Tag: plastics

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: Is Your Plastic Recycled?

Five decades after the future of plastics was extolled in the famous 1967 film “The Graduate,” the U.S. manufactured 36 million tons of the stuff in a single year– 17 times the amount produced when the movie was released.

But as demand for plastics has grown, so has concern over the waste, reports The Wall Street Journal (April 24-25, 2021). More than 90% of plastics generated in the U.S. each year winds up in landfills or incinerators. Only about 9% is recycled.

Recyclables piled up in this New Jersey warehouse, but most plastics go to landfills or incinerators.

The largest category is containers and packaging, including water bottles, milk jugs and detergent bottles. In 2018, more than 14.5 million tons was manufactured, but less than 2 million tons, or 13%, was recycled.

Plastics that have the potential to be recycled are stamped with a triangle made of three arrows enclosing a resin-identification code—a digit from 1 to 7 that indicates the type of plastic—but the presence of the emblem doesn’t guarantee the waste will be reused, even if it makes it into a recycling bin.

“People think a lot more is being recycled than is actually being recycled,” said the author of “Can I Recycle This?” “Most of it is low-value and doesn’t have a buyer.” From the curbside, it’s generally the 1s and 2s and some of the 5s. Anything else, recyclers have to pay to get rid of it.

In the past, the U.S. shipped low-value plastic waste to China, but in 2017, China said it would ban the import of most plastic waste, causing the market for those plastics to dry up.

No. 1 plastics, including water bottles and clear plastic cups, sell for 13 cents a pound. Clear (meaning undyed) No. 2 plastics, including milk jugs and shampoo and detergent bottles, fetch 60-70 cents a pound. And No. 5 plastics, including yogurt containers, prescription bottles and bottle caps, draw 30 cents a pound. So there’s a great future in plastics–as “The Graduate” tells–but only if the waste can be managed.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Give some examples of how companies can be less wasteful in plastic use. (See Supp. 5–Sustainability in the Supply Chain).
  2. How can we, as consumers, use less plastic?

 

OM in the News: Coke Goes 100% Recycled

Coca-Cola will soon begin selling sodas in completely recycled plastic in the U.S. for the first time, reports Industry Week (Feb. 9, 2021) . The initial items will be introduced this month in a group of states that includes California and Florida, for drinks such as Sprite, Coke, and Diet Coke in 13.2-ounce bottles made from 100% recycled plastic.

The company — which has been named a top plastic polluter by a leading non government organization (NGO) — will soon distribute additional soda and bottled water items from completely recycled packages. The U.S. is the 19th market worldwide where Coca-Cola now sells item entirely made of recycled packaging. The new measures amount to a 20% reduction in the company’s use of new plastic across North America compared to 2018. They will collectively reduce 10,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually in the U.S. – the equivalent of taking 2,120 cars off the road for one year 

Concerns about plastic waste “continue to be top of mind for our consumers,” said Coke’s VP for sustainability, adding that the new steps are “a major milestone in a large and complex market. Introducing 100% recycled PET bottles is a big proof point of how recycling can help create a circular economy.” Coca-Cola has set a target of using at least 50% recycled content  in packaging by 2030.

In 2020, the group Break Free From Plastic placed Coca-Cola, along with PepsiCo and Nestle, as the world’s “top plastic polluters” for the third year in a row and called on the groups to end single-use plastic packaging worldwide.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. How does this move relate to the Triple Bottom Line discussed in Supp. 5 of your text?
  2. Why is plastic waste a major issue?

OM in the News: The Plastic Bag Controversy

The NY ban on plastic bags has forced customers to use bags of paper, cotton, or more durable plastics.

Reusable shopping bags are “petri dishes for bacteria and carriers of harmful pathogens,” read one warning from a plastics industry group. They are “virus-laden.” The group’s target?  Countless Americans increasingly using natural fiber bags instead of disposable plastic bags.

The plastic bag industry, battered by a wave of bans nationwide, is using the coronavirus crisis to try to block laws prohibiting single-use plastic, reports The New York Times (March 26, 2020). “We simply don’t want millions of Americans bringing germ-filled reusable bags into retail establishments putting the public and workers at risk,” said an industry campaign ad. The Plastics Industry Association went so far as to request the US government to declare that banning single-use plastics during a pandemic is a health threat.

The science around reusable bags and their potential to spread disease is contentious. One study found that reusable plastic bags can contain bacteria, and that users don’t wash reusable bags very often. A government study found that coronavirus can remain on plastics for up to 3 days.

