Win-Win Formula

Liquid coatings made from scrap PET developed by EvCo Research may also help cardboard and boxboard recycling rates.

Trying to be a "zero-footprint" company is a goal of EvCo Research LLC, Atlanta. Products being developed by the firm
may also help the PET plastics and the paper packaging industries decrease their footprints at the nation’s landfills.

EvCo has formulated a range of liquids with recycled PET plastic as a key ingredient to serve as recycling-friendly coatings on a variety of boxes and paper packaging products. These products can be applied as coatings using conventional coating methods (such as rods or air knives) at the wet end of the paper machine or at the size press.

The most noteworthy product is marketed as a substitute for the recycling-unfriendly waxes that coat cardboard boxes used by produce and meat-packing companies, but this formula is just one of several developed by EvCo.

SUBMITTING APPLICATIONS. The company that is now EvCo Research started out as a research project of The Seydel Companies, based in nearby Pendergrass, Ga.

Researchers at The Seydel Cos., as well as CEO Scott Seydel, were intrigued by the possibility of taking advantage of the scrap PET stream as feedstock to make new products.

"The process we have here is to chemically modify the PET so we can disperse it in hot water so it can be applied as a coating," says John Kokoszka, one of the original EvCo investors and current vice president of operations.

As the research deepened, company leaders and representatives of the company’s Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) decided the development project should be spun off as a separate entity so as not to harm the profitability of The Seydel Cos., makers of a variety of chemical products for the textile and apparel industries.

The PET-related research team was spun off as EvCo Research LLC in 1994. Scott Seydel is the majority shareholder and is also the conscience of the company, according to Kokoszka. "He has spoken very publicly about the fact that he wants his companies to help the world to be better off for his children and grandchildren after he’s gone. We like to think of ourselves as a ‘zero-footprint’ company and we have turned down projects if we perceive negative environmental consequences to be involved."

Concerning their roles at EvCo Research, Kokoszka says, "Scott is the dreamer and the person with great industry contacts, and I’m the one who leads the team to make sure the dreams come true. Basically, I follow-up on his planning by managing the laboratory, ensuring good customer service and helping on the sales side."

The company is still building a client base after 10 years. "At times we’ve felt like the typical under-capitalized start-up, but now we’ve seen 50 percent sales growth in 2004, and there are several exciting projects in development," says Kokoszka. The company has received financing from a number of sources, including the North Carolina-based Sustainable Jobs Fund venture capital fund.

Kokoszka has been amazed at the number of different water-dispersible products the company has developed using scrap PET as a key ingredient, including products that either repel or absorb water.

The majority of the company’s 19 EvCote products geared for the paper industry offer protection from moisture, including the EvCote PWR Series, marketed as a substitute for wax coatings on corrugated boxes.

But the PWR Series for cardboard is just one of several EvCote products. Other products can substitute for UV coatings as a top-gloss coat on boxboard, serve as a base coat for ink-jet paper or as a barrier coating on paper bags or as a partial substitute for wet-strength chemicals used in paper bags.

The EvCote line and its introduction within the paper industry has been the point of emphasis on the sales side at EvCo. "We’re focusing on paper because we can do several different things within that segment," says Kokoszka.

HEAT TREATMENT. To turn scrap PET into a liquid solution or a water-soluble powder requires several processing steps.

Kokoszka says the company needs to start with clean PET scrap. It can use any PET that qualifies under FDA’s non-objection guidelines. This can include scrap from bottle producers or other baled post-industrial PET, or it buys post-consumer PET flake that has been cleaned and processed to meet FDA non-objection standards (often informally called food-grade standards).

Heat is the key processing method for EvCo. "It’s a high-energy process that gets the PET up to between 400 and 450 degrees Fahrenheit," says Kokoszka. "We break the PET down to an oligomer and then add different chemicals as we build it back up to a polymer."

EvCo’s Atlanta location consists of office space and a laboratory that houses the company’s 15 full-time employees. Products are manufactured at a Seydel Cos. plant in Pendergrass, which is about 45 miles northeast of Atlanta.

Kokoszka estimates that EvCo consumed not quite 1 million pounds (500 tons) of scrap PET last year. However, he notes that the company is not only growing, but may be on the verge of gaining its important foothold entering the supply chain of major packaging manufacturers.

Standard Issues

Products made from PET scrap by EvCo Research LLC, Atlanta, might get a boost if paper and packaging industry giants agree that the coating products do indeed increase recyclability.

A step toward that acknowledgement is being made by the American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA), Washington; the Fibre Box Association, Rolling Meadows, Ill.; and the Corrugated Packaging Alliance, based in Indianapolis.

The three trade groups and key member companies—including Georgia-Pacific, International Paper, Longview Fibre, the Newark Group, PCA, Sonoco, Smurfit-Stone, Temple-Inland and Weyerhaeuser—have developed a set of voluntary standards addressing how to best test such new coatings for re-pulpability and recyclability.

