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This is awsome and all I want to say for today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRPYccEXt-8

This company is super cool--they buy baled PET bottles and clean, grind, flake and extrude the material into RPET clamshells.

I am making a giant graph of all my research on recycling so get excited!

Tootles!

Ok, so I think I have dragged out the inevitable long enough. And resume recycling narrative:

Ring…Ring…

“Good Morning Dordan this is Sarah how can I help you? One moment please…”

Beep. “Chandler, Waste Management on Line 1…”

“Thanks.”

Suddenly I realized that this was the call I had been waiting on for almost 7 weeks: the results of our RPET clamshell samples’ test via the MRFs optical sorter. If our supplier-certified 70% post-consumer regrind PET clamshell packages are “read” like PET bottles via the recovery facility’s optical sorter, then perhaps we could integrate our clamshells into the existing PET bottle recycling infrastructure. If anything, the results would tell us if one of the many obstacles facing the inclusion of PET/RPET clamshells into the PET bottle recovery stream is NOT the inability to sort these two packaging types together.

I reach for the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hey Chandler!”

“Hey, nice to hear from you; how’s it going?”

“Great, thanks. I have the results from the MRF regarding your samples.”

“Ok, what are they; did they pass with the bottles?”

“Yes, there was no difference between the PET bottles and RPET samples as read by our optical sorter. So if RPET clams and PET bottles were moving down the line together, there would be no luminescent difference between the bottles and clams as they moved through our plastic sorting station. Again, the main point of the optical sorter is to see the difference between PVC and PET bottles, which look dramatically different when viewed via the optical sorter.”

“This is wonderful news!”

“Well, keep in mind that regardless of this, buyers of baled PET bottles DO NOT want clams in the mix.”

“And this is because fear of contamination, different IVs and perhaps melting points, no specs for mixed bales and on and on…?”

“Pretty much hit the nail on the head.”

“Well, I really appreciate you and WM going out of your way to help us figure this stuff out. We just want to recycle our packages—didn’t know how complicated it is!”

“Well we wish you the best of luck with your recycling initiative. Please let us know if there is anything else we can do for you…”

“Truly, thanks again.”

“No problem; take care.”

“You too!”

I hung up the phone.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm…what does this mean, I asked myself?

I think it means that the molecular structures of clamshell RPET and bottle PET are the same, at least was read via the optical sorter.

So how will this help us recycle our RPET thermoforms?

It illustrates that the reason RPET clams are not recycled with bottles has nothing to do with an inability to sort the two packaging types together. So if our RPET clams and PET bottles are read the same, they could be collected and baled, with no need for different sorting technology.

Good to establish, Chandler.

Suddenly I snapped out of my internal discussion; my two colleagues were waiting tentatively outside my cubicle, eager for the results.

“They passed!” I said.

“Sweet!” they replied in unison.

“So what does this mean for us?”

“Haha, I’m not quite sure yet…”

Tune in Monday for a summary of the different obstacles hindering the inclusion of RPET clams in the PET bottle recovery stream. Once established we will move on to discuss how the following determine the recyclability of a material/packaging type: supply, demand, and technology.

Have a splendid weekend! Its Friday, woop woop!

Hello world!

UG don't hate me for my failure to post AGAIN; it has been a heck of a day!

But guess what: I have been invited to assist a major retailer in their attempts to achieve zero waste for PET packaging, both thermoforms and bottles! But not only assist; be a CO-LEADER! I will be a research junky, therefore, as I hope to compile abstracts for the other co-leader and committee members to summarize my research over the past 6 months. And what that means to YOU my fellow blog readers is that I will be extra awesome with blogging because it has become a priority, again.

As I am sure some of my more diligent followers are aware, my blogging ebbs and flows with my existing work load AND the perceived value of continuing to investigate the logistics and economics governing the recycling of clamshells. Because of this recently ignited interest in my work on recycling PET thermoforms, I have been given the green light to (again) delve into researching waste management and recycling in America. YIPEEEEEE! I don’t think I would make a very good Sales woman anyway…J Work from home, here I come!

So tomorrow I will, and I promise, present the results of our RPET samples’ test and discuss how to move this initiative forward. If Canada can do it, so can we!

See you soon my packaging and sustainability friends!

Hello world!

It’s been so long since my last post, I almost don’t know where to begin!

Well, Toronto was awesome!


The Canadian retailer has a very nice facility with even nicer employees. The? Committee I will be working with basically looks to increase the recycling rates of several hard-to-place materials; those of specific focus where PS/EPS, PET (thermo-grade and bottle-grade) and bio-based resins.

