Friday, March 23, 2012

Seeing Packaging as More Than a Throwaway

Brushing your teeth with a yogurt container? Wiping your mouth with a coffee cup?

You might be doing both, as a result of a new trend in recycling, courtesy of the manufacturers who make the original products. A growing number of large food and beverage companies in the United States are assuming the costs of recycling their packaging after consumers are finished with it, a responsibility long imposed on packaged goods companies in Europe and more recently in parts of Asia, Latin America and Canada.
 Several factors are converging to make what is known as “extended producer responsibility” more attractive and, perhaps, more commonplace in the United States.
 “Local governments are literally going broke and so are looking for ways to shift the costs of recycling off onto someone, and companies that make the packaging are logical candidates,” said Jim Hanna, director of environmental impact at the Starbucks Corporation. “More environmentally conscious consumers are demanding that companies share their values, too.”
 Perhaps most important, he said, “companies are becoming more aware that resources are limited and what they’ve traditionally thrown away — wow, it has value.” It is now cheaper to recycle an aluminum can into a new can than it is to make one from virgin material, and the same is becoming true for plastic bottles.
 “Shredding, melting, recasting and rerolling used aluminum beverage cans into new aluminum can sheet saves 95 percent of the energy that it takes to make can sheet from raw ore,” said Beth Schmitt, director of recycling at Alcoa.
 The principle is the same with used plastic bottles, which are made from petroleum — and are one of the country’s largest exports to China, where they are used to make fabric fibers. “Tuna cans, cereal boxes, laundry detergent bottles — all of it has value in end markets that are thirsty for it,” said Michael Washburn, director of sustainability at Nestlé Waters North America, a bottled-water producer.
 So far, company-sponsored recycling efforts are voluntary in the United States. Many states have laws requiring companies to take responsibility for spent products like batteries and mercury switches, but so far, only Maine has a law that might shift the cost of discarded packaging to business. Passed in 2010, it established a framework that allows the state to add products, including packaging, to the list of those for which manufacturers must assume the costs of disposal. So far, however, no new products have been added.
 Opposition to mandated responsibility for packaging after use is widespread, even among companies that are already required to do it abroad. “We’re not convinced there’s compelling evidence that it’s the most appropriate solution for the U.S.,” said Meghan Stasz, director of sustainability at the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents more than 300 food, beverage and packaged goods companies.
 Nonetheless, a few prominent food and beverage companies are moving on their own to recapture their packaging after their customers are done with it.
 Coca-Cola has a whole subsidiary, Coca-Cola Recycling L.L.C., devoted to its stated goal of ensuring the recycling of 100 percent of its cans and bottles in North America by 2015 and 50 percent in the rest of the world. To that end, seven factories owned wholly or in part by the company toil away around the globe recycling plastic, including one in Spartanburg, S.C.
Coke is also experimenting with biodegradable packaging materials. Products like Dasani and Sprite come in PlantBottles made of polyethylene terephthalate or PET, which are up to 30 percent plant-based and can go through the same process that regular, 100 percent oil-based PET bottles go through. The packaging has won awards and last year became a new source of revenue for Coke when the H. J. Heinz Company licensed it for use in its ketchup bottles. The company also places bins at events and locations like Nascar races to collect bottles for recycling.
Asking customers to return packaging to bins is a growing trend among companies. Starbucks now has bins in which customers can deposit their cups at 18 percent of its stores in the United States and Canada, up from 5 percent just a year ago. The company has a goal of 100 percent by 2015.


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  • The New York Times

    By STEPHANIE STROM
    Published: March 23, 2012

    Monday, March 5, 2012

    $4.4M will boost bio-product initiative


    A federal investment of more than $4.4 million through Western Economic Diversification Canada will boost the Alberta Crop Industry Development Fund Ltd.’s efforts to test and commercialize new products derived from crops and grains.
    Additional support is also being provided through the Alberta Barley Commission and Alberta Innovates Bio Solutions.
    The Alberta government ACIDF will establish and equip a manufacturing facility to produce crop-based protein and cellulose derivatives used as ingredients for a variety of commercial products.
    The initiative builds on research conducted through the University of Alberta’s Cereal Protein and Cellulose Program, which has developed industrial products, including protein films that could be used to make biodegradable, thermo-plastic packaging.
    The new manufacturing facility will partner with commercial manufacturers to assist them with pilot-scale production, testing and the demonstration of products and technologies that, if successful, will be licensed to and manufactured by industry partners.
    Pilot plant to produce crop-based protein and cellulose derivatives