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Hello and happy Monday!

It’s great to be back. I actually missed work; go figure!

Check out this article from Packaging World, which discusses the refined approach by the judging committee of the Greener Package Awards. As you can see I am not listed as a judge, which is the result of a conflict of interests, resulting in me stepping down from the Committee. I wish the judges and contestants the best of luck; this year has the potential to be the best yet!

Ok, I received approval from Dr. Narayan to upload his presentation to my blog, but I want to include my notes taken during the workshop too, as the PPT is a little overwhelming. Therefore, expect the treatment on all things biodegradable in tomorrow’s post.

Also, I am still waiting to hear back from the President of AMUT in regard to uploading his presentation to my blog—hopefully we can schedule a conference call so I can pick his brain about recycling PET thermoform containers.

I have some pretty cool news!

The day before I left for vacation, I emailed the CEO of TerraCycle, introducing myself and my Clamshell Recycling Initiative. I have been following him and his company’s work for some time now, so I decided to finally take the networking plunge via the ambiguous social networking site, FaceBook. To my surprise, he replied that night, all the way from Amsterdam!

For those of you unfamiliar, TerraCycle is a company in Trenton, New Jersey, which basically provokes people to rethink what waste means. Starting as a “manufacturer” of worm poop (collect worm castings and package it for reuse as a fertilizer), TerraCycle literally creates value from waste. After introducing their line of worm poop products to Walmart, they quickly became a market favorite, rolling out product at most of the large and medium sized retailers. I just found this article however, which explains how this portion of the company merged with Scotts Miracle Grow, which seems a bit ironic. While I am still unsure of the whole story, after this venture was consumed by Scotts, TerraCycle made it into the world of packaging, “upcycling” products like CliffBar wrappers, CapriSun pouches, and others, into new and improved products, like purses, shirts, binders, etc. To learn more about their approach to waste and the economics of said approach, check out this great interview with TerraCycle CEO by BBMG’s Mitch Baranowski.

SOOOO anyway, within his email he introduced me to several of his colleagues, one of whom already contacted me about an exciting new brigade! I don’t want to spill the beans just yet, but know that I am very, very excited about the potential of working with this innovative new company!

And, I am about to embark on a NEW research project, which will be the second of a three part series looking to illuminate truths about sustainable packaging. The first, which you all are probably familiar with, is titled “Recycling Report: The Truth about Clamshell/Blister Recycling in America.” This Report generated a good deal of interest because it was a well-researched, honest, and thoughtful treatment of a rather complicated issue from the perceptive of a new-bee in the industry trying to understand why the packaging her family company manufactures is not “recycled,” as per the FTC Green Guide’s definition. Because this focused specifically on the end of life management of thermoform containers as a commentary on the nuanced nature of “sustainability” as it pertains to packaging, I now look to focus on how the material feedstock of a package dictates another dimension of a packages’ perceived sustainability. However, I don’t want to limit my research at all in the introductory phases, so at this point, anything is game. My approach will be of a similar construction insofar as I will be transparent about my biases and social imagination, trying to diffuse a rather complicated, but pertinent, issue.

Ok, I got to go. Look out for tomorrow’s post—it is going to be super technical!

Waa wa. It turns out Dr. Narayan’s PPT requires a more recent version of Adobe Reader, which I can’t download on my work computer because I am not the administrator of the network. Therefore, I will work from home tomorrow and be sure to upload his PPT, along with my notes and a summary of what I took away from the workshop, by lunch time tomorrow at the latest. Sorry friends.

Real quick: On yesterday’s post I got a comment from a TerrayCycle rep; it turns out that the article I referenced about Scotts Miracle Grow merging with the Worm Poop division of TerraCycle was an April Fools joke by a friendly blogger! I don’t know why but I find that extra funny. It’s nice to see companies in this industry not taking themselves too seriously. Kudos!

