Tupperware Brands Corp., Orlando, Florida, debuted its reusable Eco Straw in select markets last year. The product was the first in the company’s portfolio to be manufactured using Eco+, which the company describes as “circular polymers” made by depolymerizing mixed plastics to produce high-quality food-grade plastic.
Since the Eco Straw’s introduction last year, Tupperware has expanded its use of Eco+ and is also testing bio-based materials in its products and packaging as part of its No Time to Waste campaign, which seeks to significantly reduce plastic and food waste by 2025.
No time to waste
Bill Wright, Tupperware Brands executive vice president, product innovation and supply chain, says the company's products provide an alternative to “throw-away plastic.” The 74-year-old company, he adds, was “sustainable before sustainable was in vogue,” manufacturing products that are designed to be durable, high quality and reusable and that help to keep food fresh longer.
Wright says the company’s No Time to Waste campaign, which was launched in 2019, is focused in four areas: engage, design, produce and reuse.
Under the engage pillar, Tupperware has joined the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastic Economy Global Commitment, committing to a set of concrete targets to create a circular economy for plastics by 2025 and to report its progress. The company also has partnered with World Central Kitchen, a global nonprofit founded by chef José Andrés that is centered on reducing the impact of single-use plastics in disaster relief efforts by providing in-kind reusable Tupperware products and logistical support, he says.
Under the design pillar, the company is prioritizing product design and material innovation in the form of circular or bio-based polymers, Wright says, adding that Tupperware invests $17 million to $18 million per year in research and development. The company says its products will continue to be designed for increased reusability and will be marketed and demonstrated in ways that increase users' sustainable practices.
Under its produce pillar, Tupperware says it will eliminate the use of single-use plastic packaging for its products by 2025 while also reducing waste, increasing renewable energy and limiting the amount of water used in its operations. This year alone, Wright says, the company reduced its use of plastic packaging by 30 percent. By 2022, Tupperware is targeting a 50 percent reduction. Tupperware Brands also is pursuing zero waste to landfill by 2025 across all its operations. Wright says the company is well-ahead of its goal, having reached zero waste to landfill at 11 of its 13 manufacturing locations.
In the area of reuse, Tupperware Brands is committed to offering single-use plastic alternatives and to enhancing the return process for all Tupperware products, Wright says. By 2025, the company wants to recycle and repurpose 90 percent of its returned products. These items will be processed in-house for use in its Recycline products or through toll arrangements, he adds.
The company’s Recycline was started in 2011 in Europe to process products that come back from consumers because they don’t use them anymore or because they are defective and returned through Tupperware’s warranty program. Recycline products are sold in Europe, but all Tupperware manufacturing sites recycle Tupperware returns. By virtue of the mechanical recycling process, the company says its Recycline products are not for food contact but are in the home organization category, like paper towel holders and bottle organizers. Also, because the end-of-life products processed by the company are in a wide array of colors, Recycline products are black.
Photo courtesy of Tupperware
The Eco Straw was Tupperware's first product to use chemically recycled plastic supplied by SABIC.More recent innovation
Despite its use of internally recycled material, Tupperware has not broadly incorporated mechanically recycled plastics into its products. Wright says that while the company “experimented, tested and tried” to use recycled content, it didn’t find material that could meet its quality standards, which he describes as the “cornerstone” of the brand. When Tupperware could get the functionality it needed from mechanically recycled material, it was not food grade, he says.
Enter chemical recycling.
Last year, in collaboration with its long-time supplier SABIC (Saudi Basic Industries Corp.), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Tupperware Brands became one of four companies to introduce ISCC (International Sustainability and Carbon Certification) certified circular polymers made from chemically recycling mixed plastics.
SABIC produces its circular polymers from Tacoil, a patented product from U.K.-based Plastic Energy Ltd. that is made from chemically recycling mixed plastics. SABIC processes this feedstock on its production site at Geleen in the Netherlands. SABIC and Plastic Energy are building a commercial plant in the Netherlands to manufacture and process the feedstock, with plans calling for the facility to be online in 2021.
Tupperware is using Eco+ in products that are designed to replace single-use products, Wright says. After introducing the reusable straw last year using a polypropylene circular polymer, the company launched a cup designed to replace to-go coffee cups.
Wright says Tupperware is committed to purchasing additional chemically recycled polymers as SABIC’s production ramps up. “We are looking for opportunities to use Eco+ as industry catches up with demand.”
The material comes at a higher cost than that of virgin material, but Wright says that is “part of our investment in this to live to our promise and reduce our impact on the planet.”
Right now, he says, the biggest issue is securing enough Eco+ material to meet demand. The Eco Straw and Eco To-Go Cups manufactured from the material sold out in a matter of days.
Wright says Tupperware also is in discussions with Eastman, Kingsport, Tennessee, to explore using that company’s chemically recycled polymers.