When the meeting began we went around and introduced ourselves. I was super nervous because, as I am reminded again and again, I am young and considerably new to the “business world.” Being surrounded by really accomplished people in the industry was very intimidating, motivating me to keep my mouth shut, observe and learn.

The pre-reading material for the Committee described the current plastic packaging waste generation in Canada. It is broken down as follows:

• Plastics represent 7-8% of the residential waste stream;
• Plastic packaging represents 81% of total plastics found in the residential waste stream;
• Plastic bottles account for 31% of the total plastics packaging generation. This is followed by:
• Non-recyclable film at 29%,
• Recyclable film at 19%,
• Polystyrene at 10%,
• Wide mouth tubs at 6%
• Other rigid plastics 5%.

WOW I thought to myself as I read over the statistics…only 5% of the 7-8% of plastic packaging that is in the residential waste stream is attributed to thermoforms i.e. other rigid plastics? Is that even enough material to reach the “critical mass” necessary to find an “end-of-life” market for thermoforms? The reason I ask is because if there is not enough quantity of these materials/packages types in Canada to create the critical mass necessary to find a buyer post-consumer, is my clamshell recycling initiative going to DIE? UG, I hope not!

And then consider the following:

I was reading good old Plastics News and came across an article about a new plastics recovery plant opening later this year in England, which looks to reprocess plastic from automotive shredder residue.

Author Esposito writes, “The slow journey of recycling in the U.S. is a bit frustrating…since the country generates THE MOST ELECTRONIC WASTE IN THE WORLD—more than 21 million pounds per year.”

Founder and President of this recovery facility explains: “One of the issues in the U.S. is that there’s no electronic collection infrastructure…And some that we do gather is sold overseas. The U.S. has more mines of plastic than any other country—it’s amazing that we don’t use it” (Michael Biddle, MBA Polymers Inc.).

For the full article, please visit: http://plasticsnews.com/headlines2.html?id=10031501901&q=MBA+moves+toward+being+global+recycler.

Several things jumped out at me while reading this article: First, is how misplaced the current anxiety of waste management is on single-use disposable packaging when trendy consumer electronics go unnoticed, although from a pure quantity standpoint, they blow plastic packaging out of the water in the context of waste generation. I am not trying to point the finger at any industry, product, or what not; what I am trying to imply, although not very discreetly, is that plastic packaging is being targeted as a manifestation of our over-consumptive society while other products, specifically, consumer electronics, are marketed as innovative, young, and anything but environmentally malevolent. Hmmmm…

So this got me a’thinkin…I am sorry to run on this tangent but a girl has got to do what I girl has got to do:

Perhaps the best way to go about this recycling initiative is to work with a large consumer electronics company that buys a lot of clamshell packaging. If they have implemented any product stewardship initiatives, like Dell ink with their shipping envelopes, then perhaps they would be interested in working with their packaging suppliers to “close the loop,” per se.

I envision the relationship like this:

Company X makes a ton of cell phones for the American market; they buy Y amount of clamshells yearly, all of which end up in a landfill. Because of the increased pressure on producers to consider the end-of-life management of their products/packages, perhaps we could develop a partnership where Dordan would provide all the clamshell packages to company X under the agreement that if returned to our facility, we would regrind them and reprocess them into next generation clamshells. The only logistical problems would be enticing the consumer to bring the packages back to a store or drop-off location (perhaps company X could offer a point-rewarding system similar to Recycle Bank) and then funding the shipment back to our plant…

So, if any CEOs of super-powerful consumer electronic companies are reading this blog, we should get lunch!

Ha!

Ok, where was I before my thought-baby…OH the Committee in Ontario:???

Below are my notes from the meeting. Enjoy!

• Background: The Committee focuses on increasing the recovery rates of several hard-to-place materials in Canada. In Canada, Stewardship Ontario requires “producers” to fund 50% of the packaging waste management of the products they sell. The Committee is the first time a powerful retailer has gathered people from along the supply chain to honestly investigate the obstacles keeping some materials out of the recovery stream: This retailer has the power to influence the packaging sold in Canada via purchasing power.
• We spent a lot of time discussing the “scope” of the Committee's goals (increase diversion rate to X% by Y date):
• All of Canada?
• Province-specific?
• Retailer in-house waste only?
• This retailer?has over an 80% waste diversion rate of in-house waste management. This ROCKS!
• Post-consumer, post-industrial, or both?

• Determined scope/goal:
• Scope: RESIDENTIAL and NATIONAL
• Goal: Harmonize products on shelf with recovery infrastructure

• Material 1, PS:
• PS is 98% air 2% resin?because of its density there is no economical way to COLLECT the material for recovery (shipping a truck of air exceeds value of resin).
• Demand is for DENSIFIED PS.
• Purchase a densifier for each municipality
• Cold densifier: Don’t need an air omissions certificate;
• Thermal densifer: Do need an air omissions certificate;
• Drawbacks: Expensive and pay back depends on QUANITY.

