Home-sorted recycling produces higher-quality plastic bales with fewer contaminants, finds study

The quality of recycled plastic tends to be higher when the waste is pre-sorted by households compared with plastics recovered from mixed waste at a recycling facility in the Netherlands, research in Nature suggests. While mixed waste (not pre-sorted) collections may increase overall recycling volumes, this comes at the cost of reduced quality of the recycled product. The findings highlight the need to improve recycling collection and sorting systems.