Navigating PCR procurement? A new tool could help.

Marissa Heffernan | Packaging Dive • April 21, 2026

The Northeast Recycling Council’s PCR Material Demand Hub centralizes resources to help packaging developers and buyers.


Dive Brief:

  • The Northeast Recycling Council launched a PCR Material Demand Hub to help companies, whether they make packaging or just purchase it, tap into domestic recycled content markets.
  • The hub includes information on numerous materials commonly used in packaging, including paper, plastic and aluminum. While the main focus is recycled content, there’s also information on waste diversion, reuse, carbon impacts and other life cycle assessment variables. NERC hopes to add to it in the future, including resources for creating contracts.
  • For those newer to PCR purchasing, the hub has a road map for getting started, as well as a Q&A on how to identify and buy plastic products with PCR. The hub draws on work from the Association of Plastic Recyclers in that area. 


Dive Insight:

Companies and organizations looking to buy postconsumer recycled content and help shore up faltering domestic recycling markets have a new place to go for support. The Northeast Recycling Council launched the PCR Material Demand Hub to help counteract the recent strain on recycling markets as some brands loosen recycled content goals and resin imports surge. 


Megan Schulz-Fontes, executive director of the Northeast Recycling Council, said it’s the latest iteration of past programs.


“We wanted to create a hub which pools all the resources that NERC had developed historically, as well as new ones that have come about since, to make it easier for organizations, whether they’re private or public, to purchase sustainable materials,” she said.

 

In the past, NERC had worked with APR on the Government Recycling Demand Champions Program, which focused on getting governments, nonprofits and academic institutions to buy recycled materials. By 2022, activity in that program had started to lapse, Schulz-Fontes said. 


“We had done a lot of outreach. It was my impression that it wasn’t a need as much anymore, because those organizations had established sustainable procurement programs,” she said. 


However, markets shifted, most notably for PET, and today, we all “see and feel the impacts of processor closures due to the cheaper imports coming in and the chronic oversupply of virgin,” Schulz-Fontes said. 


There was a need again. As APR relaunched and redesigned the Recycling Demand Champions program and the National Stewardship Action Council started its “Remade in America” pledge, Schulz-Fontes said NERC wanted to support those programs and also reinvigorate some of its own. 


The Demand Champions Program suggests that organizations commit to PCR use, establish long-term supply agreements and think outside the box by using PCR in non-standard formats. To support those goals, the hub has a directory of manufacturers, vendors and suppliers of a variety of products with recycled content, as well as a Recycled Content and Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Directory with all levels of governmental resources, purchasing specifications and certification standards. 


That Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Directory is based on work that former NERC Executive Director Lynn Rubinstein did to develop an environmentally preferable purchasing specifications document, which is helpful for those who are just getting started, Schulz-Fontes said.


In addition, the hub will link procurement professionals and others working in adjacent roles via an Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Network listserv called EPPnet. That’s also one of NERC’s older programs that needed new life breathed into it, Schulz-Fontes said. “We’re hoping that’s something that’s useful for folks,” she said. Anyone who is working directly on procurement is welcome to reach out to be added to the group.


Other directories that NERC’s hub link to are the EcoPaper Database; Intertek’s Sustainability Certification Directory; the Electronic Product Assessment Tool; SCS Global Services Certified Green Products Guide; EPA’s CPG Product Supplier Directory; and APR’s Buyers and Sellers Directory.


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Andela Products

By Sophie Leone • May 27, 2026
Founded by Cynthia Andela, Andela Products is a leader in Glass Recycling. Since its inception, Andela Products has expanded into designing complete systems to pulverize, clean and screen post-consumer waste glass. Andela uses cost-effective systems to transform waste glass into usable, high-value materials. Andela provides multiple applications such as a Pulverizer, Crusher, Laminated Glass, CleanGlass Cleaup Systems, and Single Stream Recycling. The variety in systems allows Andela to reach a diverse network of businesses and expand their reach. In addition to equipment, Andela has a detailed library of resources and safety information on the recycled glass market. Providing the community, and those in the industry, with details on glassphalt, sand and aggregates, glass sand as soil amendments, PCR, best practices and much more. Andela features testimonials on their websites, showcasing the prestige and easy operational use of their equipment by customers. With some customers stating, “We are incredibly satisfied with the GP-MegaMini from Andela Products — it is efficient, reliable, and its performance has exceeded our expectations” and “We appreciate the ease of ordering wear parts and value the attention and service we receive from Andela Products, it’s a true partnership”. NERC is excited to welcome Andela Products into our growing glass community. We look forward to supporting an organization committed to innovation and advancing technology while promoting education and best practices. For more information on Andela Products visit.

Q1 2026 Northeast Commodity Values Increase Despite PET’s Continuing Decline

By Megan Fontes • May 26, 2026
Aluminum, Clear Glass, and Natural HDPE See Significant Gains in Outbound Tons Marketed in 2025

Commodities market hurts county recycling revenue

By Brian Shane | OC Today-Dispatch • April 30, 2026
(May 1, 2026) Worcester County collected millions more pounds of recycling last year, but generated less revenue – and taxpayers are covering the difference. The shift reflects a sharp drop in the market for recyclable materials, which has undercut what the county can earn from selling paper, plastic and metal. County officials say they sometimes hold materials for weeks or months, waiting for a buyer, Public Works Director Dallas Baker told the county commissioners. “Cardboard still sells really well. Metals sell really well. Plastic is kind of horrible,” he said at an April 14 budget work session. “For most of the year, plastic might not sell at all – like, you have to pay somebody to come take your plastic.” The county is projecting $150,000 in recycling revenue for fiscal year 2027, against more than $1.2 million in costs – a shortfall absorbed by the county’s general fund, according to Enterprise Fund Controller Quinn Dittrich. He added that recycling revenue has declined in the last two fiscal years, falling about $80,000 in 2024 and $15,000 in 2025. Low prices for plastics are driving the decline, according to Bob Keenan, the county’s recycling manager. Vendors are offering just a few cents per pound for plastic. “There is simply no market in it,” he said. “There are warehouses and warehouses of plastic that (vendors) can’t get anybody to buy.” Other materials have also lost value, Keenan said: Corrugated cardboard has fallen from $125 a ton to as low as $60. Mixed paper has dropped from $120 a ton to $70. Aluminum sells for $1.09 by the ton through a broker, though market prices are closer to 80 cents. At the same time, recycling volume is up. Last year, the county collected 1,985 more tons of recyclables – that’s almost 4 million pounds – than in 2024. Totals for 2025 came to 12,236 tons for residential recyclables and 24,707 for commercial, according to Keenan. He noted that the county has been promoting recycling through outreach, in part by hosting 14 school field trips in the last year to its Newark processing facility. “We send them home with a lot of literature about what you can and can’t recycle,” Keenan said. “I want people to know what we do, and that we’re not throwing their recycling away.” Worcester’s revenue decline mirrors a broader trend. A March 2026 report from the Northeast Recycling Council found recycling commodity values hit a five-year low in 12 states, including Maryland and Delaware. Industry reports also show at least five U.S. plastic recycling facilities have closed since early 2025 as demand has weakened. Ocean City officials faced a similar reality years ago. The resort pulled the plug on its traditional recycling program in 2009 after determining it was too costly to maintain. In its final year, the city spent $1.2 million on recycling and brought in $200,000 in revenue, according to Public Works Director Hal Adkins. Since then, Ocean City has contracted to truck its rubbish to waste-to-energy incinerators outside Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. “It was just not sustainable,” Adkins said. “It doesn’t make money.” Read on OC Today-Dispatch.