• Material 2, PET
• “Thermoformers can use bottle-grade PET but bottles can NOT use thermo-grade PET.”
• Why: Different IV’s and fear of contamination
• Carbonated soda drinks use one IV, water bottles use another, thermos use something else, etc. AND one PVC clam in a bale of bottle-grade PET contaminates the entire feedstock for reprocessing.
• Also, a chicken and egg syndrome?there is no end-market for thermo-grade PET because the quantity isn’t there; but the quantity isn’t there because it is not collected because there is no end-market.
• Solution: Identify end market FIRST; collect thermoforms and conduct pilot to determine the quality of mixed material.
• Mimic the corrugated recovery specs: Corrugated council conducted testing on alternatives to OCC compliance and determined that 21 alternatives to corrugated can be recycled along with corrugated.

We actually didn’t spend much time on bio-based resins, aside from discussing the appropriate vernacular for describing this new family of agriculturally-based resins. For the record, the proper language is “bio-based” polymers as cellulous is a bio polymer of a different sort and therefore the distinction should be advocated to eliminate confusion in the market. Good times.

I met two girls from the Ministry of the Environment; they were super cool and gave me a ride back to the city, thereby saving me some 90 odd dollars. They were both policy girls, which means they spend a lot of time on issues of waste management and product stewardship. We hit it off because shared interests and because they sat next to me and I am a chatty Cathy, especially when nervous and out of my element.

That’s all for now. Tomorrow’s post will describe my experiences at the Walmart Expo in Arkansas.

Thanks for listening! And thanks Canada!

Good day!

It’s official—I am going to Ontario next week to participant in a Committee that looks to find a way to recycle thermoforms! I am totally tickled pink by this news; I will keep you all posted!

And guess what: this is sort of funny, well not funny, but something to note…Some of my research on paper versus plastic in the context of sustainability was distributed to the members of the Committee as pre-reading material and a member voiced concern that this research favored plastic over paper; therefore, my research was removed from the list of pre-reading material because this Committee looks to be unbiased, and my research was very pro-plastic. 

While I do admit that it does make an argument for plastic over paper, all of the information is referenced and from publicly available records via the EPA and other environmental agencies. Moreover, I believe that the best way to understand a concept/situation/problem/topic is to understand ALL the different arguments; therefore, I would love to see a pro-paper argument, a pro-plastic argument, and any other argument that would inform discussion on packaging and sustainability. Perhaps I am still clinging on to the classroom etiquette where every argument is valid if supported with facts, regardless of if it is biased. I was always taught that it was my role as an academic to identify people’s objectives/biases in order to fully understand the argument (we live in a post modern world where one’s social location informs their perceptive). As a plastics girl, I obviously have a goal to make people understand that plastic IS NOT BAD; it just gets a bad rap in the eyes of the public because of lack of education and poor marketing. Therefore, my research on plastic and paper was more of an “in the defense of plastic” piece as everyone, even my college buddies, think plastic is bad and paper is good because plastic comes from oil and paper from trees.

On that note, check out this blog post from the Nashville Wraps Blog; it is all about recycled paper and it’s often times ethically-compromised point of origin: http://www.nashvillewrapscommunity.com/blog/?p=1275.

This is a great blog, by the by. Check it out!

Okay, shall we resume our recycling narrative?

Where were we…

On December 8^th I arrived to the office feeling a little unmotivated; I still had not received the results from our RPET samples’ “test” via the MRF’s optical sorting technology and my Superior told me to shelf the recycling initiative for a bit because it wasn’t an economic priority for Dordan. So, while I waited for the results and my enthusiasm to return, I focused on other sustainability concerns. One of which is the life cycle impacts of recycled PET. After all, my clamshell recycling initiative is all about RPET and increasing its feedstock via the incorporation of RPET clams into the PET-bottle recycling infrastructure…love me my RPET. At the same time, however, I couldn’t find any industry data about the energy required/GHG emitted during RPET production to validate that RPET was the route we wanted to go as a sustainable plastics company.

I shot my contact at an industry-working group the following email, hoping he could provide some insight:

Hello!

Hope your having a lovely in-between holiday time.

In regard to COMPASS, the environmental packaging assessment tool created by the SPC: I am trying to utilize the software to compare a corrugated package of similar dimensions with a plastic package. The plastic package is RPET with a certified minimum of 70% PCR but I am unable to input this into the software. I know you had explained that this is because there is no industry data about RPET available at this time; my question, however, is how can that be when RPET is the new “hot” material in the professional packaging world. How can you have data on PLA and not RPET? When will this material be available for selection within the softwar

Thanks for your time!

