The winners were announced last week, and this year’s Grand Prize Winner in the Zero Waste challenge is Joshua Yi, who is in the 3rd Grade at Warnsdorfer Elementary School in East Brunswick, NJ. Joshua came up with a nifty idea for toy packaging that actually becomes part of the fun. The idea, “No More Trash But a Package of Fun,” as Joshua calls it, was inspired by all the waste created by Christmas gift packaging and wrapping. Joshua stated in his entry, “I decided to pick Zero Waste because I wanted toy packages to be a fun part of the toy and will not be instantly disposed to the environment.” The new package he designed “converts the toy package into a fun, integrated, part of the toy, it not only protects the environment by saving packages, but also adds a lot of fun to children.” One of Joshua’s designs was for a toy car package that converts into a racetrack, and the second was a doll package that unfolds into a board game:

As the Grand Prize Winner, Joshua will venture to New York City to turn his packaging idea into a prototype. To create his package design, Joshua will work with SPC members Laura Tufariello, founder of Design and Source Productions, a company that develops, designs, and produces creative eco-friendly packaging, and Steve Mahler of Caraustar Industries Inc., a manufacturer of 100% recycled paperboard and converted paperboard packaging solutions. Congratulations to Joshua on his innovative package design!

As much as I love learning about garbage (that’s only partially sarcastic – it’s absolutely worth studying), I hope you can imagine my delight when it was suggested that we look into touring one of Toronto’s many esteemed craft breweries as part of this year’s Spring Meeting, which took place a few weeks back. The search wasn’t long before we found a win-win with Steam Whistle Brewing. Win number one: this company conducts business with sustainability considerations near the forefront. Win number two: they’re located less than a half mile from our event. Actually, make that win-win-win – after all, they do brew beer.

Brewery tours are generally geared towards the beer-inclined, but their staff did a commendable job of appeasing the packaging-inclined. One of the unique parts of their brewery tour is a trip through the offices where the creative department and administrative team work, which was especially great for us because we got to meet Chris Johnston, who oversees all of Steam Whistle’s packaging procurement. I got the impression that the normal routine is for the tour group to pass through the office and simply receive a smile and a wave from the staff, but my tour group subjected Chris to much more. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was later remarked that we asked Chris more questions than he’s ever been asked in his decade of being a stop on the tour.

We talked about the PVC lining on their crown closures. We talked about the considerations of using pry-off caps versus twist-off caps. We talked about paperboard beverage carriers. And we talked about the age-old question of whether to use aluminum cans or glass bottles. Overall, Steam Whistle’s glass bottles took center stage, and for good reason.

Beer bottles in Canada are quite different than the ones we’re used to in the States. It’s common for brewers to use the Canadian Industry Standards Bottle (ISB), which is a refillable container on which a refundable 10-cent deposit is levied. These bottles use a considerably larger amount of glass than the single-use bottles we’re used to, but they can be reused 15-20 times before they fail (we were told that failure occurs most commonly at the finish – that’s the threaded part at the top). The deposit system provides a high rate of return to ensure that they are collected for reuse and eventual recycling.

Steam Whistle, however, chooses to use a bottle of their own design. Their bottle uses 30% more glass than the ISB, but it can be reused up to 35 times. The tradeoff? Whereas brewers using the ISB can take in used bottles put forth by any other brewer, Steam Whistle must take back their own bottles – and they distribute coast-to-coast in Canada. It opened up intriguing questions among our tour group about a number of sustainability tradeoffs, and certainly whet our appetites for an enjoyable couple days of focusing on sustainable packaging. And it also whet our appetites for more beer. Big thanks to the Steam Whistle team, especially Chris!

From the 13 videos that premiered at the meeting, SPC staff selected their top three favorite videos, and the meeting attendees voted for their top video choices in three categories: Best Innovation, Best Implementation of the SPC Definition, and Best Video. And the SPC Video Challenge awards go to:

Best Video: cei/InterGroup International

Best Innovation: The Coca Cola Company

Best Representation of the SPC Definition: Starbucks

SPC Staff Picks

cei/InterGroup International

Schawk/Anthem

REI

All winning videos are now available on the SPC website. Congratulations to all of this year’s Video Challenge winners and thanks to everyone who submitted videos!

There are three primary ways to collect household recycling: single stream, source separation, and no separation from trash (or “all in one”). Each of these methods poses unique benefits and trade-offs for recycling. This first installment of ReLoop tackles single stream recycling, which is quickly becoming a national trend.

