Recycling leaders discussed how packaging designers can think about creating items that flow better through the United States’ diverse recycling systems at the Sustainability in Packaging US conference in Chicago.
A MRF-themed panel on March 6 sought to elevate the recycler perspective in a room of packaging professionals, as technologies today allow for more data-informed decision-making. Natalie Betts, assistant vice president of sustainability at the Recycled Materials Association, moderated the conversation.
Recyclability involves a MRF being able to sort the material that enters the stream, and multiple end users that can turn the product into something new, explained Jeff Snyder, senior vice president for recycling and sustainability at Rumpke Waste & Recycling.
“And if we can't answer ‘yes’ to both ... I don't care about the chasing arrows, I don't care about the numbers, I don't care about anything else,” he said. If it can’t be sorted and sold to make new product, it’s not acceptable in the MRF world, Snyder said.
The value chain can operate more efficiently with earlier and more frequent conversations between stakeholders, speakers said.
Snyder and Joe Riconosciuto, director of materials marketing and recycling at Republic Services, highly encouraged brand owners to call recycling partners early in the design process so as not to waste time or money. They can run a package through a MRF and see how technology responds to sorting it.
“If you're a packaging designer and your package is really, really unique, there should be alarm bells ringing,” said Riconosciuto.
Clint Pugh is director of resin sales at KW Plastics, a large Alabama-based mechanical recycler of plastics and supplier of HDPE and PP recycled resins. “We certainly want to be sitting at the table with them, having those one-on-one conversations to make sure we're giving them solid feedback on what the market needs and wants,” so that investments are going in the right direction, said Pugh.
He also noted some of the challenges they see with packaging design. “Any type of barrier layer that's in that package that cannot mechanically be removed could ultimately be a problem, as that resin comes back to you guys to use back into your package,” he said.
AI-enabled tools are helping with sorting.
“We're using artificial intelligence to go deeper into the waste stream than we ever have before, and to be able to tell the difference between a thermoform clamshell and a water bottle,” Snyder said. “If you want me to sort all the Dasani water bottles in my MRF from Coca-Cola, I can do it; I can sort by brand.”
There’s plenty more potential for AI technologies, said Gaspard Duthilleul, COO at waste analytics company Greyparrot, including for sorting more black plastics and polypropylene. The technology is more advanced than people realize, he said; the issue is the level of demand and investment.
AI’s applications are for more than just sorting: “We use AI for data collection,” Snyder said. “We want to know what the different commodities are and the percentages of them that come into our facilities.”
MRF operators are using optics and ballistics to separate paper from containers. One issue is the historical assumption that paper is 2D and plastic and metal are 3D, Riconosciuto said. “So when you get into something like a paper cup or paper can that wants to behave like a piece of plastic or metal, that's something that can be [challenging for us],” he said, “or vice versa, flexible plastic that ends up with the paper.”
Looking ahead
Snyder acknowledged that operators’ acceptance of recyclables is still far from harmonized — and explained why that’s unlikely to change any time soon.
“It’s because Joe's 80 facilities are completely different than our facilities are completely different than WM facilities. The list goes on and on. And within his 80 facilities, each one of those is different,” depending on when it was built and who it’s servicing. End markets also differ. “We're very lucky in the Midwest that we have a ton of folks that we can sell material to, and we can turn into something new. But you live in Montana, it looks a little bit different, right?”
Riconosciuto said this theme cuts across a lot of different areas, noting the range of legislation such as extended producer responsibility in different states. He also shared the example of some jurisdictions passing bans on single-use plastic bags, while others specifically prohibit such legislation.
“We're trying to build some kind of a universal system to accept very different appetites,” he said.
Riconosciuto hearkened back to China’s National Sword policy in 2018, when the country stopped accepting certain scrap imports from the U.S.
“I think the next leg of this is going to be much more positive,” he said. “There's clear sustained demand from residents, from brand owners, from municipalities, from recyclers, from everybody in the value chain.”
Additionally, innovation in recycling is snowballing, Riconosciuto said, which could enable greater reach into more challenging products like flexible packaging.
While it’s exciting to add new and different packaging substrates to the recycling stream, ultimately it’s important to focus on the basics — “the blocking and tackling of recycling” — too, Snyder said. For instance, he said, there’s still plenty of low-hanging fruit around keeping water bottles or aluminum products out of the landfill.
