Food chains, packaging firms initiate recycling campaign in NYC

Food chains, packaging firms initiate recycling campaign in NYC
July 8, 2009

NEW YORK — Global Green's Coalition for Resource Recovery gathered 80 participants for a "value chain caucus" aimed at diverting prepared food packaging from the nation's landfills.

Quick service restaurants including Burger King and McDonald's provider, Havi Global Solutions, and coffee purveyors Starbucks and Canada's Tim Horton's joined with paper products suppliers MeadWestvaco, International Paper, Durobag, Interstate Container, Solo Cup, Dopaco, Huhtamaki, GA Pacific and Pactiv to discuss how to make their cups, cartons, bags, and boxes readily recyclable.

They were joined by recyclable waste collector Action Carting and leading "urban forester" Pratt Industries, who have collaborated with Western Michigan University to devise a testing method to certify paper products as recyclable on a scale equivalent to corrugated boxes, the most frequently recycled resource in the U.S.

"Many if not most beverage cups, containers, wraps and other packaging contain waxes and coatings that inhibit repulping of packaging," said Joel Kendrick, "so that's why we are using the Fiber Box Association's Wax Alternative Protocol to certify packaging for purposes of this new effort."

The Manhattan meeting followed a Recyclable Cup Summit arranged by Starbucks at their Seattle headquarters in May. Characterized as a step toward keeping their promise to promote recycling of their iconic coffee cup and other food and beverage packaging, Starbucks' Jim Hanna announced that a first trial with 15 of the company's stores will ask customers to assist by pre-sorting their cups in specially designed receptacles.

Durobag is designing special recyclable paper bin liners in which spent cups can be collected. The bags of spent cups will then be bundled with flattened cardboard boxes. Nightly collections to be carried out by Action Carting company's supervisors will be taken directly to Pratt Industries Staten Island recycling plant where they'll be repulped and recycled into new corrugated boxes.

Starbucks' Jim Hanna said traditional waste handling in New York City is very expensive as there are no regional landfills, and thus refuse is railed over 500 miles to dumps in outlying states.