams — back-of-house stretch wrap from retail and distribution, plus some agricultural films — not in mixed residential carts where film still snarls screens and drives downtime. That distinction is everything.

If you run dense commercial routes, this is a margin opportunity. Film collection paired with on-site balers at distribution centers or regular pickups of stacked gaylords can create predictable tonnage and better pricing. At transfer stations, adding a dedicated film consolidation bay can turn a nuisance material into a product line, provided you enforce strict contamination thresholds and avoid commingling with residential plastic bags.

For single-stream MRFs, chasing curbside film remains a high-friction bet. Unless you have a dedicated film line and robust air-handling, the operational cost of screen wraps, cleanouts and fire risk can erase commodity value. The growth in film recovery is telling you to build or buy commercial capture capacity, not to route more bags into the MRF.

What to change now: routes, specs, and contracts

• Routes and sales: Prioritize commercial accounts with steady film volumes (grocery, big-box, logistics). Offer containerized programs with weight-based billing and scheduled pulls tied to pallet counts. Close the loop by pre-selling tonnage to end markets that accept your spec.
• MRF investments: If bottles are down but still premium, squeeze yield. Calibrate optical sorters for lighter-weight PET, tighten PET vs. mixed plastics ejection, and add end-of-line QC on natural HDPE. Track bale audits and reject rates weekly; treat them like safety KPIs.
• Contamination and revenue share: Update municipal contracts to reflect lower bottle value density and higher QC costs. Shift from loose revenue shares to indexed floors/ceilings pegged to published regional prices for PET/HDPE and for film grades. Add contamination fees that trigger automatically when QC thresholds are missed — and document them with bale-level photos and weights.
• Customer education: Redirect community messaging away from bags-in-carts and into retail drop-off or commercial programs. Every bag removed from single-stream is a maintenance win you can measure in uptime.