Plastics industry, transport partners take aim at resin pellet loss
4/16/2026
By Bridget Dean, Senior Associate Editor
Often transported by rail in small pellet form and manufactured into anything from take-out containers to car parts to packaging to pipes, plastic resin is everywhere — including the earth’s hydrosphere.
With an average diameter of 5 millimeters, the spherical or cylindrical pellets can blow into waterways and roll into storm drains. If not well contained during transportation and manufacturing, pellets easily become a major ocean pollutant.
The solution? Prevent the resin loss from happening in the first place, according to guidance from Operation Clean Sweep (OCS), an international, industry-led plastic stewardship program.
Founded in 1991 by the Plastics Industry Association and managed in partnership with the American Chemistry Council’s Plastics Division, OCS has more than 150 member-companies across the United States, including railroads, and more than 5,000 members around the globe. These members aim to eliminate plastic resin loss in their operations, says Gaige Ash, the association’s senior manager of sustainability and logistics.
“Resin loss is a really important topic in the plastic industry, and it’s important not just for material processors and suppliers that physically handle the resin on a day-to-day basis, but also for those that transport it,” he says.
Companies join OCS to learn about plastic resin containment and best practices for reducing spills. Joining also helps members connect with others across the entire industry. And for material suppliers, knowing that the plastic resin they produce is being handled responsibly throughout the entire supply chain is important — being an OCS member is a great way to demonstrate that responsibility, says Ash.
OCS has membership levels for the different types companies across the plastics supply chain and how involved they are with OCS, he says. At the higher tiers, members pledge to follow more than 25 OCS-recommended best practices for reducing product loss, submit quarterly reports on pellet spills, containment and disposal, and undergo third-party verification to ensure compliance.
Transportation companies fall under the OCS Logistics membership, which was launched in 2025 and requires the highest level of participation. Railroads, however, are not required to undergo a third-party verification process — yet. OCS has plans to roll that requirement out in the future.
Shown: An UltraTech berm sits beneath a rail car release point. It catches tiny plastic pellets remaining in the rail car after it's unloaded, stopping them from being lost in the ballast.UltraTech International Inc.“That’s an optional metric for [railroads] at the moment,” says Ash. “We looked at the complex network of a railroad in terms of geographical footprint, administrative footprint, and even a regulatory footprint. We need to be really diligent about rolling out a verification program for railroads to make sure it’s something that we can slot into their inspections.”
The OCS 2030 Vision plan outlines how program staff aim to boost membership and increase the rigor of its membership tiers. Currently, 60% of all plastic manufactured in the United States is done so at an OCS member facility, and OCS staff are engaging with material suppliers and processors to increase that percentage, says Ash. That engagement continues with railroads, as staff conduct outreach and work with current rail members to address industry needs.
OCS is currently raising awareness of the importance of securing caps on empty cars leaving processor facilities, which prevents any leftover pellets from falling out on the way to the car’s next destination. Beyond targeting known loss points, OCS encourages railroads to conduct risk assessments on a regular basis, Ash says.
“It’s really important for the railroads to consider what resin loss may look like in a sit yard versus their transload hump yards and intermodal terminals,” he says. “Another big area we’re working on is derailments — spill response.”
OCS ensures member railroads have the right equipment and know who to contact for cleanup services when derailments and spills do occur, Ash says. When possible, spilled plastic resin can be recycled and put back into the plastics chain.
For OCS, member needs drive industry innovation
One company helping railroads with containment efforts is UltraTech International Inc., a manufacturer of secondary containment products. The company has primarily focused on containment trays for liquid products and stormwater filtration devices. About five years ago, a rail customer asked if UltraTech offered trays with screens in them for catching pellets, because as a member of OCS, they were trying to reduce pellet loss.
At the time, UltraTech didn’t know much about plastic resin loss, or anything about OCS, says Tim McGrath, vice president of sales. Shortly after that interaction, the company became an OCS member and began designing products to address pellet spills.
“Probably one of the hardest things we’ve ever done that I’ve been a part of ... was trying to create a product that’ll actually capture these things. They’re incredibly hard to corral, so to speak,” he adds.
UltraTech adapted its lines of liquid containment and stormwater filtration products to capture pellets, such as the addition of screens to catch pans. The pans can now be installed alongside hopper car unloading sites to catch pellets that spit out from the high-pressure vacuum tubes used for unloading, McGrath says. To complement that offering, UltraTech developed “pellet ponds” to sit under connection points.
In developing the products, McGrath was surprised at the lack of product solutions for the issue.
“That was the exciting part for us — being able to create and develop solutions for something we believed in,” he says.
McGrath and UltraTech continue to support OCS by raising awareness about plastic loss and containment efforts. Since UltraTech also uses plastic resin for its products, the company is well-versed with the challenges of stopping pellet loss, McGrath says.
Containment and pollution regulations also differ between countries. As an international seller, UltraTech aims to help manufacturers and shippers in countries with more stringent policies on plastic resin loss meet containment goals. U.S. regulation on plastic resin pollution lags behind many countries in Europe, McGrath says. That’s what makes OCS’s U.S. membership so interesting, he adds.
“I’ve been in this industry a long time — I’ve never seen a self-policing environmental regulation,” he says. “[These are] large Fortune 500 companies that are just committing to doing it without regulation. That’s actually the most impressive part of this.”