Single stream recycling requires households to use two separate collection bins for their waste, one for trash and one for recycling. Residents place all of their recyclable materials in one bin, separate from their trash container.¹ On collection day, the materials are transported to a Material Recovery Facility, or MRF. The MRF will use a combination of hand sorting, sensors, magnets, and gravity to sort the materials. You can find a great animation of how a MRF works here. After sorting, the materials are baled and sold to market.

Many communities are transitioning to recycling carts that are of equal size to trash bins. This enables and encourages residents to collect more recycling than they could fit into a small tote bin or bag. Communities may even use the same trucks to collect trash and recyclables, minimizing any additional transportation or operating costs. The same truck may pick up your trash one week and recycling the next. Trucks can also be designed with dividers, so that trash goes in one section and recycling in another.

The Good: Putting all recyclable materials into one container makes recycling easier for households. Ease of use, and the prevalence of large bins, allows high collection volume. Participation in recycling is also incentivized when communities reduce trash collection to twice a month and provide increased recycling collection to compensate.

The Bad: While volume is increased, the quality of the materials that are recovered can suffer. When recyclable materials are lower in quality, they fetch a lower price at market and may be used in lower quality products. For example, if a glass jar full of sauce breaks during the recycling process, the sorting equipment may not catch the glass and the sauce will contaminate other materials, like paper. Sorting is also an imperfect science, though the technology continues to evolve.

It is important to place empty and clean materials into your bin, and follow all recycling instructions provided by your community. If you have any questions or comments about single stream recycling, leave us a comment below!

Why did we choose Toronto for this year’s Spring Meeting? We always try to locate our meetings in cities that are recognized as environmental leaders, and Toronto is widely recognized as one of the greenest cities in North America, particularly given their extensive waste management and recycling efforts. Toronto is ranked the most sustainable large Canadian city in Corporate Knights magazine annual Sustainable Cities rankings. Toronto also ranks ninth in the US and Canada Green City Index and is the fourth most livable city in the world according to The Economist’s annual ranking of global cities. Toronto was also recently rated the “smartest city” in North America by Fast Company, who cite Smart Commute Toronto, a private sector collaboration working to improve public transportation, as well as the city’s initiative to use natural gas emissions captured from landfills to fuel municipal garbage trucks as major reasons Toronto scores so highly. You can check out Toronto’s Environmental Portal to learn more about the city’s ambitious environmental projects, programs, and policies.

In addition, when we search for SPC meeting locations, we always take into consideration all green initiatives that the conference hotel has implemented. Before choosing a hotel, we outline specific requirements in a “green contract” that the hotel staff must sign to ensure that our sustainable meeting needs are met. Here are some of the of the ambitious green standards that the Fairmont Royal York currently has in place:

• The Fairmont Royal York holds a Four Green Key rating by the Hotel Association of Canada
• 2008 Winner of Gold Level Business Award in Waste Minimization from the Recycling Council of Ontario (3^rd consecutive year)
• Recycling program that includes office paper, newspaper, colored and clear glass, aluminum, tin, plastics, cardboard, and corks
• The hotel uses EcoLab cleaning products – Fairmont’s corporate supplier of environmentally friendly cleaning solutions
• Water-conserving fixtures are in guest rooms, including tap aerators, low-flush toilets, and low-flow showerheads
• In 2005, The Fairmont Royal York installed an ultra-modern commercial water softening system, reducing water usage of 476,000 litres per day
• Low volatile organic compound (VOC) materials are used in guest rooms, such as paints, carpets, wall coverings, etc.
• Energy-efficient lighting is used in guest rooms and meeting rooms
• Occupancy sensors and timers are used to control lighting in guest rooms
• Organic waste from the kitchen is composted
• Emissions from the event will be offset through the purchase of Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs or green tags)

For those of you who are joining us in Toronto, we hope you enjoy the city and the SPC Spring Meeting!

Michael Hewitt, Director of Environmental and Sustainability Programs at grocery chain Publix, gave a keynote address that addressed the economic and social implications of post-harvest food waste. He noted that we throw away 121.6 billion pounds of post-harvest food waste in the US annually in a country where millions of people are hungry or food insecure. This translates directly into throwing our money away, as in the US households pay between $500 – $2,000 more each in annual food bills, businesses foot the bill for unsold food and waste removal, and the societal costs of poor nutrition, hunger, illness, and lost productivity continue to rise. This does not even take into account the fuel, water, fertilizers, and pesticides that go to produce wasted food.