Sooo in the world of recycling thermoforms, I was delighted by this PlasticsNews article, which reports on the APR’s recently issued bale specifications for non-bottle rigids. In my post titled “New Insight into PET Thermoform Recycling,” I dance around the “do specs for thermoform bales exist” question, and was never really ever able to conclude if they exist, and if so, what that implies for the industry. For those of you familiar with my Recycling Report, one of my arguments was that MRF’s will not collect thermoforms for recycling if specs for thermoform bales don’t exist. Hopefully, thermoform containers will be included in the seven new bale specs for non-bottle rigids being developed by APR. The new spec categories, as explained in the above sited PlasticsNews article, are as follows: bulky rigid plastics, tubs and lids, all-rigid bales, olefin bales, household containers, bottles and containers, and pre-picked rigid bales. I already sent an email to my contact at APR, congratulating her for their work, and inquiring into what this means for recycling thermoform containers. I will keep you posted.

Shall we discuss the third and final part of the Walmart SVN meeting I attended in Rogers, Arkansas, in December?!? For a description of the first and second parts, visit the posts with the associated titles.

December 14th, 2010
Sam’s Clubs Headquarters, Rogers, Arkansas
Walmart’s winter SVN meeting

In January 28th’s post, I describe the Sustainability Consortium, which is working with Walmart and others in the collection of data necessary to facilitate the construction of Walmart’s Product Index. The PI looks to contain LCIA data on every product sold at Walmart. In preparation of this massive undertaking, the University of Arkansas—either apart of or partnered with— the Consortium, is in the process of executing 5 pilots. These pilots are based on collecting the research necessary to create standards and therefore develop tools to increase the sustainability profile of Walmart’s products. And forgive me if this information isn’t 100% accurate—my notes are scribbled on 3”X5” “Embassy Suites” stationary, which is special. Anyway, one of the pilots introduced was the “electronics sector;” another, “food and beverage,” and lastly, “home and personal care.” I believe Walmart is looking to develop a SMRS (sustainable measurement and reporting standard), which will facilitate research and reporting from business to business, business to retail, and business to consumer. AND I am pretty sure that Walmart will allow suppliers to enter in their own LCIA data, if the industry averages do not do justice to their specific manufacturing processes.

Next we moved onto a discussion of how packaging informs the PI, highlighting the progress made by the GPP and how the Scorecard will kind of get sucked up into the former’s metrics. The GPP is super cool—anyone can join and get updates on the progress being made and how to get involved. Anyway, I drew an umbrella right about here in my notes, with “INDEX” scribbled on the top of the umbrella, and “scorecard” and “SSA” placed underneath, implying that the Scorecard and Supplier Sustainability Assessment will be a COMPONENT of the overall product’s sustainability profile within the index. Kind of like the big fish eating the little fish.

Then we switched to an introduction of the EPA’s new working group titled “Sustainable Financing for Waste Management for Packaging Materials.” This is when we queued the jumbotron (LOVE jumbotrons), and were connected with an office in Washington, where I spotted some familiar faces from the world of sustainable packaging. After the traditional greetings, it was explained how this group is in the process of researching different approaches to managing the financial responsibility of waste, hoping that they can bring several ideas to the table, weighing the pros and cons of each approach before moving forward with policy and implementation. I guess this working group is composed of 8 states (NC, MN, Wisconsin, NY, Iowa, Nebraska, Washington, and one whose name I can’t decipher), 4 governments (VT, Seattle, CA and NY), and 12 brand owners that focus on food/beverage, health/beauty, and home care. This group is hoping that their well-researched dialogue will inform legislation, where they attempt to bridge the gap present in our current approach to waste management by developing more efficient, and sustainable means to finance the recovery of packaging waste. While the US EPA rep did say that there is or would be a website dedicated to describing the agenda of this group, I just googled “Sustainable Financing for Municipal Management of Packaging” and nothing came up…I put in an email to my contact at the EPA so I will let you know what I find. This is all very exciting I think! And, this may or may not be the same thing as AMERIPEN, which was just covered in this article, though I honestly am not sure what the relation, if any, is. Hmmmmmm

The meeting closed with a couple presentations from fellow SVN members/trade associations. The first was by a representative of the tab/label manufacturers, who introduced their certification program titled L.I.F.E. Then a representative from TetraPak presented on how his company and competitors worked together to develop the composite carton recycling stream, which as per this gentleman, is at an impressive 30%!?! Lastly, a gentleman from, perhaps, the metal association (?) presented on how BPA is not bad and is a necessity of modern consumption. I care not to comment on the BPA situation as it is one of the several topics of my upcoming research project and I don’t want to speak without doing my due diligence.