Tupperware also has had discussions with TerraCycle, Trenton, New Jersey, on establishing a product return program, Wright says. More recently the companies have discussed the possibility of Tupperware supplying packaging for use in TerraCycle’s Loop system, which offers a variety of products in customized, brand-specific durable packaging that is delivered directly to customers, then collected, cleaned and refilled. That program is available in the U.K., in every ZIP code in the contiguous 48 U.S. states and the Paris-metro area, Les Yvelines region and Lille in France.
Wright says if the companies reach an agreement in this area, it will mark the first time that Tupperware has helped to develop a packaging solution for another brand. “It would be a different way to look at Tupperware,” he says. “We have always been the end product and not the packaging.”
All of these discussions and Tupperware’s use of recycled content to this point are helping the company realize the commitment it has made through the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastic Economy “that fulfills our future brand promise and lives up to our brand heritage,” Wright says.
ISRI surveys MRFs for Recyclability Protocol & Certification program
The new program is designed to help clear up confusion regarding product recyclability.
Following the launch of its new venture to provide clarity into which products are truly recyclable, the Washington-based Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) has announced that its Recyclability Protocol & Certification program for fiber-based packaging is moving to its next stage of development, which includes a confidential survey.
“Moving to the next stage of this protocol development emphasizes the full efforts put forth by ISRI to ensure this critical need is met,” says ISRI President Robin Wiener. “We look forward to receiving the survey results and taking the next steps to ensure this protocol meets the needs of producers as they work to design with recycling in mind and of consumers interested in being more conscious shoppers as it relates to recycling.”
Launched in June, ISRI’s Recyclability Protocol & Certification program is designed to help solve the ongoing confusion in the marketplace over what products are truly recyclable. During this upcoming phase, Atlanta-based Moore & Associates on behalf of ISRI will administer a confidential survey to material recovery facilities (MRFs) nationwide to gain an inventory of packaging that is recycled. The survey will provide details on packaging materials, shape and size as well as regional variances in technology and capacity.
According to a news release from ISRI on its new Recyclability Protocol & Certification program, the results from the confidential survey will help to shape the new certification program. ISRI says the goal is to have more fiber-based packaging that is designed with the intent to be recyclable based on both technical and market demand criteria.
ISRI says it expects to complete the development of its Recyclability Protocol & Certification program early in 2021. Once complete, ISRI says the final protocol will incorporate data on the technical recyclability of packaging based on existing technologies and capacity as well as market demand data for the materials. The protocol and certification will assist packaging manufacturers, packaging designers and brand owners in understanding what is recyclable, especially in the design stage, as fostered by ISRI’s Design for Recycling initiative. The program also will inform consumers that their effort to choose recyclable fiber-based packaging for their products is the sustainable choice.
ISRI reports that it hopes to expand this certification program to other products made from recyclable commodities after the initial program is developed.
MRFs that are interested in taking part in the survey should contact Susan Cornish or Bill Moore with Moore & Associates.
A lawmaker in Pennsylvania is working to further legislation that is designed to help advanced recycling of plastic scrap. Pennsylvania state Rep. Ryan E. Mackenzie introduced House Bill 1808 in August 2019 that calls for changing the regulatory classification of waste facilities to manufacturing plants as a way to encourage investment in the recycling industry.
HB 1808 would seek to ensure postuse plastics “are not misclassified as solid waste.”
“Recycling and recovery technologies represent an emerging market and provide the ability to remove plastics from the waste stream by converting them into valuable feedstock for new materials,” the legislation states. “Treating postuse plastics as raw materials for ‘manufacturing’ and not ‘waste’ will remove the barriers of misclassifying this emerging industry and promote continued innovation and investment.
“The current law does not clearly classify these new technologies as manufacturing and this legislation will provide regulatory certainty as the postuse plastics and recycling industry grows. … With China’s recent rejection of U.S. waste plastics, it is critically important that we advance policies and a regulatory framework that will allow these technologies to flourish.”
The legislation passed in the state’s House of Representatives in July and is now being considered by the state’s Senate.
“By classifying the new plants as manufacturing and not waste facilities, the legislation will encourage investment in an industry that will help eliminate the ugly sight of plastic wrappers, shopping bags and other plastic waste from our roads, streams and fields,” the blog states. “These new businesses use a thermal decomposition process (pyrolysis) to transform the plastic waste into feedstock for new products. And this new industry that will provide family-sustaining jobs will need a workforce.”
Additionally, the Pennsylvania Chemical Industry Council also has expressed support for this bill and advancing opportunities for pyrolysis in the state.
“While this technology may be new to Pennsylvania, across the country, private companies are already manufacturing postuse plastics at a commercial scale into a versatile mix of new chemicals, feedstocks, products and more environmentally friendly transportation fuels,” says Abby Foster, president of the Pennsylvania Chemical Industry Council.
