You may have covered this ground already but there are two information
sources that I would use if I needed to research this question.
The first is the Society of Plastics Industries. They publish a data
book called "Facts and Figures of the U.S. Plastics Industries - 1998
edition." According to the description of this reference at the SPI
site, Facts and Figures includes data on resin production as well as end
use applications. The web address for the SPI literature catalog is:
http://www.socplas.org/Publications/catalog.html#F&F
You may want to call SPI to find out if F&F can be helpful to your
research.
In addition, the Bureau of Economic Analysis of the Dept. of Commerce has
proven for me to be an excellent source of industry data. Many years
ago, I had a similar (unenviable) task of estimating plastic container
consumption for the state of NJ. I remember a BEA packaging expert being
extremely helpful for that project. I have provided the web page address
for their telephone contact page:
http://www.bea.doc.gov/bea/beatel.htm
Again, you may have already contacted these sources in which case I would
be interested in knowing what they can and can't do with respect to this
question.
Sincerely,
Roger M. Guttentag
215-513-0452
Read <italic>Recycling in Cyberspace</italic> in Resource Recycling
May / June 1999 topic: Electronic Product Discards
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