And, not to poke fun or anything, but I just received this email from an unknown contact… thought I would share it with you to get your salivary glands ready for tomorrow’s feast!

I am curious. I saw you Power Point and feel that if and when we can get the recycling of more products, it is a loss of a valuable product that can be reused. So have you considered adding a biodegradable additive that will enable the plastic to biodegrade in landfills AND will not affect its ability to be recycled with mainstream plastics? I have been in biodegradables for 9 years and feel the a landfill biodegradable product is the answer until we get the infrastructure to recycle more.

AND, check out this great Advertising Age article, which summarizes today's post!
Alright, that’s that. Until tomorrow!

Hello my packaging and sustainability friends!!!

I have so much to tell you! Where to begin where to begin…

Well, let’s talk about recycling thermoforms, as that is my first love—after Italian beefs—of course.

Prior to my presentation at Sustainability in Packaging in Orlando last week, I wanted to make sure that all my information on the state of blister/clamshell recycling AND progress being made in recycling thermoforms was as accurate and up to date as possible. After all, I wrote the original Recycling Report over a year ago, so I assumed that some things had changed. I don’t know if I had told you guys this before but a colleague from the SPC sent me an email several weeks back with an attachment outlining specs for mixed PET bales, including thermoform containers. Check it out here:

Mixed PET specs, ISRI

I sent this gentleman a follow up email, inquiring into what was implied by these specs: ARE thermoforms and bottles collected for recycling, as indicated by these specs for mixed PET bales? If so, who is collecting them i.e. private entity vs. municipality? What is the sorting technology used to separate the PET thermoforms from other “look-a-likes?” Where is this sorting happening i.e. MRF vs. PRF? AND, where do these mixed PET bales go after collection i.e. what is the end market?

After not hearing back from said gentleman, I reached out to ISRI, which is the organization that published the specs. Several unsuccessful attempts later, I finally got a hold of the Marketing Manager, who explained he is no expert on specs. He was very nice, however, and asked that I rephrase my inquiry in an email and he will see to it that the necessary party gets back to me ASAP. So, I sent him this email:

Hey!

This is Chandler with Dordan. As per our conversation, I have spent a lot of time researching recycling plastic packaging, specifically thermoform packaging, like clamshells and blisters. I have become an industry educator, explaining why thermoform containers are not recycled in most American communities, due to economics, sorting technologies, etc., in hopes that in understanding the problems, the industry can begin developing solutions (they are).

At my last industry presentation, I explained that MRFs do not collect PET clamshells for recycling because there is no end market and there is no end market because there is none collected for reprocessing (with the exception of international consumption of mixed rigids due to low labor costs for manual separation) i.e. the chicken and the egg of supply and demand. While there is a very strong PET bottle recycling infrastructure, the same can't be said for PET clamshells because lack of investment, technology, etc.

ANYWAY, one of my arguments explaining why thermoforms are not collected for recycling is because there are no specs for collection and baling. After making such a statement, a colleague emailed me the attached document (PET specs.), indicating that there ARE specs for PET thermoforms as per ISRI.

So these are my questions:

Is post consumer PET packaging (rigid containers, bottles, jars, tubs and trays) collected at MRF's for recycling, as per the spec sheet attached?

If so, do you know what MRF is collecting these materials for recycling; who purchases the mixed bales; and, what the material becomes after reprocessing? I know that that is a loaded question—I am just trying to understand if these types of materials are in fact collected for recycling, and if so by whom, how, where, and what the end market is.

Check out my attached PowerPoint Recycling Report: the truth about blister/clamshell recycling in America for clarification on my goal-- which is to educate packaging/sustainability professionals about the economics/realities of recycling packaging post consumer in America, with special attention at recycling PET clamshells (thermoforms).