And his response came later that afternoon:

Hi Chandler,

PCR is a funny thing. The marketplace has run head first to incorporate recycled content, yet the industry associations have not released any of the LCI data for folks to use for comparative purposes. These LCI data do not come from entities like GreenBlue, but from companies that make the materials. NatureWorks released the data for PLA because it was in their interest to show their product to have a better environmental profile than other traditional polymers. But, the rPET folks have not released the requisite data. Makes you wonder if the profile for rPET is really as good as we assume. Neither USLCI nor ecoinvent have such data, so we are unable to model r-anything yet.

I was at the LCA conference in Boston and the noise was about new data points. ACC – the folks who have the plastics data, intend to release them, but no eta. Unfortunately, data are the limiting factor to environmental assessment and will probably be that way unless there is some kind of legislative push or some other incentive that could induce industry to release data. Everyone (us and all other LCA practitioners) are waiting on LCI data. There aren’t even good proxy data that we can use in the meantime.

Hope that helps.

Later I found this article in Packaging Digest, which provides further insight into the RPET “situation:”

The need for data grows as PCR content becomes more common

Given the popular consumer perception that packaging is wasteful, there is an intensive effort to improve packaging performance and recoverability, with manufacturers evaluating material and design alternatives to differentiate their packages on-shelf. Recycled content appeals to consumers and directly responds to concerns of packaging waste. Brand owners are testing ways to incorporate post-consumer-recycled (PCR) content into packaging where virgin material had been the norm.

Packaging developed with recycled polymers has been particularly in demand. Increasing recycled content across the packaging spectrum is perceived to have enhanced environmental profiles over virgin-content counterparts. In many instances, this is true, particularly with plastics, but it's often hard to quantify these environmental benefits due to a lack of data for recycled materials.

Life-cycle assessment (LCA) methods can help quantify the benefits and illuminate tradeoffs of virgin and recycled materials. Yet a methodology is only as accurate as the data collected. There are hundreds of industrial processes that contribute to the creation of a single package. The LCA methodology requires detailed data about all the processes that go into bringing a packaged product to market, not just the obvious ones.

Enterprising companies have made great strides in introducing packaging with a high percentage of PCR content, even for food contact applications that have stricter regulations. Many of these innovations can be attributed to leader companies that have set up unique relationships for material collection and conversion to produce a small set of products.

These companies have made significant investments and are paying higher prices to produce packaging with green attributes. However, to accurately communicate what the environmental benefits are, manufacturers need to be able to quantify the specifics of the environmental advantages of using PCR content in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, material usage, water consumption and other environmental metrics.

Using LCA methodology to compare a recycled plastic package with a virgin one will allow companies to credibly quantify a package's environmental savings, as well as justify the investment in PCR materials. Yet one needs life-cycle inventory (LCI) data, or the inputs and outputs for the entire life cycle for both materials, to make these calculations. LCI data are essential not only for assessing packaging applications, but also for all sorts of product development that uses the same commodity materials. The requisite LCI data for some virgin materials are publicly available, though some are outdated or incomplete, and we have a reasonable understanding of the various human and environmental impacts associated with their production and use. Unfortunately, the same kind of detailed and current data for most recycled forms of the commodity materials used in packaging are not yet publicly available. Efforts are underway to ensure the data for recycled materials become publicly available. Until then, the lack of LCI data for many commodity materials is a serious impediment to measurable progress along sustainability goals.

This article is accessible at: http://www.packagingdigest.com/article/447099-The_need_for_data_grows_as_PCR_content_becomes_more_common.php?rssid=20535&q=minal+mistry.

Hmmm…time to speak with our material suppliers of RPET to see why they haven’t released any LCI data…looks like we are about to travel into “proprietary” waters again; great.

Tune in tomorrow to get the much anticipated results of our RPET samples’ “test!”

Hello! Sorry I didn’t post yesterday! I am now a new resident of the West Loop, Chicago. Moving yesterday was a total debacle: movers came early, I didn’t have enough boxes, I got lost on the way to my new place and ended up too far West for one’s own good, and then I got locked out of my new place and had to call a lock smith. Fun times…

Well I’m back and ready to talk about recycling in America!

Where were we?

