By Jeremy Carroll
STAFF REPORTER
Published: November 25, 2013 2:46 pm ET
Updated: November 25, 2013 2:48 pm ET
The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc. (ISRI) is increasing its focus on plastics.
The Washington-based trade organization announced the creation of a new plastics division within the association, allowing members to join multiple commodity divisions. ISRI has traditionally been a trade group focusing on the metal scrap industry.
Previously, the organization simply had an ad hoc committee on plastics.
“The plastics recycling sector is one of the fastest growing segments of the recycling industry, presenting a great opportunity for the newly created plastics division to mitigate some of the barriers to recover plastics while offering visibility into the global supply chain,” said Jonathan Cohen, president of Generated Materials Recovery and chair of ISRI’s Plastics Division, in a statement. “There is strong industry-wide interest in seeing this area of recycling become more robust and accessible, and we expect the division to play a leading role in contributing to this development.”
Allowing members to join multiple divisions, including the newly formed plastics division, was done to accommodate the changing landscape of the industry, ISRI said.
“Twenty years ago companies typically specialized in only one commodity, but today they are increasingly handling significant volumes across multiple commodity streams,” said Robin Wiener, president of ISRI, in a statement. “This change was needed to ensure members have a voice within ISRI for each and every commodity they produce.” | 