Does this make any sense?!?

Wowza!

Any feedback you could provide would be well received.

Thanks!

Chandler

While in Orlando, I received an email from my ISRI contact explaining that he had forward my inquiry onto the necessary party who would get back to me ASAP. Unfortunately, I was unable to get a hold of this gentleman before my presentation, so I hinted at the possibility that specs for mixed thermoform and bottle bales exist, though I explained I was currently investigating the implication of this information.

Also, as articulated in a previous post, after my presentation in Atlanta several weeks back at Sustainable Plastics Packaging, a gentleman from NURRC approached me, explaining that his company recycles post consumer curb side collected PET thermoforms and bottles at their southeastern facility. After this proclamation, I received an invitation to tour the facility, to confirm with my own eyes that the recycling of PET thermoforms was very much a reality (EXCITING!!!). While I had to push back the trip due to other work commitments, I have every inkling to follow through with his suggestion to see the recycling of thermoforms in action. I wonder if they would let me take pictures or even FILM their recycling process…that would be soooo cool! But now I am getting a head of myself.

ANYWAY, I thought that NURRC would serve as a fabulous case study in regard to progress being made in recycling thermoforms, so several weeks before leaving for Orlando, I contacted my NURCC rep and asked if I could use his company as an example of closed-loop progress in recycling thermoforms. He was super thrilled at the opportunity—explaining he could even send pictures—but said he just needed to receive the company’s partners’ blessing, because this entity funded the installation of a lot of the sorting and reprocessing technology. A half an hour before my presentation was scheduled to begin, I still had not received the partners’ approval—my NURRC contact explained that this entity had a holiday the day before and it wasn’t a top priority so he would therefore be unable to grant permission for me to use NURRC as a case study of progress being made in recycling thermoforms. DANGIT. While I still had every intention of highlighting the progress being made in the infrastructural approach to recycling thermoforms i.e. NAPCOR’s Thermoform Division, I was totally bummed I couldn’t highlight another, more privatized approach.

Sitting pool side, I was racking my brain for a good way to finish the “progress in recycling thermoforms” section…without NURRC’s blessing (I had received information on sorting technology used and other possibly sensitive information), I was unsure how to end on a bang. What I finally decided on was to highlight Dordan’s commitment to transparency: I explained that while some people just don’t get why I would go around saying thermoforms are not really recycled—at least in 60% or more American communities—I thought it was my responsibility to be honest because nothing ever changes if you don’t challenge the status quo. And I really, really, want to see our packages recycled in the future—it is not some marketing ploy but a genuine commitment to do good business and good by the environment. And I have to say, I think my presentation overall was received SO much better this time around because I was myself, explaining where I and my company were coming from in regard to our journey to sustainability, and didn’t make any excuses. I am very happy with the reception of my presentation, as I had numerous people approach me afterwards complimenting me on my honesty and articulating support for Dordan going out on a limb to move the dialogue around sustainability forward.

At the networking reception that night, the president of AMUT approached me, explain that his company makes machinery for thermoforming, extruding, AND recycling. He highlighted the recent developments at Ice River Springs in Canada (they are the first bottle-to-bottle recycling and bottling facility in North America) and others who esteem that they have purchased the equipment necessary to recycle PET thermoforms and bottles together. This guy definitely knows his stuff! I can’t WAIT to talk to him further about the different types of recycling machinery available in the context of PET recycling and how the machinery AMUT offers works to alleviate the previously articulated technical barriers to recycling PET thermoforms. Pending his approval, I will upload his presentation to my blog, as it provides the most technically holistic treatment of the process of recycling thermoforms for reprocessing into second generation thermoforms. Perhaps I can finally start working on Dordan’s next marketing campaign: “Our packages are made out of our competitors’ packages!” I don’t think I came up with that, but it certainly has a ring to it!!!

I can’t believe how much I have rambled. I hope I haven’t been a bore! I am waiting to hear back from the Marketing Director of the conference to ensure there are no policies against me discussing the content of the conference in my blog. Stay tuned!!!!