However, the legislation has received some pushback from groups as well. The Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) released a report in July that was endorsed by the Clean Air Council, PennEnvironment and Nothing Left to Waste that analyzed the processes of advanced recycling that were being promoted in HB 1808.
“The petrochemical industry has promoted the idea of recycling plastic into plastic for decades,” the GAIA report states. “However, the evidence is lacking. As of today, after decades of development, there is no public evidence that any facility in the U.S. is successfully recovering waste plastic to produce new plastic on a commercial scale. In addition, the economic outlook of the chemical recycling industry is highly uncertain and is subject to downside risks.”
“Calling a hot dog sushi doesn’t make it sushi, and calling burning plastics ‘recycling’ doesn’t make it anything other than what it is: just another way to burn fossil fuels,” says Stephanie Wein, conservation advocate at PennEnvironment. “The Ccommonwealth is about to set a horrible precedent by defining plastic combustion as recycling.”
Photo courtesy of Republic Services
Republic benefits from higher commodity prices, lower fuel prices in Q3
Its average recycled commodity price per ton sold in the third quarter was $99, an increase of $27 per ton from Q3 of 2019.
Republic Services Inc., headquartered in Phoenix, has reported net income of $260 million, or 81 cents per diluted share, for the quarter ended Sept. 30. In the comparable quarter of 2019, the company’s net income was $298.3 million, or 93 cents per diluted share. Excluding certain gains and expenses, on an adjusted basis, net income for the recently completed quarter totaled $319.3 million, or $1 per diluted share, versus $290.3 million, or 90 cents per diluted share, for the comparable 2019 period.
"During the third quarter, we expanded adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, deprecation and amortization) margin 230 basis points and delivered double-digit growth in adjusted earnings and adjusted free cash flow,” Republic CEO Donald W. Slager says in the news release announcing the company’s quarterly financial performance. “We continued to provide quality service to our customers while effectively managing our costs, and we are extremely pleased with our results.
“Given the continued strength of our business and steadfast execution by the entire Republic team, we are raising our 2020 full-year adjusted free cash flow guidance,” Slager continues. “I am proud of our team and the dedication and resiliency they have demonstrated, which has positioned us well for continued profitable growth."
Republic mentions a number of highlights for the quarter:
Third-quarter earnings per share (EPS) were 81 cents, while adjusted EPS, a non-GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) measure, totaled $1, an increase of approximately 11 percent over the prior year, according to Republic.
Year-to-date cash provided by operating activities was $1,909 million, an increase of 6.8 percent versus the prior year. Adjusted free cash flow, a non-GAAP measure, for the same period was $1,109 million, an increase of 13.8 percent versus the prior year. The increase in adjusted free cash flow was primarily because of growth in EBITDA and improvements in working capital, the company says.
Year-to-date cash flow invested in acquisitions totaled $154 million, or $119 million net of divestitures. Republic says it expects to invest $850 million to $900 million in acquisitions for the full year.
Third-quarter core price increased revenue by 4.5 percent, which consisted of 5.4 percent in the open market and 3.2 percent in the restricted portion of the business.
Third-quarter average yield was 2.6 percent.
Third-quarter adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP measure, was $781 million, an increase of $41 million versus the prior year.
Third-quarter adjusted EBITDA margin was 30.3 percent of revenue and increased 230 basis points over the prior year. This included a 70 basis point benefit from higher recycled commodity prices and lower fuel costs, according to the company.
Republic says it continued to convert consumer price index- (CPI-) based contracts to more favorable pricing mechanisms for the annual price adjustment. The company adds that it has approximately $855 million in annual revenue, or 34 percent of its approximately $2.5 billion CPI-based book of business, tied to a waste-related index or a fixed-rate increase of 3 percent or greater.
Its average recycled commodity price per ton sold in the third quarter was $99, or $27 more than in Q3 of 2019.
Republic also was certified as a Great Place to Work for the fourth consecutive year.
Republic reinstated its full-year 2020 adjusted EPS guidance, saying it expects to generate $3.37 to $3.40 of adjusted EPS for the full year. The company also says it now expects to generate $1.15 billion to $1.20 billion of adjusted free cash flow for the full year, assuming continued gradual improvement in economic activity through the remainder of the year.
Republic’s board of directors approved a $2 billion share repurchase authorization effective Jan. 1, 2021, through Dec. 31, 2023. As of Sept. 30 of this year, the remaining purchase capacity under the prior authorization was $606 million, which continues through Dec. 31.
The company’s board previously declared a regular quarterly dividend of 42.5 cents per share for shareholders of record on Jan. 4, 2021, that will be paid Jan. 15, 2021.
