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APR Recycling Leadership Awards

APR is proud to announce the winners of the inaugural APR Recycling Leadership Awards at the 2025 Plastics Recycling Conference and Trade Show in National Harbor, MD.

Meet the Winners!

APR Recycling Leadership Awards - submit a nomination!

Celebrating 30 Years of Impact

Launched in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the APR Design® Guide, the inaugural APR Recycling Leadership Awards celebrate the achievements of individuals and organizations who have made great strides in improving plastics recyclability.

Award Categories

Oustanding Leadership

For individuals who have made significant contributions to the research behind the APR Design® Guide or who have gone above and beyond to advance recyclable packaging design within their field.

Recycling Technology Innovation

For innovative recycling equipment or technology that improves the quality and/or yield of post consumer recycled resins.

Package Design Innovation

For materials and packages that solve longstanding recycling challenges.

Post-consumer Recycled Content Utilization

For companies that have made outstanding commitments to the utilization of PCR.

Congratulations to the inaugural APR Recycling Leadership Award winners!

Debra Wilson: Outstanding Leadership Award

Debra’s outstanding commitment and passion have driven over 33 years of involvement in plastic standardization activities. Debra currently serves as CPNA Material Science Director at Berry Global. A key leader and mentor to many, she brings valuable insights into how different elements need to align to achieve sustainability in plastics packaging. Her contributions have been instrumental in developing the APR Design® guidance for rigid polyolefins, ensuring alignment with industry practices for package design, collection, and recyclability.

Debra is an integral voice in the APR Olefins Technical Committee, where she co-chairs several working groups. Debra has also been involved in the Tube Recycling Project with Stina, Inc., helping to draft and publish the Plastic Squeeze Tubes Design Resource Document. She actively participates in several RecyClass teams and plays a key role in aligning APR guidelines with RecyClass standards.

UNIFI: Recycling Technology Innovation Award

UNIFI, Inc. is one of the world’s leading textile manufacturing innovators and a key pioneer in fiber science, sustainable synthetic textiles, and textile-to-textile recycling since 1971. UNIFI operates vertically integrated, large-scale manufacturing facilities in North Carolina and globally produces in other major textile regions including Central America, South America, and Asia. With a foundational commitment to transparent and sustainable practices that are consistent throughout its supply chain, UNIFI’s consistent commitment to utilizing recycled materials has contributed to reliability and stability in the global marketplace.

Made by UNIFI, REPREVE® leverages multiple waste sources into several different sustainable fibers, including post-consumer plastic bottles, ocean-bound plastic, textile waste, and recycled yarn. REPREVE® has transformed more than 42 billion plastic bottles and over 950 million T-shirts worth of textile and yarn waste into recycled fiber, powering globally scalable products for world-leading brands. Made traceable with FiberPrint® technology and certified by U-Trust®, REPREVE spans sports apparel, fashion, home, automotive, construction, transport, military, medical and packaged goods. For more information about REPREVE, visit www.repreve.com.

Colgate-Palmolive: Package Design Innovation Award

Colgate-Palmolive spearheaded a paradigm shift in package design. Historically, tubes were a non-recyclable packaging format made with mixed materials. The prevalence of aluminum foil as a barrier layer was particularly problematic for the recycling process.

Dr. Jun Wang led groundbreaking innovation to design and manufacture a mono-material toothpaste tube. Thanks to Dr. Wang’s leadership, the company achieved both APR Critical Guidance and Application Guidance Recognition in 2019 and subsequently shared its intellectual property publicly – thereby helping to rapidly shift an entire product category to packaging that can be captured in the existing HDPE recycling stream.

Today, 90% of toothpaste tubes and 75% of all HDPE tubes on the US market are designed for recyclability.

KW Container: PCR Utilization Award

KW Container, with its sister company KW Plastics, pioneered recycling PP into paint containers at scale – championing the curbside recycling stream for polypropylene in North America. Historically, PET and HDPE bottles were the predominant plastic resins collected in residential recycling programs. Today, KW Plastics is the leading recycler of HDPE and PP in North America.

KW Container’s product line has consumed over 1 billion pounds of curbside collected polypropylene over the last 14 years. These high volumes and consistent demand-pull have facilitated the launch of residential PP collection and helped to sustain it.

By incorporating leading-edge technology like the TruSnap™ TwistCap and Pour Spout, KW Container delivers a user-friendly container that proves how recycled materials can produce a superior product.

Honorable Mentions

Matt Levesque: Outstanding Leadership Honorable Mention

Matt’s extensive engagement with APR as PFE’s Technical Director has positioned him as a key contributor within the APR technical committee working groups, where he has led several initiatives that have enhanced testing protocols and refined the APR Design® Guide. Matt’s commitment to APR’s mission is driven by his dedication to leading meaningful change, ensuring that the advancements he helps implement are widely adopted by companies across the globe.

PureCycle Technologies: Recycling Technology Innovation Honorable Mention

PureCycle Technologies recycles curbside collected polypropylene into clear, food-grade packaging—a feat never before accomplished. PureCycle’s flagship facility in Ironton, Ohio, processed over 10 million pounds of postconsumer polypropylene in 2024, utilizing a physical dissolution process to produce recycled resin with like-virgin qualities. The resin has been successfully trialed and qualified by customers across a wide range of packaging, film, and fiber applications. PureCycle also opened an R&D facility in Durham, NC to develop compounds for film and fiber applications, paving the way for continued innovation and growth.

Avery Dennison: Package Design Innovation Honorable Mention

The Avery Dennison CleanFlake™ portfolio is a first-of-its-kind labeling innovation that addresses the challenges traditional pressure-sensitive labels cause in PET and HDPE recycling processes. CleanFlake™ enables high-quality rPET and rHDPE by cleanly separating from PET flakes, while staying with HDPE containers in the recycling process. Since first achieving APR Recognition in 2017, this technology has revolutionized the labels industry without compromising performance or aesthetics. Today, over 80% of Avery Dennison’s film portfolio incorporates CleanFlake™ technology, enhancing its availability in the market. The portfolio has also earned APR Recognition for metallized films – materials that were previously incompatible with recycling.

Kraft Heinz: PCR Utilization Honorable Mention

Kraft Heinz transitioned to 100% rPET packaging for its iconic Real Mayo and Miracle Whip brands in the United States – a major accomplishment for a white food product in a clear container. The switch to PCR eliminated nearly 14 million pounds of virgin plastic and significantly reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 35 to 43%, depending on the package size. By using APR certified, food-safe PCR, Kraft Heinz ensures that the containers are truly sourced from post-consumer origins, setting a new bar for sustainable packaging.

Do you know a person or company that deserves an award for their outstanding contributions to recyclability?

This is your chance to celebrate them! Nominations for the 2026 APR Recycling Leadership Awards program will open in autumn 2025.