Hey yall!

Check out my interview from Sustainability in Packaging last week. I especially like the part where my eyes BULGE out of my head in anticipation of presenting. And the bird chirping intro is pretty cool. LOVE IT.

Tomorrow's post will provide feedback from this splendid event!

Hello my packaging and sustainability friends!

I am just about to take off for O'hare to fly to Orlando for Pira International's 5th Annual Sustainability in Packaging Conference, wohooo!!!!

Tomorrow I am attending both pre-conference workshops: one, where we learn how to create a LCA database; and another, where we learn the "fundamentals of packaging and sustainability." I will be sure to take tons of notes to condense for your viewing pleasure. AND, I have been working on my Recycling Report presentation like crazy-- trying to simplify, condense, and update whatever content is needed to be updated. So far I am waiting to hear back from two organizations that could change some of the assumptions/findings. I will keep you all posted!

It is rainy and disgusting here; I can't wait for Orlando!!!

Hope to see some of you there!

Hey guys!!!

I am back from Orlando and had a total blast! See...



I have been up to my ears in catch up work but I am devoting a HUGE chunk of tomorrow's work day to the construction of an extra awesome post!

Some concepts I am mulling over discussing:

Final feedback from Walmart SVN meeting (sorry it has taken me sooooo long to conclude these happenings!)

Further investigation into the industrial water usage by the pulp and paper sector (one of my readers sent me new research!)

Update on non-bottle PET recycling, including dialogue with AMUT president and ISRI

Feedback from Sustainability in Packaging

The glory that is the PlantBottle (Dr. Ramani Narayan of Michigan State gave an AMAZING four hour workshop on the chemistry behind all the new bio resins so I finally get it!)

And more!

See you tomorrow!

This is CRAZY!

And if I wasn't nervous before...;)

Rock n' Roll!

Orlando here I come!!!

Hello my packaging and sustainability friends!

I am just about to walk out the door to road trip to Michigan for a couple appointments BUT I wanted to let you know that I will resume blogging early next week.

Still to come: Walmart SVN meeting recap 3:3 and further investigation into the water usage of the paper and pulp industry in America.

Have a good week!

AND, it is negative 20 degrees in Chicago today with the wind chill; awesome!

Hello and happy Tuesday my packaging and sustainability friends!

I have some pretty exciting news!!!!

I have been invited to be a JUDGE for the Greener Package awards for 2011!

For those of you unfamiliar, the Greener Package awards is a contest organized by greenerpackage.com, which is a project of Summit Media Company—the media group that produces the industry magazines Packaging World, Contract Packaging, HealthCare Packaging and more. Greenerpackage.com was launched in 2008, maybe, and intended to be an open forum wherein interested parties may read and contribute to issues pertaining to packaging and sustainability; its tagline is “Knowledge exchange for sustainable packaging.” Packaging World editor and reporter Anne Marie Mohan, who produces the editorial content for Packaging World’s E-Clip series and others, is the voice through which industry happenings pertaining to packaging and sustainability are conveyed to site visitors.

I discovered greenerpackage.com when I was at my first conference in Atlanta in 2009 for the Sustainable Packaging Coalition’s members-only fall meeting. A Packaging Engineer for Target asked what relationship, if any, there is between the SPC and greenerpackage.com. I still remember scribbling down
greenerpackage.com in my notebook with a big star next to it indicating “important.”

Once I returned to Chicago, I checked out the site, and was thrilled!!! Not only was there tons of great editorial information, but there was a space where you could start a discussion/ask the “Expert Network” a question! I, being a product of the put-everything-out-there-generation thanks to websites like myspace, Friendster, facebook and others, was quick to post my first discussion.

Wow, November 3rd 2009 was my first post. I was just a baby yet! The name of the discussion was “Where does the plastic industry go from here” and it was posted following my return from the SPC’s Atlanta meeting (where I first discovered that thermoformed containers were not recycled). If I could be nostalgic for a moment, this post marks the beginning of our clamshell recycling initiative, which facilitated the birth of this very blog. Awwww the memories…

Check out the discussion here.

