Tag: EPA

OM in the News: Plastic Recycling’s Wasted Opportunity

Here at the Render household, we take our recycling very seriously. Each Tuesday, a garbage truck collects the contents of our bin. It contains lots of plastics—shampoo bottles, yogurt cups, milk jugs and more. But how much actually gets recycled?

Just 14% of waste plastic containers and packaging are sent to a recycling facility, according to the most recent EPA report. Another 17% gets incinerated. Nearly 70% goes to landfills. Waste paper and cardboard do better: 81% gets recycled. The rate for glass containers is about 31%. For aluminum, including cans and foil, 35%.

Recycling plastic is a challenge because of chemistry…and business, writes The Wall Street Journal (Oct. 22, 2024). The U.S. used to export recycling to China, but the country stopped taking most foreign waste in 2018. If American companies aren’t interested in making new products from recycled plastic, there’s no incentive to develop the infrastructure to collect, sort and reprocess old packaging.

Over five decades after soda makers first turned to plastic bottles, America’s PET bottle recycling rate stands at under 30%

There are seven categories of plastic resins. Most types aren’t even considered for curbside recycling. Meanwhile, businesses have touted their containers as recyclable as they look to keep consumers and regulators happy. Yet for recycling to work, there has to be demand for all the used plastic that we toss. Today virgin plastic is both cheaper and better.

The numbers on plastic items range from 1 through 7. But having a number doesn’t make it recyclable. PET—polyethylene terephthalate, used for soda and other drink bottles—goes by number 1 and is the most highly recycled plastic in the U.S.  at 29%. HDPE—high-density polyethylene, found in milk jugs and detergent containers—is number 2 at 27%. PP—polypropylene, which bears the number 5 and is commonly used in yogurt and butter containers—hasn’t been widely recycled in the U.S.

Most flexible supermarket bags are not accepted in curbside recycling bins. Rigid containers made from polyvinyl chloride (No. 3), polystyrene (No. 6) or multilayer plastics (No. 7) shouldn’t go in blue bins either. Sorting and cleaning a wide assortment of plastic containers is expensive, in part due to the many different pigments and other additives used. Throwing bags, six-pack rings and other flexible plastics into blue bins can mess up a recycling facility’s sorting machinery. And pieces smaller than a credit card won’t be sorted.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. What is the recycling policy on your campus and is it effective?
  2. What is the solution to this problem?

OM in the News: Sustainability Goes Mainstream

Expired yogurt. Cardboard cartons. Pallets and plastic jugs. Wilted lettuce. Steel drums. Is it ecologically sound policy to send multiple trucks to transport waste products for separate recycling and diversion, when one dump truck could haul it all away? This is just one question companies face when trying to improve sustainability and in some cases reach carbon neutrality, the topic of Supplement 5.

Companies are increasingly cognizant that consumers and investors are watching their actions to reduce emissions– and realize their pledges have other positive impacts, including financial ones. Instead of sending tons of material to landfill, companies are identifying their waste streams with economic value and sending those materials to recycling facilities, writes Supply Chain Dive (July 21, 2020). Firms can calculate the carbon footprint involved with waste and landfill and see if diversion would yield additional savings.

Consumer sentiment now makes waste reduction a priority. “It’s becoming more prevalent; 30-40 years ago, nobody cared,” said one industry exec. (We recommend showing our video case study: “Green Manufacturing and Sustainability at Frito-Lay” to make this point).

In the U.S., over 30 million tons of food goes to the landfill– about 75% of total food waste, comprising 22% of municipal solid waste (MSW) landfill. Almost 7.5 million tons of food waste is converted to energy through combustion of MSW, and 2.57 million tons is composted. Materials like cardboard and plastics have resale value, and businesses are relatively disciplined about recycling these, due to the economic incentives and sustainability goals. Metal has the highest impact in recycling, given its value. It takes 75% less energy to make a steel product with recycled steel versus with virgin steel, and 95% less energy to make aluminum cans with recycled aluminum.

Companies can calculate emissions using the EPA’s Waste Reduction Model, a reporting tool for baseline and ongoing greenhouse gas emissions.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. What does the Triple Bottom Line mean?
  2. What forces during the pandemic are working against increased sustainability efforts?