Two days later I arrived to the office anticipating the results of our RPET samples’ “test” to determine if our RPET is “read” like bottle-grade PET. Here’s the thinking: If our RPET moves through the MRF’s optical sorting technology like PET bottles, then we would have some leverage to approach our suppliers of post consumer regrind PET with and suggest they accept bales of PET bottles with our RPET thermoforms in the mix. It’s worth a shot, right? I swear, as this recycling initiative moves forward it keeps changing. For those of you who are new to my blog or have not followed the narrative, these are some possible solutions to finding a way to recycle thermoformed packaging:

1. Integrate our RPET thermoforms into the existing PET bottle recycling infrastructure. This is large scale and regionally a-specific.
2. Work with our supplier of PCR PET to create a pilot program that works as follows:

• We would work with WM to designate a bale for PET bottles AND RPET thermoforms (either just our packages, so we could certify the integrity of the resin feedstock, or all RPET thermoforms, which may get a little messy depending on which domestic/international markets said material is originating from);
• This bale would sit at WM collecting PET bottles and RPET thermoforms until full;
• This mixed bale of RPET thermoforms and PET bottles would be purchased by our material supplier who would clean, grind, and extrude the mixed bale to create sheets for us to thermoform;
• We would ensure that we would buy this mixed thermoform and bottle-grade RPET sheet, providing security for the material supplier to engage in this initiative;
• We would test this mixed sheet with our machines and see what the output is.

1. Create a new end market for low-grade, mixed rigid plastic packaging, as is the case in some communities on the East and West coasts where all plastic, once the PET bottles and HDPE jugs are removed for recycling, are collected for reprocessing. Sometimes this reprocessing manifests itself in lumber applications and sometimes this low-grade plastic mix is sold to international markets for WTE or perhaps feedstock for resin production.

So yeah…don’t really know what the best approach is…any suggestions?

Now that we have recapped, let us return to December 1^st, 2009.

Upon arrival to the office I shot my contact at WM the following email:

Good day!

I hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving weekend.

I just wanted to drop you a quick email inquiring into the status of our samples’ analysis via optical sorting. At your earliest convenience, please let me know if you have received the status of said analysis.

Thanks again for your time; I owe you lunch!

Best,

Chandler Slavin

Later that day I received the following response:

Hi Chandler,

Thanks for the note, yes, it was a nice Holiday break. I will reach out to my contact and our Grayslake plant manager this week to see if there's any update. The big issue as I think you know is on the buyer's end....even if WM can accept and sort your PET material, the buyer's of PET typically only recover the bottle grades, any other plastic is typically discarded. 

TICK TOCK.

Tune in tomorrow to learn more about recycling in America!

Goooooood day! I finally finished my report on Extended Producer Responsibility/Product Stewardship. Look out for it at www.dordan.com under the sustainability tab!

Let us resume our clamshell recycling initiative narrative:

The next day I arrived to the office feeling much better having received Robert’s insightful email. I felt as though my journey of discovering an end-of-life market for thermoformed packaging was slowly making progress. I had established that if our RPET packages are “read” like PET bottles via the MRF’s optical sorting technology, we could integrate our RPET packages into this recycling infrastructure. I also learned that we could develop a new market for mixed rigid plastic packaging post-consumer (that is, non-bottle grade plastic material), as is often the case in CA. I wonder which would be more cumbersome…Ha!

To my surprise, I received an email from the Environmental Director at Starbucks, responding to the email I sent yesterday.

Chandler,

Thanks for the email.

I am traveling in Los Angeles this afternoon and won’t return until Friday evening. I will be in the office next week, so please feel free to give me a call at your convenience. The best time to catch me is between 7:30 and 8:00 on weekdays, before meetings start up.

Cheers!

GROOOOOVVVVVVYYYYYYY. It looks like I may get my interview after all! My father, who is also coincidently the owner of Dordan, told me “not to hold my breath” about actually getting to speak with the Environmental Director of Starbucks. Not to be a jerk, but I love proving him wrong, at least for the better.

And another beneficial development: I had several responses to the discussion I started on greenerpackage.com about trying to recycling non-bottle PET thermoforms. The most insightful was from the Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers, who I discussed briefly in an earlier post.

Check it out:

The Plastic Recyclers Viewpoint...

Posted on behalf of the Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers (APR):

Back when the world was younger and more uniform, there was one fairly simply defined PET resin used for 2 liter soft drink bottles. PET makes an excellent 2 liter soft drink bottle. Then more packagers wanted to use PET bottles for other products with other needs. The result today is that the PET used for bottles encompasses a range of molecular weights and potential additives.

Thermoformed packaging made from PET may use similar resin as is used for bottles or may use even lower molecular weight (lower IV) plastic. The technical needs for thermoformed packaging are not necessarily the same as for bottle packaging. There is an overlap in IV ranges used for bottles and for thermoformed sheet. Does the potential for IV difference preclude recycling the two forms together? No. End use markets dictate how significant are the differences for recycled plastics from different first uses. Are there additive conflicts? Unlikely, but not assuredly.