Next I posted this discussion, which garnered an interesting response, to say the least.

Anyway I am getting way off track. All I was trying to point out is that I am kind of like a greenerpackage groupie insofar as I check the site daily, am eager to comment on discussions, and even used the platform as a third party medium to push out some of Dordan’s thought leadership marketing (in 2010 Dordan had three sponsored links on greenerpackage.com—a white paper under Corporate Strategy that explained our 4-Step Design for Sustainability Process, a sample offer under compostable & biodegradable, and my Recycling Report under the recycling section).

If you are interested in our Design for Sustainability Process, visit http://www.dordan.com/design_for_sustainability.shtml; if you are interested in downloading the Recycling Report or other research, visit http://www.dordan.com/dordan_sustainability_research.shtml; and, if you are interested in receiving a free sample of two innovative materials (supplier-certified 100% PCR PET and third-party certified industrial compostable BIOGRAPH.ics), email us at sales@dordan.com. Ok I think that is enough Dordan promotion for the year…

OH, and how could I forget the database?!? After I found greenerpackage.com in late 2009, I discovered that they were launching some kind of database for sustainable products and suppliers. As the recently appointed Sustainability Coordinator at Dordan Manufacturing, I thought it was in our interest to submit a package to this database, so we would be considered a “sustainable supplier” to interested parties. We even opted for the third-party review, which required a bit of homework on our end because we had to work with our material suppliers and plant managers to ensure that the claims we were making were valid i.e. no heavy metals, post-consumer certification, etc. For some reason, the process at the time was super confusing and it took us a loonnnggggg time to get our listing just as such. And lucky us, due to our submission to the greenerpackage database in the early phase of its launch, we got invited to the Walmart Sustainable Packaging Expo in March of 2010, which was super cool! Unfortunately, we are passing up the opportunity to exhibit this year, though I will continue to participate in the Sustainable Value Network meetings.

Check out our listings here.

Ok where was I…oh yea, so in a nut shell, I am very familiar with greenerpackage.com, which is why I was so THRILLED to have been selected as a judge for the prestigious Greener Package Awards! Last year Dordan tried submitting a package to the competition, but unfortunately it was in the R&D phase and the application requires that it be commercialized at the time of submission.

Also on the Judging Committee are: Sean Sabre of ModusLink (he is the head judge or whatever the title would be), Laura Rowell of MWV, Robert Combs of Burts Bees, Minal Mistry of the SPC/GreenBlue, David Newcorn of Greenerpackage, and also involved, though I am unsure to what level, Ron Sasine of Walmart and Scott Balantine of Microsoft. Pretty much all the super duper cool cats of the world of packaging and sustainability, and I get to join their ranks! Not that I am as super cool a cat as the other judges, but nonetheless, I am just tickled pink by the opportunity to work with these outstanding people!

So yeah, for more information on the Greener Package awards, visit here.

Our first call is this Friday I wonder what we are going to talk about?!?! I will let you know if I am able to discuss the Committee happenings with you, my packaging and sustainability friends, though I doubt that would be deemed appropriate due to the level of hush hush assumed with any competition…

Later this week I will blog about the “sustainability” of FSC-certified fiber vs. 100% recycled fiber AND further investigate the pulp/paper industries’ consumption of water in North America.

And lastly, next week I leave for Sustainability in Packaging to present my Recycling Report. I am EXTREMLY nervous because today (interesting timing, I know), I received my speaker evaluation from my presentation in Atlanta for Sustainable Plastics Packaging and I didn’t score too terribly well, to say the least. Comments submitted pertaining to my presentation specifically were a lot of “she spoke too fast, was too energetic, too much detail, confusing organization, amateur style” YIKES. Granted I am thankful for the feedback, it just reminds me of what a rookie I am, and how much more work I have to do before I can consider myself a “seasoned” presenter.

AND the reason I have not been my normal blogging self is because Dordan is in the middle of a web site redesign, which I am spear-heading, and in the process of restructuring the relationship between marketing and sales. Lots O work, I would say!

