Recycling Partnership receives first investment for Pathway to Recyclability

The Recycling Partnership, Falls Church, Virginia, launched Pathway to Recyclability, an initiative designed to help packaging suppliers outline, address and navigate current and future packaging and recycling system challenges that limit recycling of packaging materials, during the Walmart Sustainability Innovation Summit Nov. 6.

A key component of the initiative is creating material- and packaging-specific collaboratives to solve packaging challenges. The group identified the initiative as critical to building the circular economy in the United States in its recently released "Bridge to Circularity Report." The report calls for investments and partnerships to improve the current recycling system and to lay the groundwork for a circular economy in the U.S.

“The end of life for a package is determined at the beginning when it’s designed,” says Sarah Dearman, vice president of circular ventures for The Recycling Partnership. “Companies and citizens want to see a better future for items not currently recyclable. The Pathway to Recyclability will provide a stage-gate analysis of what changes must be addressed at each step along the recycling supply chain–from the packaging engineer to the consumer purchasing the package to the end market buying postconsumer recycled material and back again.”

While the initiative is new, it builds upon a five-step gated methodology highlighted in the ASTRX (Applying Systems Thinking to Recycling) Navigating the Recycling System tool.  ASTRX is a collaboration between The Recycling Partnership and Charlottesville, Virginia-based Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC)–a membership-based collaborative that believes in the power of industry to make packaging more sustainable. ASTRX will support this new initiative. The Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR), Washington, also will be a critical partner, The Recycling Partnership says. 

The work received initial financial support from Colgate-Palmolive.

The Pathway to Recyclability will kick off with Tom’s of Maine toothpaste tubes, which will be the first packaging material to work its way through the Pathway to Recyclability. Tools for the Pathway to Recyclability will be published in early 2020. This will pave the way to drive action through collaboratives for specific materials and packaging formats, the nonprofit says. 

“Colgate-Palmolive is dedicated to bringing safe, effective products to our consumers that are also good for the planet,” says Jean Luc Fischer, president, North America and global sustainability, Colgate-Palmolive. “We’re excited to soon be taking our new Tom’s of Maine toothpaste tubes through this new Pathway to Recyclability and use it as a model for other innovative recyclable package designs across product categories.”

For more on the development of the recyclable tube, which is made from high-density polyethylene (HDPE), read "Sustainable smiles" in the October issue of Recycling Today.