"Striving to meet the needs of retailers and others throughout the supply chain, the corrugated industry has conducted extensive research and development of recyclable, alternative materials that can provide the same protective qualities as wax," says Dwight Schmidt, executive director of the Corrugated Packaging Alliance. "While a handful of alternatives are available today and others are in development, a standard for establishing their re-pulpability and recyclability is imperative for these new materials to succeed in the marketplace."

The first draft of the standards has been commented upon by some 20 people and is undergoing revisions this spring.

"The potential for these products is as huge as the overall paper market," he notes, because a variety of EvCo products are made for different paper grades.

STEPPING FORWARD. Taking giant steps into the paper and packaging supply chain has been slowed by a number of barriers, some circumstantial and others involving a need for the company to prove itself within a very established industry.

The early years of this decade were lean years for the paper industry, when mills were closing and companies were consolidating capacity. In short, much more disinvestment was taking place rather than investment in capital improvements.

Kokoszka is hopeful that 2004 marked a turnaround year for surviving paper and packaging companies to begin thinking long term again. "The paper industry is now a little better equipped for capital investment than it was," he comments.

Even without the financial barriers, EvCo has found that the paper industry can be "a little slow to adapt," according to Kokoszka. "They are not quick to tinker with a mill and make a change that could affect their high production volumes," he says.

This can be especially true when dealing with a smaller, newer company like EvCo. "They have to ask themselves if they want to tie themselves to a small company as a critical supplier."

But Kokoszka believes EvCo has been working hard to overcome the objections, and the company is now working with several "customers, adding our chemistry to their paper as it is being made, as well as in a number of coating applications."

Much of the impetus for EvCo products to gain a foothold may also need to come from retailers and other customers rather than from the paper companies themselves.

Grocery retailers in particular can benefit from handling products shipped in EvCote-coated boxes, rather than wax-coated boxes. "A large retailer can save perhaps millions on the bottom line if they can recycle these boxes rather than disposing of them—a few thousand dollars per store if it is done right," says Kokoszka.

In the total supply chain, "70 [percent] to 80 percent of the savings is for the grocer, not the box maker or distributor," notes Kokozka.

But the costs of switching from a wax-coating system to an EvCote system are incurred further up the supply chain at the papermaking and converting stages. The EvCote PWR Series coatings that can take the place of wax are applied either at the paper mill or applied shortly after the mill stage with an off-machine coater. Rolls with the EvCo product already applied would then be shipped to the corrugating plant.

"Wax is applied much differently," Kokoszka notes, "at the end of the box-making line in a curtain coater or cascade coater." This change in process thus may involve shifting a cost (or a value-added service) from one supplier to another within the supply chain.

But as Kokoszka notes, the advantages of recyclability accrue mostly to the retailers, who don’t ordinarily have a direct say in setting up the supply chain. "The grocer likes the concept and wants these boxes, but we have to find a manufacturer willing to make changes in the supply chain," he says. "So the adoption of this technology will require a strong pull from retailers."

That pull may be starting to occur in earnest, however, as retailers at the end of the chain (Boise, Idaho-based grocer Albertson’s has been one ally) and paper mills at the beginning of the chain study the merits of replacing largely non-recyclable (wax and UV-coated) boxes with ones EvCo says are thoroughly recyclable.

"Our boxes are welcome at paper mills," he says. "We designed the products so that under standard re-pulping conditions, the film that we’re applying softens and breaks up, staying with the fiber as the paper is being formed. At a mill trial in Massachusetts, the mill manager said that when re-pulping corrugated board with the EvCote coating, the resulting paper’s properties were identical to paper he made without EvCote coatings on the recycled paper. There was also no indication of the EvCote in the white water. A similar amount of wax would have caused him to shut his machine down."

EvCo is convinced that its products will reduce waste and be profitable throughout the packaging supply chain once they are introduced. "The cost of our product is more than wax, but you need to use less," says Kokoszka. Even with having to apply the coatings on an off-machine coater, "The economics are very strongly in our favor, because the grocer can be paid for the scrap boxes and the mills can use them as feed to their re-pulpers, with no deleterious effect on the paper they are making." Additionally, the grocer won’t have to pay for landfilling the boxes.

The company is optimistic that the time is right for the paper industry to make the switch and is encouraged that the American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) and the Fibre Box Association are developing recyclability standards for wax replacement materials such as EvCote. This is the second voluntary standard, and EvCote PWR was the only product that passed the previous version of the standard, according to Kokoszka. EvCo expects it to pass the updated version, as well.

"Building momentum is the key now," says Kokoszka. "We feel that the economics are in our favor on an as-used basis for product and a per-ton basis for recycling. We’d like to see the applications fully accepted in the marketplace and we’re starting to see that this year."

Once the scrap PET-based coatings build a market in the paper industry, EvCo is ready to carry the technology forward into other segments, having developed coatings that can be used on wood, concrete and even painted metal auto exteriors. "We have a lot of technology that we have not yet fully exploited," Kokoszka promises.

The author is editor of Recycling Today and can be contacted at btaylor@gie.net.

Get curated news on YOUR industry.

Enter your email to receive our newsletters.

June 2005
Explore the June 2005 Issue

Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read.