What is clear, however, is that single-use plastic bans have become a growing threat for the plastics industry. Packaging  makes up 1/3 of end-use demand for plastic resins as a whole. Before the coronavirus outbreak, the nationwide move to ban plastic bags had reached California, Hawaii, New York, as well as cities like Boston, Boulder, Chicago, and Seattle. But now disposability, once a dirty word, has become a selling point as hygiene takes priority over sustainability. Because plastic is made from fossil fuels, plastic prices track oil prices — which have slumped. That has made recycling plastic less economical.

Ironically, the bag ban in California in 2016, which led to elimination of 40 million pounds of single-use plastic bags, led to a 12 million pound increase in larger trash-bag purchases.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1.  Make the case in support of single-use plastic bags.
  2.  Make the case against them.

OM in the News: The Fraught Future of Recycling

The American recycling industry is in crisis — and cities are on the front lines.

The economics undergirding the U.S. recycling system have fallen apart, writes Energy and the Environment (Feb. 15, 2020). Unable to absorb the extra cost, some cities are opting to kill recycling programs altogether — just as public concerns about climate change are ratcheting up. Why?  (1) China, the biggest buyer of U.S. recycled materials, has closed its doors. Before the ban, the U.S. was exporting around 70% of its waste to China. (2) Changing consumer behaviors have made the trash-sorting process more complex and expensive.

 A major Maryland recycling center area used to turn a healthy profit from processing recycled materials from a 50-mile radius. Now it’s having to pay vendors to truck material away. The Prince William County facility operates up to 22 hours a day to process about 550 tons of thrown out paper, plastic, aluminum and glass delivered there daily.

  • Despite the heavy machinery and increased automation involved, the process is still extremely dependent on humans.
  • On each shift, 28 “sorters” sift through the material as it rolls down a series of fast-moving conveyer belts. The workers spot and pull out non-recyclable trash from the stream so fast that they look like card dealers in a game of blackjack.
  • Contamination is a huge problem. People throw surprising things — Christmas trees, old carpet, shoes, diapers and even cinder blocks — into their recycling bins.

 

 About 60 other cities are struggling to make recycling work or have cancelled their programs. Others have stopped accepting glass, paper or plastics. (Baltimore County just admitted that it hasn’t recycled the glass its collected for the past 7 years). Some have seen massive increases in their costs. Omaha, Nebraska, received a single bid for recycling services for $4 million, twice the city’s budget. Milton, Massachusetts, experienced a 36% increase in recycling costs.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. How is this a Triple Bottom Line issue? (See Supp. 5 of your Heizer/Render/Munson OM text).
  2. What can companies, government, and society do?

OM in the News: Your Foam Coffee Cup Is Fighting for Its Life

Dart’s single-use containers.

The Dart Container Corporation, which makes foam products, is a manufacturing behemoth and produced a fortune for the family behind it. Dart makes, by the millions, white foam cups, clamshells, coffee cup lids, and disposable forks and knives — the single-use containers that enable Americans to eat and drink on the go. It employs 15,000 people across 14 states. But now many of its products are being labeled as environmental blights contributing to the world’s plastic pollution problem, writes The New York Times (Feb. 11, 2020).

Cities and states are increasingly banning one of Dart’s signature products, foam food and beverage containers, which can harm fish and other marine life. Maine and Maryland banned polystyrene foam containers last year, and nearly 60 nations have enacted or are in the process of passing similar prohibitions. Environmental groups say polystyrene containers are difficult to recycle in any meaningful way. They believe the harm that plastic pollution can inflict on marine life is immediate. “There is overwhelming evidence that this material is seriously damaging the earth,” said a Maryland lawmaker.

But Dart is not backing down. After Maryland voted to ban foam, Dart shut down its warehouses in the state, displacing 90 workers and sending a signal to other locales. San Diego recently decided to suspend enforcement of its polystyrene ban in the face of a lawsuit by Dart. Even as the market for polystyrene shrinks, many environmental groups want to abolish foam entirely because if it ends up as litter, it can break down easily into small pieces, harming fish and animals that ingest it. For humans, plastic fibers have been found in everything from drinking water to table salt.

The same properties that can make foam an environmental problem also make it profitable to manufacture. The costs are low because foam is 95% air and can be made using relatively little raw plastic.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Relate this issue to the Triple Bottom Line, as discussed in Supplement 5 in your Heizer/Render/Munson text.
  2.  What is Dart’s position in terms of sustainability?

OM in the News: Hotel Chains Ditch Travel-Sized Toiletries

Accor Hotels is the latest global hotel chain to eliminate travel-sized toiletries from its rooms. The company, which owns 40 brands including Ibis, Novotel, the Fairmont and Mondrian, is removing individual tubes of shampoo, conditioner and bath gel from its 340,000 guest rooms. It’s part of Accor’s broader environmental campaign that includes getting rid of all single-use plastic items at its 5,000 properties.

