Live at SPC Impact: Collaboration's the Key to Unlocking Circularity

Intelligent alliance

GreenBlue's Paul Nowak (left) and The Recycling Partnership's (TRP) Keefe Harrison.At Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC)'s Impact today, GreenBlue's Paul Nowak and The Recycling Partnership's (TRP) Keefe Harrison revealed early pilots of a digitally active How2Recycle (H2R) label, tapping into TRP's database of 9,000 municipalities across the U.S. We remember a Packaging World cover story on TRP's RecycleCheck not too long ago, and hearing about the foundation of this sensible alliance between SPC and TRP in late 2023.

EPR, DEI and hackers, oh my

From left, Sanjana Paul, Ezinne Okoro, and McKenna MorriganIf you travel in extended producer responsibility (EPR) circles and haven't yet heard of Seattle Public Utilities' McKenna Morrigan, it's just a matter of time. She batted clean-up at Impact today in a rapid-fire trio of disruptive women near the intersection of packaging and sustainability. Morrigan was preceded by Inclusion, Diversity, & Equity Corporate Strategist Ezinne Okoro on the power of DEI and Sanjana Paul of MIT's Department of Urban Studies and planning, on hacking into hackathons for environmental change.

"Cities got into the waste management business to protect public health and improve sanitation, not to deal with packaging." ... "Seattle is known as a city with a strong recycling program, and it's true. We have a long-standing and very successful recycling program. But most people don't know that its origin comes from a dollars and cents assessment, not a green ethos," Morrigan said today, highlighting the economic underpinnings required for circularity on her way to making the case for EPR.

Turn your single-use plastics into reusables with recyclable refill bottles

Dr. Bronner's Karina Tettero.Recycling might've been the hottest topic at SPC Impact today, but reuse takes precedence in the hierarchical reduce, reuse, recycle model. Dr. Bronner's Karina Tettero explained the genesis of the brand's new printed paperboard cartons, which are meant to refill its more shower-friendly 32-oz 100% rPET bottle. The 32-oz refill carton represents an 82% reduction in plastic from the durable bottle it's meant to refill many times over. The remaining 18% of carton material consists of a plastic cap, and a barrier liner containing PE and aluminum, she said. The whole structure still is considered widely recyclable, since according to the Carton Council of North America, more than 60% of the U.S. has access to curbside recycle this style of paperboard carton. More broadly, Tettero notes her company was once a niche hippie darling brand with a toehold in the natural products market. "But now, our biggest growth is happening in the mass market, which is showing that there's a shift happening with consumers. They want to be able to buy their natural brands in places such as Target, Walmart, and Costco Wholesale," she said today.

LCAs don’t align with consumer perception

The conclusion confirmed significant misalignment.Consumers have their perceptions about the sustainability profiles of different kinds of packaging. Life Cycle Analyses (LCAs) at least aim tell a complete, scientifically backed story about those packs' sustainability bona fides (as they say here in New Orleans).

Are consumer perceptions and LCAs aligned? You guessed it, not so much.

Clemson Department of Food, Nutrition & Packaging Sciences' (and frequent PW contributor) Andrew Hurley, PhD brought receipts at Impact today. The study recorded meal/granola bar LCAs of brands that use compostable plastic, compostable paper, store drop off PE/PE, and clear shiny PP/PP wrappers. Separately, it compared consumer sustainability perceptions of those materials. Specific results are in the study, but the conclusion confirmed significant misalignment.

Printpack's David McLain was above board that his company commissioned the study, but Hurly assured the audience he and his grad students were given full academic freedom.

PET’s future getting more sophisticated in its circularity

From left, Andrew Jolin, Marija Massey, Jeff Snyder, Adam Gendell, and Mark Agerton.We kicked of SPC Impact this morning with some familiar faces representing the recycled PET (rPET) value chain as it applies to packaging and CPG.

More details will come soon, but The Recycling Partnership moderated as Procter & Gamble, Rumpke Waste & Recycling, Eastman, and Direct Pack, Inc. kicked things off addressing the evolving, and increasingly sophisticated PET circular value chain in the U.S. Demand isn't just for clear PET bales anymore, and brands like P&G and Mark Agerton's want that colored PET back for rPET haircare bottles. Meanwhile, sortation technology is far enough along to be able to distinguish between different PETs (including thermoforms), allowing for intra-PET sortation.

This should allow Rumpke's Jeff Snyder to start telling Midwestern consumers, 'yes, you can recycle those thermoforms.' And anything that can't be recycled mechanically at Rumpke now has an offtake market in Eastman now that the two have partnered. Molecular and mechanical recycling, working in concert, is nice to see. PW