Plastics Recycling Conference and Trade Show: A Team Effort

Representatives from Coca-Cola Recycling, RecycleBank and United Resource Recovery Corp. (URRC) discussed the initiatives they have made to increase the collection rates of plastics recycling in the session “The Real Thing.”

Georgia-based Coca-Cola Recycling (CCR) started a year ago with the focus on developing cost-effective solutions to increase recovery and material reuse, said John Burgess, president and CEO of CCR. From a commercial regulatory standpoint, CCR knew it couldn’t do it alone and worked with extended supply companies to help it accomplish its goal of recycling 1.5 billion pounds of aluminum/PET by 2010, Burgess says.

One of the company’s CCR works with is South Carolina-based URRC. The objective of this joint venture known as NURRC is to process PET from streams that can’t be washed by standard processes and target the food grade packaging market, according to URRC Vice President Jerry Fishbeck.

The challenges Fishbeck said people face with plastics recycling investments is the failed investments of the 80s, low barriers to enter, commodity/substitution business is highly competitive and the availability of supplies. There are also many opportunities that come from investments, including material and energy conservation, sustainability and international growth, Fishbeck said. “Our joint venture will build the largest bottle-to-bottle recycling plant in the world with 100 million pound capacity,” Fishbeck added.

The challenge, according to Fishbeck is capturing more PET. Burgess adds that 70 percent of PET is at home and there has to be a way to make curbside recycling more efficient. This is where programs like RecycleBank come into play. Atul Nanda, a representative from RecycleBank, New York, N.Y., described the program as a reward and loyalty program that motivates recycling.

How the program works is there is a sensor chip in the household’s RecycleBank trash bin that is scanned as it’s dumped into the truck and based on the amount the consumer is rewarded with points, Nanda said. “These points can be used at participating local and national reward partners including Kraft, The Coca Cola Company, Dunkin Donuts and Bed Bath and Beyond,” he added

In 2007 more than 1 million RecycleBank points were redeemed, Nada said. “We project in 2009 to be in 25 states and we are also looking into expanding into Canada and overseas,” Nanda added.

Next year’s Recycling Today Media Group’s Paper, Plastics and Electronics Conferences will be held June 7-9 in Atlanta.