Accor is replacing the plastic toiletries with either wall dispensers or glass, bulk-sized toiletries by the end of 2020. The chain is also replacing a number of common hotel items usually made from plastic, including keycards, laundry bags and cups, with materials made from “relevant alternatives.” More than 200 million single-use plastic items are used annually at Accor’s hotels. The changes are part of its effort that focuses on “reducing environmental impacts and strengthening efforts to combat plastic pollution of the world’s oceans and other natural environments.” Accor is joining a growing list of hotel chains have been making changes to benefit the environment.
Businesses are facing disruption from climate change and customers are increasingly demanding that products and services are environmentally friendly, reports CNN Business (Jan. 22, 2020). Last year Marriott said it was ditching personal toiletries from its more than 1 million guest rooms starting in 2020. The chain, which also owns Ritz-Carlton and W Hotels, said it expects to reduce its plastic disposal by 30% annually. IHG, which owns Kimpton Hotels and Crowne Plaza, is also in the process of replacing individual plastic toiletries with bulk-sized ones across its 843,000 rooms. So is Hilton, which has more than 950,000 rooms globally. That hotel chain also has a number of other environmental initiatives in place, including participating in the Clean the World soap program and improving energy efficiency.
Classroom discussion questions:
1.  What are other examples of product design improvements discussed in Supp. 5 of your Heizer/Render/Munson text?
2.  How will this movement help sustainability?

OM in the News: The Hidden Problems of Recycling

I am not an adamant tree hugger, but my family certainly takes our household recycling seriously, as I am sure many of you do. So it came as a bit of a shock to find that our local garbage company (which sends separate trucks for normal garbage and recycled goods), took our recycling can and mixed it with the normal can. It turns out they ship it all to the same landfill since the city can’t afford to sort and recycle anymore. The New York Times now reports (March 16, 2019) that “recycling, for decades an almost reflexive effort by American households and businesses to reduce waste and help the environment, is collapsing in many parts of the country.”

Philadelphia is now burning about half of its 1.5 million residents’ recycling material in an incinerator. The Memphis airport still has recycling bins around the terminals, but every collected can, bottle and newspaper is sent to a landfill. (The airport is keeping its recycling bins in place to preserve “the culture” of recycling among passengers and employees). Hundreds of cities across the country have quietly canceled recycling programs.

Prompting this nationwide reckoning is China, which until 2018 had been a big buyer of recyclable material collected in the U.S. That stopped when China determined that too much trash was mixed in with recyclable materials like cardboard and certain plastics. After that, Thailand and India started to accept more imported scrap, but even they are imposing new restrictions. With fewer buyers, recycling companies are recouping their lost profits by charging cities more, in some cases 4 times what they charged last year.

Amid the soaring costs, cities and towns are making hard choices about whether to raise taxes, cut other municipal services or abandon an effort that took hold during the environmental movement of the 1970s. The troubles with recycling have amplified calls for limiting waste at its source. Measures like banning plastic bags and straws, long pushed by environmental groups, are gaining traction more widely.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. As a student, what is your obligation to recycle now that you know it may be economically inefficient?
  2. Should taxpayers subsidize recycling?

OM in the News: Ford Goes Greener for Plastics

By 2011, all North American Fords have used soy-based foam in their seats

“What does Heinz Ketchup have to do with plastics and Ford Motor,” asks Plastics Technology (March 1, 2018). It’s not that the squeeze bottles used for the condiment are found throughout Ford cafeterias. Rather, the automaker and the ketchup maker are working together on finding the ways and means to use the skins from 2 million tons of tomatoes that Heinz processes each year as fillers in composite materials that would be used by Ford for vehicle components.

Looking for alternatives for “conventional” plastic materials is nothing new at Ford. Back in the 1940s Ford experimented with using soy beans as a source of plastics. Now, there isn’t a single new North American-produced Ford vehicle that doesn’t use soy oil for the production of foam that is used for seat cushions, seat backs and headrests. The company started using soy oil for the seats in the 2008 Mustang. This is non-trivial, because on average there are 40 pounds of foam in a vehicle.

Ford has been developing a variety of materials that are: (1) natural, and (2) not typically otherwise used. It started working with forest product giant Weyerhaeuser, which had seen the use of its pulp products in the U.S. diminish as paper production moved off shore. They began testing the use of cellulose fibers from trees, and in 2010 those fibers replaced glass in the Lincoln armrest. Not only did the material meet the functional and aesthetic requirements, but because the natural fibers are less dense, they were able to reduce the weight of the part. There are now 8 bio-based materials used in Fords. These include coconut-based composite materials and recycled cotton used for carpet and seat fabrics.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. What other components are carmakers using that are sustainable?
  2. What are the driving factors in this endeavour?