So why the reluctance to include thermoforms with PET bottles? There are at least two current reasons. First, the risk of serious contamination is great. A thermoform of non-PET can visually look like PET and be a huge problem. Think inclusion of PVC with the PET. This problem has been a showstopper in North America. In China, hand sorting can overcome the problem if the resin code is accurate. The second problem is a materials handling problem. Crushed thermoforms do not behave like crushed bottles. They do not “fly” the same in autosorting equipment and they do not bale the same. If bales are made too dense, the material does not process as efficiently as it should. Adjusting to the differences takes time and effort.

Does this mean PET thermoforms cannot be recycled? No. Thermoforms are recyclable, once we get through the growing pains of special needs and critical mass. Would sustainability be better served by switching all thermoforms to a different material? Probably not as non-PET, non-polyolefin resins are even more problematic in being accommodated in existing collection and sorting systems.

So why are multiple resins used? In some cases that decision is for aesthetic or performance reasons. Usually, economics dominate. And sometimes tradition keeps on happening. As has been the case for bottles, there does seem to be a gravitating by decision makers to a few resins. The challenge is to develop the infrastructure that allows for efficient handling and sorting to useful resin categories and then to develop markets for those categories.

This response was written by Dave Cornell, Technical Director for APR. For more info on the Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers, including published Design for Recyclability Guidelines, www.plasticsrecycling.org

Posted November 19, 2009

Radical! Design for Recyclability Guidelines, eh? Sounds right up my alley. Time to do some more research!

Tune in tomorrow to learn more about recycling in America!

Its sunny today, which in Chicago in March is no small feat!

Sorry if today’s post seems repetitive…if you hadn’t noticed, I am trying to describe my attempts at finding an end-of-life market for thermoformed packaging as a story, a narrative of sorts, which moves chronologically through time on the vehicle of email exchanges between myself and others in the plastics, sustainability, and recycling industries. I realized that I had omitted an email exchange between myself and Robert Carlson of the CA EPA from November 16^th, so I edited yesterday’s post to be more “real.”

Because Robert with the CA EPA seemed extra-curious about what I meant by “I have so much to tell you,” I sent him the following email upon my arrival to the office on November 17^th:

Hey Robert,

So here’s the update on everything:

I have been talking with various people in WM, SPI, SPC, etc. to determine what the feasibility is of establishing: (1) either a new end market for mixed rigid plastic packages or, (2) integrating our RPET packages (non-food) into the existing PET bottle recycling infrastructure.

In regard to the former option: This seems more difficult to implement in the near future because the quantity is not there, as is the case with PET bottles. Moreover, because of all the different materials in various kinds of plastic packaging (food, medical, consumer goods), it is difficult to collect enough of any one material to find an end market for it. At the same time, however, I am cooking up an idea where we would form a partnership with a retailer in order to provide them with guidelines for all plastic packaging. Our guidelines would dictate that all plastic packages sold at this retailer would have to be of the same type of material, in order to establish the quantity necessary to find an end market for it. We could even go so far as to require customers to open their consumer goods’ packages in store and place the plastic and paper components into collection bins, to be hauled away by a contracted third-party. I believe they do this at some European retail chains. I am trying to find more information on the logistics of this approach.

There is also the option to “down-cycle” as you put it. I have a dialogue going with a rep from Polyflow who explained that they would buy mixed rigid and flexible plastic packaging, with or without food contamination, and convert it to gasoline diesel fuels. I have attached a white paper from Polyflow, which discusses its capabilities. Apparently, the cost to landfill is comparable to the cost to process this unwanted material in the Polyflow facility. I know you explained why this option is seen as less superior to recycling but I believe that this may be a better option for the polymer industry, especially as new additives and materials emerge on the market. Please see the attached sheet, if interested, and let me know what you think of this as an option for waste management.

In regard to the second option: As you alluded to, PVC packages are a problem because they contaminate the PET waste stream. I received a similar perceptive from an anonymous non-profit, who explained that plastic packages, even if PET or RPET, are not recycled because of the possibility of having a PVC package get into the bale. What I don’t understand, however, is where are mixed rigid packages even collected for recycling where the PVC contamination would be an issue? My rep at WM explained that buyers of baled PET bottles don’t want plastic packages (clamshells) in the bales because the possibility that one may be PVC. This, however, implies that there could be a market for rigid plastic packages (PET, RPET) outside of the PET bottle recycling infrastructure. Do you know where or by whom mixed rigid plastic packages are collected for recycling?

