The World in 2030

158 The World in 2030
But, as New Scientist magazine explained in May 2007:
A new generation of plastics recycling plants promises
to change all that. The plants will use technologies
that reduce or even eliminate the need for water and
produce plastics clean enough for food packaging, at
a lower cost than existing techniques. If successful,
such plants could significantly increase the number
of plastic bottles that are recycled in the US and Europe
each year. 308
And the magazine article goes on to point out that the
economic prospects for recycled plastic have never been
better:
The high price of oil is boosting demand for recycled
plastics, which is outstripping supply, so the new
plants cannot be built quickly enough, says Patty
Moore of Moore Recycling Associates in Sonoma,
California. ‘Right now we have economics that are
pretty favourable for expanding recycling. The environment
has changed from barely scraping by to
people saying, ‘hey, we can make some money at
this’. 309
In Britain the process of recycling plastic food containers
to make new plastic food containers has already begun. In
March 2007 Recycling Today reported.
The first successful commercial trial of plastic milk
bottles containing recycled HDPE, using world first
technology has been completed this month.