Global Green’s Coalition for Resource Recovery (CoRR) convened 80 participants for a “value chain caucus” with the purpose of diverting prepared food packaging from landfills.
Representatives from various fast-food restaurants and coffee purveyors Starbucks and Canada’s Tim Horton’s joined with paper products suppliers MeadWestvaco, International Paper, Durobag, Interstate Container, Solo Cup, Dopaco, Huhtamaki, GA Pacific and Pactiv to discuss how to make their cups, cartons, bags and boxes readily recyclable. Recyclables and waste collector Action Carting and Pratt Industries also joined the caucus
The effort the group is launching employs the Fiber Box Association’s Wax Alternative Protocol.
CoRR’s Annie White says, “Food packaging items that can pass a Fiber Box Association Protocol for determining compatibility as recycled feedstocks with old corrugated containers have a value in excess of their collection cost, and shouldn’t be landfilled. By designing for recycling and with simple systems for consumer participation in recycling, the nation’s 6 million tons of paper cups, cartons, clam shells and bags can all be reclaimed and recycled.”
The Manhattan meeting followed a Recyclable Cup Summit arranged by Starbucks at the company’s Seattle headquarters in May. Starbucks’ Jim Hanna announced that a first trial with 15 of the company’s stores will ask customers to assist by pre-sorting their cups in specially designed receptacles.
Durobag is designing special recyclable paper bin liners in which spent cups can be collected. The bags of spent cups will then be bundled with flattened cardboard boxes. Nightly collections to be carried out by Action Carting company’s supervisors will be taken directly to Pratt Industries Staten Island recycling plant where they’ll be repulped and recycled into new corrugated boxes.
The Coalition for Resource Recovery is a project of Global Green USA, a national environmental nonprofit organization based in Southern California.