Currently, I have sent out 50 RPET clamshell samples to my contact at WM to run through their optical sorting technology to see if our RPET material is compatible with the PET bottle material (same IVs and what not). If so, we could maybe find a buyer of a mixed bale of PET bottles and RPET plastic packages (non food). After all, we have certification from our suppliers that our RPET has a minimum 70% recycled content (from PET bottles); therefore, one would assume that our material would be very similar to the PET bottle material and as such, have an end market because the quantity is already there, we are just adding to it. Moreover, if we can ensure that our plastic packages are compatible with the PET bottle material, we may be able to have our material supplier buy the mixed baled PET bottles and RPET packages to be reground and sold back to us, thus being closed loop.

I am still waiting to talk with the Environmental Director at Starbucks in regard to how the buyers of baled corrugate are dealing with the introduction of a new material (coffee cups). I believe we have a similar situation with buyers of baled PET bottles—they don’t want to introduce a new type of product (RPET clams, blisters, etc.) into their collection protocol.

We also just subscribed to COMPASS, the Sustainable Packaging Coalition’s comparative life cycle packaging assessment tool, which allows us to see the environmental ramifications of our material choices in the design phase; cool beans!

AND, I am kicking off a new marketing campaign for Dordan for 2010—I’ll keep you posted!

So that’s that. How are things with you? What is making you so busy?

Best,

Chandler Slavin

Tune in tomorrow to see where my recycling initiative takes me next!

Another sunny day in Chicago! I just don’t know what to do with myself!

The next day I arrived to find an empty inbox. Ug! I had sent out a gizzillion emails and gone as far as I could go with my recycling initiative until I knew the status of our “test.” Four weeks all of a sudden felt like a life time…

I scrolled through my emails to see if there was anything I had forgotten to follow up on. And then it hit me: my phone-interview with the Environmental Director of Starbucks about the launch of his cup-recycling program. Below is the editorial about this initiative, which got me interested in talking with the Environmental Director responsible for its implementation:

NY Starbucks stores launch cup-recycling program

Posted by Anne Marie Mohan, Managing Editor, GreenerPackage.com, September 10, 2009 

Seven Starbucks stores in Manhattan have launched a cup-recycling program in cooperation with Global Green USA’s Coalition for Resource Recovery (CORR). The pilot will test the collection and recycling of coffee cups when combined with old corrugated cardboard (OCC), which CORR says is the most extensively recycled material in the U.S. The objective of the program is to develop a cost-effective mechanism to close the loop on paper packaging, reducing greenhouse gases and assisting municipalities in reaching their solid waste diversion goals.

Starbucks participation in the pilot is an extension of the company’s efforts to develop a comprehensive recyclable cup solution by 2012. While Starbucks paper coffee cups can be recycled and composted in some communities, most commercial and residential services are not currently able to process this form of packaging. “In addition to the cup design, it’s critical that we address the full product life cycle—including the recycling collection infrastructure,” says Jim Hanna, Starbucks director of Environmental Impact. “Any enduring solution will require collaboration with stakeholders across the value chain.”

For the pilot, Western Michigan University’s Coating and Recycling Pilot plants tested a representative sample of the cups used in Starbucks stores and certified them as OCC-E, offering equivalent recyclability and repulpability as old corrugated cardboard using the Fibre Box Association's Wax Alternative Protocol.

Paper bag manufacturer Duro Bag is designing a special paper bin liner so cups can be collected and recycled along with the corrugated cardboard. The prototype bag will be tested as part of the trial. Action Carting, the largest commercial carter in New York City, is collecting the bags along with the corrugated cardboard.

Pratt Industries will recycle a trial run of the bags and their contents, testing them for their recyclability and repulpability compared to existing feedstock at the company’s mill on Staten Island. Pratt’s Sustainable Design Incubator provided design guidance for the pilot, which is being coordinated and monitored by Global Green USA. Results of the pilot will be available in November.

According to CoRR, every year, 58 billion paper cups are used in the U.S. at restaurants, events, and homes. If all paper cups in the U.S. were recycled, 645,000 tons of waste would be diverted from landfills each year, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2.5 million mtCO2e, equivalent to removing 450,000 passenger cars from the road.

Says CORR director Annie White, “The lessons learned from the cup recycling pilot can be applied to the recycling of hamburger, pizza, and French fry containers, and all sorts of other paper food packaging. If the initial pilot is successful, CORR will expand the pilot to encompass more packaging types and restaurants, furthering our objective of generating business value and closing the loop on packaging.”

According to James McDonald, director of Sustainability for International Paper, “As an active member of CORR, International Paper supplied cups to Western Michigan University for recyclability testing and subsequent approval to the OCC-E protocol. Our participation not only supports this important pilot, it also furthers International Paper's goals of providing responsible sustainable packaging for our customers.”

