The First Home Device That Turns Soft Plastics Into Recycling-Ready Blocks - Introducing Pre-Recycling

MCKINNEY, TX / ACCESS Newswire / January 5, 2026 / Soft plastics have quietly become America's most unrecyclable waste stream. Bags, wraps, films, mailers, and food packaging now make up nearly half of all household plastic waste - yet more than 95% still end up in landfills, incinerators, or as microplastics. Traditional recycling systems, built decades ago for rigid containers, were never designed to handle flexible packaging. Soft plastics slip through machinery, jam equipment, and are rejected long before reaching a recycling line.

At CES 2026, Clear Drop® introduces the Soft Plastic Compactor (SPC) - the first and only patented home appliance designed to prepare soft plastics for recycling the moment they are discarded. The device inaugurates a new consumer category: pre-recycling, an at-home step that converts loose flexible packaging into dense, uniform, recycling-ready blocks that are guaranteed to be processed by Clear Drop's verified recycling partners in the U.S.

We quietly opened SPC sales in October, and the entire first batch of our soft launch sold out almost immediately - purely through demand. Now we're bringing this momentum to CES.

Why the U.S. recycling system fails soft plastics

Most U.S. curbside programs don't accept soft plastics at all - and even when consumers try to recycle them, the system simply isn't built to handle these materials. Retail store drop-off bins capture only a tiny fraction of household films, and what does get collected often faces unclear outcomes: materials may be contaminated, shipped long distances, downcycled, or even landfilled without transparency. Soft plastics tangle sorting machinery, contain multilayer films that many facilities can't process, and are too lightweight to transport economically. As a result, neither curbside pickup nor store drop-off reliably ensures that soft plastics are actually recycled - leaving most households with no trustworthy solution.

For most households, this failure is obvious: the drawer overflowing with plastic bags you don't know what to do with, the guilt of throwing away yet another food wrapper, the pile of Amazon mailers after every online order. Beyond clutter, these materials fragment into microplastics that enter soil, waterways, and ultimately our bodies. Even people who try to "recycle right" are left wondering why nothing seems to work - or whether their effort matters.

Pre-recycling solves this problem at the source by turning loose, hard-to-handle soft plastics into a format that recycling facilities can actually work with.

"By compacting soft plastics into dense, uniform blocks, Clear Drop's SPC transforms a difficult, low-value material into a format recycling facilities can finally work with. Just as importantly, SPC ensures that 100% of the collected soft plastics are delivered directly to verified recycling partners - guaranteeing that this material is actually recovered and re-used rather than discarded," said David Nix, Clear Drop recycling expert and professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

How SPC closes the soft plastic recycling gap

Flying bags, wrappers, and other soft plastic packaging have become one of the most common forms of everyday litter - caught on fences, blowing along roadsides, or tossed straight into the trash. SPC turns them into a single, clean, dense block that recycling facilities can work with. You simply drop soft plastics into the device, and it does the rest. When the bin is full, SPC compacts the material without melting polymers or releasing harmful fumes. The finished block is easy to store, ship, and 100% ready for recycling through Clear Drop's U.S. partners, including Frankfort Plastics Inc. in Indiana.

Recycling partners receive SPC blocks directly from customers. They chop, clean, and process them into durable feedstock used to manufacture new products - from outdoor furniture to industrial materials. Nothing is landfilled or incinerated - not only for environmental reasons, but because there's real economic value in these compacted materials. Importantly, the entire cycle stays within the U.S.: no exports, no unknown outcomes.

SPC compacts soft plastics up to ten times more efficiently than storing them in loose bags. It holds roughly a month of household soft-plastic waste, consumes only ~3 kWh of electricity per block cycle (about $0.52), requires no consumables or maintenance, and operates quietly and safely in kitchens, offices, and shared spaces.

Each SPC subscription includes prepaid mailers for sending finished blocks directly to Clear Drop's verified recycling partners, ensuring every block is processed and returned to the circular economy.

"We can't undo the plastic already in our bodies - but we can stop the next piece of trash from polluting our planet," said Ivan Arbouzov, founder of Clear Drop. "Real change starts when each of us takes responsibility for our habits. At Clear Drop, we're making that possible by ensuring plastic waste is actually recycled and returned to the circular economy - not left to blow in the wind, pile up in landfills, or harm our health."

At CES, Clear Drop will host live SPC demonstrations, ZeroTrash AI platform test for identification of soft plastic types, and a walkthrough of the complete "block-to-recycling" lifecycle, featuring video demonstrations of recycled output from partner facilities. Visitors will experience firsthand how pre-recycling fits into the next generation of climate-tech and smart-home innovation.

The Soft Plastic Compactor (SPC) is offered through a subscription model. Customers pay a $200 downpayment at sign-up, followed by a $50 monthly fee for 24 months, which includes the device installment plan, guaranteed recycling through Clear Drop's verified partners, prepaid shipping labels for soft-plastic blocks, and a full two-year warranty. Learn more at onecleardrop.com

About Clear Drop

Clear Drop® Inc. provides a line-up of home appliances for a convenient and hassle-free way to pre-recycle at home. We lead the change in household waste collection with the powerful mission of ZeroTrash. From managing soft plastic waste to organic kitchen scraps, our products minimize environmental impact, setting new standards in convenience and responsibility. For more information, visit: https://onecleardrop.com/

Media Contact:

Victoria Andriiashkina
victoriaandriiashkina@fungipr.com

SOURCE: Clear Drop