Strong box demand helps WestRock in Q4
The packaging firm reports that net sales increased sequentially but are down slightly from where they were at during its fourth quarter in 2019.
WestRock Co., a provider of paper and packaging solutions based in Atlanta, wrapped up its 2020 fiscal year with net sales at $17.6 billion. According to the company’s latest earnings report and call for the fourth quarter of 2020 Nov. 5, $12.5 billion of the net sales were sales of packaging to a “diverse set of attractive and stable end markets,” while the remaining $5.1 billion of sales were of paperboard and pulp.
Within the fourth quarter, which ended Sept. 30, net sales increased sequentially by 5.6 percent to $4.5 billion. However, fourth-quarter net sales are down by about 3.9 percent compared with the same quarter in 2019. Net sales were down by about $180 million compared with the fourth quarter of 2019.
WestRock reports that its Corrugated Packaging segment and Consumer Packaging segment net sales declined $121 million and $42 million, respectively, primarily because of lower selling price and mix on sales and lower volumes, including the impact of COVID-19 and unfavorable foreign currency impacts. Additionally, Corrugated Packaging segment income decreased $168 million and Consumer Packaging segment income decreased $44 million when compared with the fourth quarter of 2019.
“The WestRock team rose to the challenges of the operating environment in fiscal 2020 and delivered solid financial results, strong cash flow and substantial debt reduction,” says Steve Voorhees, chief executive officer of WestRock regarding the company’s Q4 earnings report. “While the environment remains uncertain, we are seeing strong trends in key end markets and continue to successfully partner with our customers to meet their growing needs for sustainable, fiber-based packaging solutions. We have positive momentum for strong performance in fiscal year 2021.”
Box demand growth
During the company’s earnings call, Voorhees said WestRock’s Corrugated Packaging segment delivered adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $513 million in the fourth quarter, up by about $31 million from the third quarter of the year.
“This shows the momentum in the North American Corrugated Packaging business as box demand increased 5.1 percent sequentially on a per-day basis,” Voorhees said. “As the quarter progressed, box demand increased, and we shifted containerboard tons from lower margin export markets to serve higher value box and domestic customers. As a result, our export shipments fell by 109,000 tons sequentially. With our growth in box shipments, our integration rate rose to 81 percent in the quarter. We’re now selling every ton that we can produce, and we ended the quarter in tight inventories.”
He added that the company is getting new business as a result of corrugated box demand growth. On the call, he said box volumes in September grew and had exceeded the industry volumes reported by the Fibre Box Association. “Our corrugated box backlogs are at record levels, and this signals strong demand growth into the future,” he said. “Our daily box shipments in October were up between 8 percent and 9 percent from the prior year.”
The company also pointed to e-commerce growth as one of the factors spurring box demand growth. Jeff Chalovich, chief commercial officer and president of corrugated packaging at WestRock, said he expects e-commerce demand to continue to grow the next few years, which will be positive for box demand.
“It’s definitely added share in the corrugated space for us,” Chalovich said of e-commerce, adding that the company has noticed a trend of more people buying products online or participating in in-store pickup services.
“The pandemic has accelerated our customers’ demand for sustainable fiber-based packaging solutions, making now an opportune time to be at WestRock working with our customers,” Voorhees said.
He reported that the company also noticed “very strong demand” for containerboard and corrugated packaging in Brazil. “We’re well-positioned to capitalize on the growth in the region with the ramp-up of our Porto Feliz box plant and the completion of the Tres Barras project in the first half of 2021,” Voorhees said.
Earlier this year, WestRock along with other packaging producers had communicated a $50 per ton price increase on containerboard and boxes. However, the company reported on its earnings call that it doesn’t plan to continue to increase those prices into the next fiscal quarter.
Other highlights
The company’s Consumer Packaging reporting unit recorded a noncash goodwill impairment of $1.3 billion, or $5.06 per diluted share, driven by expected lower volumes and cash flows related to certain solid bleached sulphate (SBS) end markets, including commercial print, tobacco and plate and cup stock.
Voorhees added that the company’s specialty kraft paper business also grew in the fourth quarter “as the trend away from plastic bags and envelopes and toward natural fiber-based packaging accelerates.” He noted that WestRock’s shipments of kraft paper were 35,000 tons higher in the fourth quarter of this year compared with the fourth quarter of 2019.
In the fourth quarter, WestRock had $54 million of restructuring costs, primarily including $31 million related to a previously announced shutdown of a paper machine at its Evadale, Texas, mill ($24 million of which was noncash) and $10 million of severance for voluntary early retirements as well as other employee costs and plant consolidations. The company also had $3 million of integration costs in the fourth quarter of the year, primarily related to its fiscal 2019 acquisition of KapStone Paper and Packaging Corp.
DeAnne Toto
Photo courtesy of Tupperware
Posted by Megan Smalley