The foodservice packaging recycling project is but one of several of Global Green USA’s CORR projects dedicated to generating business value through creating a sustainable, zero waste New York City. In March, CORR launched an initiative with the Hunts Point Distribution Center in New York City, the world’s largest food DC, to substitute all of its nonrecyclable transfer packaging with recyclable packaging.

To visit this article on greenerpackage.com:

http://www.greenerpackage.com/sourcing_renewable/ny_starbucks_stores_launch_cup-recycling_program

Robert Carlson with the CA EPA had suggested I contact the Environmental Director of Starbucks after I had introduced my recycling initiative that looks to find an end-of-life market for thermoformed packages post-consumer to him. I was honored when the Environmental Director agreed to talk with me in October. I had not yet been able to get my interview, even though I was just as determined.

I sent the Environmental Director of Starbucks the following “reminder” email:

Greetings,

Sorry to be a bother but I just wanted to reaffirm my interest in chatting with you about the status of the pilot recycling intiative for Starbucks coffee cups in several NY Starbucks’ stores. I am trying to find an end of life market for our RPET plastic packaging (clamshells, blisters, trays, etc. [non-food]) either within the existing PET bottle recycling infastrucitre or by creating a new end market for mixed rigid plastic packaging. It seems as though buyers of baled PET don’t want plastic packages in it for fear of PVC contamination or the introduction of other contaminates. I was curious how buyers of baled corrugate were handling the introduction of a new material (Starbucks coffee cups) because I feel as though it is a similar situation with persuading buyers of baled PET that RPET clamshells will not contaminate the feedstock.

Please let me know when I can catch you in the office.

Thanks!

Chandler

Tune in tomorrow for Robert Carlson’s (with the CA EPA) response to the “what’s new with me” email. It is jam-packed with goodness!

After sending out several emails to contacts in different organizations (who wish to remain anonymous), I received the following information about non-bottle PET recycling. Hopefully you will find this information as valuable as I did in my journey to discover why PET clamshells, blisters, trays and components are not recycled in most American communities.

Quick answers:

1. Including blister packs into PET bottle recyclate is unlikely to be good idea;
2. Clear PET trays might be technically okay to be mixed in with PET bottles – but there is a sorting problem due to PVC;
3. PET trays/clamshells/blister packs could be sorted out of the residual mixed plastics waste to make an rPET grade – although this may prove to be more restricted in markets than bottle recyclate.

PET types

Blister packs that aren’t PVC generally use a copolymer of PET called PET-G or PETG. This is softer and tougher than standard PET and can’t crystallize, so is used for some PET films and thin sheet applications because the manufacturing is easier (even though the material is a bit more expensive). ?Some clamshells and trays use PET-G, but most will use standard PET identical to that used for bottles. All ovenable frozen food trays use crystallized PET as they need to stay rigid at high temperature – this is chemically identical to bottle grade, but most frozen food trays are pigmented anyway?

PET-G can be a problem in PET recycling. A little bit probably would never be noticed, but if significant sources of PET-G were going to be used as feedstock for any particular process, this would have to be fully tested in trials by the re-processor and the end-users – recyclate for use in bottles (made by injection stretch blow molding) might not be able to accept much PET-G without quality problems, but a recyclate intended for trays or clamshells (made by sheet extrusion and thermoforming) might be fine.

PVC Issue

Getting PET packages recycled also depends on the confidence and cost of being able to extract the PET from the commingled plastics without excessive PVC contamination, which degrades at PET processing temperatures (causes yellowing, black specks and may affect food-contact status)

Since clear PVC is widely used in these sort of packages as well as PET and the two are visually indistinguishable except by inspection of the plastics code (if present) then manual pre-sorting and final checking won’t be feasible based on container shape as it is for bottles. Therefore the automatic sorting would have to start from a very high contamination level– this increases the difficulty of getting to a low enough level of PVC content.

With PET bottle recycling, it is already a little difficult to keep PVC low enough, as PVC gets into the bottle stream anyway in the form of labels and cap liners – if you tried to include trays etc, then only a few PVC packs would need to sneak through the sort process to downgrade a batch.

Hence, recyclers are hesitant to include PET clamshells, trays etc with sorted PET bottles because they might end up with lower incomes despite the higher volumes.

All this means to me that it is more sensible to try to get PET clamshells and trays from the mixed plastics fraction (after already removing bottles) and finding a market for that quality of rPET, rather than trying to sort bottles and clamshells/trays together. This is the approach being tested by WRAP (Nextek are running a project for them).

Okay…so based on this insight, it is more feasible to create a new end-market for mixed rigid plastic material than to try and integrate our PET packages into the existing PET-bottle recycling infrastructure…

That’s all for today folks; I think we should all let this information sink in. Tune in tomorrow for more discoveries about recycling in America!