By the by, today I broke 4,700 views on my blog! Thanks everyone!!!!!!!!

Greetings world!

We have made it through the BLIZZARD! Man oh man has it been crazy! The night of the storm the wind was swirling so fast you didn’t know from which direction it was coming! AND I witnessed “Thunder Snow,” which is basically a thunderstorm with snow instead of rain! Who knew!?! And my street, which is in the West Loop, just got paved TODAY so I have been stranded here since Tuesday! And the Metra trains, which I normally take to work, were super backed up and basically you couldn’t really get anywhere! It was sort of exciting…

Check out these pictures of Lake Shore Drive, which is a main artery of the city; at 8:00 on Tuesday they shut it down and all these cars were abandoned. Everyone was calling it a “Snowpocalypse!” Ha!

Anyway, for today’s post I thought I would give you an update on the progress of Walmart Canada’s PET Subcommittee of the Material Optimization Committee. For those of you who may be new to my blog, I was invited to be the co-lead of Walmart Canada’s PET Subcommittee in winter 2009, due to my research on recycling clamshells. To download the full research report, which draws on my involvement with this Committee, visit http://www.dordan.com/dordan_sustainability_research.shtml and select “Recycling Report.”

While the “goal” of the Committee was never really carved in stone, I was operating under the assumption that we were working towards achieving zero waste for PET packaging—bottle grade and thermoform grade—in the main Provinces of Canada. And while the approach too was a bit fuzzy, we investigated the plausibility of recycling PET bottles with PET thermoforms. The thinking was that because the PET bottle recycling infrastructure was so sophisticated, it may be easier to piggy back on it then create an entirely new recovery stream. Like the Starbuck’s cup recycling pilot that piggy-backed on the already established corrugate recycling stream, we hoped that if we could demonstrate to reclaimers that PET thermoforms do not contaminate the PET bottle recyclate stream, then we could begin integrating them into the existing PET recycling stream. After all, all the research I had done explained that there was nothing technically problematic about recycling PET bottles with thermoforms, just that it would be expensive to sort the PET thermoforms from other look-a-likes considered a contaminate to the PET bottle stream.

After several meetings, each member was assigned a task, which was “due” in by a specific date. I was instructed to summarize the APR’s Design for Recyclability Guidelines for PET bottles in hopes of using it as a template for creating Design for Recyclability Guidelines for PET thermoforms. After I submitted my summary, which you can find if you search my blog, I didn’t hear from my co-lead for several months. While I called him several times over the summer of 2010, it was conveyed to me that this project was put on the back-burner in favor of other, more important projects.

Yesterday my co-lead called me, however, to discuss the progress being made. This is what he had to say:

The Committee, which now seems entirely staffed by Walmarters, is making progress! The progress explained, however, does not seem that different than the progress reported by NAPCOR in our previous discussions. Like NAPCOR, my co-lead explained that after performing some pilots, it was found that it is easier to recycle PET thermoforms with PET thermoforms then within the PET bottle stream. The reason for this is multi-faceted, but in a nut shell, it is because no one wants to contaminate the PET bottle stream. Therefore, it is easier the develop processes and technologies for recycling PET thermoforms together then figure out what about them is problematic for the bottle stream. After all, a lot of time and investment has been made into the PET bottle recycling stream, thanks to NAPCOR and others, so trying to introduce a new packaging type into this system would probably do more harm than good.

Next it was articulated that for some reason, PET thermoforms manufactured in South America turned the PET recyclate fluorescent, which was making the reprocessing of the thermoform-grade RPET problematic. They are currently investigating why that is…

Lastly, it was reported that some type of adhesive on labels intended for food packaging is tinting the RPET beige during the process of recycling. Apparently Walmart is working with a Label Association trying to figure out what type of adhesive on these labels is contaminating the stream; once known, it was reported that Walmart will begin drafting suggestions for their suppliers in the context of sourcing labels for thermoform food packaging containers.

That’s all for today folks!

See you soon!