Dive summary:

• The National Postconsumer Plastic Bag & Film Recycling Report released yesterday by the American Chemistry Council shows that in 2011, more than 1 billion pounds of post-consumer plastic bags and films were recycled in the U.S.
• The 2011 numbers show a 4% increase in recycling rates from 2010 and a 55% increase from 2005.
• The report attributed the increase to the growth in the plastic and composite decking industry, which accounted for 55% of the post-consumer film that was recycled in 2011.

From the article:

"There's two bits of good news in the sense that the processing rate… has gone up a modest amount, 24 million pounds. And there's a shift… in terms of a greater percentage of the amount collected is going to North American processors rather than being shipped overseas. But there is still a lot of plastic film, plastic shrink-wrap, that is very recyclable that gets collected at the back of stores that is not being recycled," Murray said.

Moore Recycling Associates Inc. of Sonoma, Calif., has collected data for the annual bag and film recycling report for seven years. ...