Michael illustrated this message with a story about the Strawberry Festival in Plant City, Florida (“Strawberry Capital of the World”) near his home. The festival has everything you might imagine to celebrate the spring bounty of fruit, including all types of food, entertainment, games, and of course, a Strawberry Queen. This fun event matches the mood at the beginning of the harvest, when farmers receive a premium price for ripe (but extremely perishable) strawberries. However, as the harvest progresses, the price of strawberries drops below the cost to harvest them. The result? Tons of perfectly good strawberries left to rot in the fields. I imagine that the Strawberry Festival folks would prefer to ignore the wasted, rotting berries instead of figuring out a way to turn these berries into jam, frozen fruit, ice cream, or some other delicious product. We should definitely not be celebrating this way of doing business, where waste is ignored or casually accepted.

What role could packaging play in reducing food waste? In the UK, Marks & Spencer grocery story has debuted a new feature for its fruit packaging. It’s a small strip that absorbs ethylene gas (the gas that encourages fruit to ripen) and does not impact the package’s recyclability. With this strip, the fruit that is harvested stays fresh for several extra days and less is wasted.

Dune Lankard gave another great talk about food waste and salmon fishing. Mr. Lankard is a native Alaskan from Cordova, on the Copper River. Spurred on by the anger over the environmental impacts of the Exxon Valdez oil spill near his home, he turned to working with local salmon fishermen to regain control over the processing, packaging, labeling, and marketing of the now famous Copper River salmon. This has involved spreading best practices in processing; for example Dune and others discovered that if fishermen clean the fish at sea immediately upon catching them, it doubles the shelf-life of the product and also brings the fishermen higher prices. His work has touched on waste, because when fish are filleted, 50% of the fish becomes waste. The waste is traditionally dumped into the ocean near shore, where the high levels of nutrients create dead zones. Dune hopes to start a processing facility where that fish waste can be made into omega-3 capsules, fish meal, biodiesel, or compost. Finally, packaging comes into play because Copper River salmon are in such high demand that they are routinely flown to the lower 48 and around the world. The fish must be kept cold, but finding packaging that protects the fish but which is also recyclable remains a big challenge.

It is clear that packaging has an important role to play in finding solutions to food waste. Industry associations, like the Grocery Manufacturers Association & Food Marketing Institute in particular, are also working to reduce food waste and find better alternatives to landfill, such as composting. They have also invited the NRA (the National Restaurant Association, that is) to participate in this effort. I look forward to hearing about their progress at reducing levels of food waste in the future!

One thing at the MassRecycle event was clear: this is a group of ambitious and passionate people. Ken Kimmell, Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP), delivered the morning’s keynote. Kimmell outlined Massachusetts’s goals to reduce organics disposal and increase anaerobic digestion and recycling. He wants his state to be the national leader in recycling, reuse, and diversion, with a goal of 2 million tons of waste annually diverted from disposal by 2020. Kimmel plans to attack this through improved permitting processes, increased infrastructure, improved collection programs, and a gradual phase-in of disposal bans.

Waste management structures and recycling economics vary significantly across the country, with no exception in the northeast. For example, landfill fees in Massachusetts hover close to $80 per ton, while fees in the southeast are closer to $30 per ton. Waste incinerators are commonplace in the north, but not elsewhere where land is cheaper and therefore landfilling is more common.

Waste management is a complex field. I continue to ask myself, as a professional focused on product sustainability, how can I best translate my knowledge to consumers who have limited time to commit to recycling, composting, and sustainability? This is one of the motivations behind the SPC’s How2Recycle Label: communicating clear and consistent information to consumers to make it easier for them to recycle. Consumers often do not realize that they have incorrect assumptions about recycling, making the task that much more difficult, and important.

The Kids’ Science Challenge received 1,436 entries across all three challenges combined, with 395 for the Zero Waste Challenge. All these entries had to be evaluated and that task fell on a group of preliminary judges including educators and other folks from Cyberchase (the PBS educational television series for children age 6-12 that teaches children discrete mathematics), Mythbusters, and the Exploratorium in San Francisco, California. These good folks did the hard work of reducing the nearly 400 entries in the Zero Waste Challenge down to a manageable set of semifinalists for the group of packaging judges, which I am a part of. Our input will be combined to determine the finalist(s), and this year’s winners will be announced in early May. The students with the winning entries will get to visit a team of scientists and engineers for a day to make their experiment or prototype come to life.

In the meantime, I’d like to share the following insights taken out of context from the project descriptions submitted by the kids purely to show a common story that reveals some big topics we all grapple with. Enjoy!

• “One of the biggest problems these days is there is too much trash!”
• “We get our paper [newspaper] in a bag every day, so it made me think of where that plastic goes after we get done with it.”
• “The Earth needs to be able to have no pollution on it. Plants and animals have been getting sicker and sicker because of pollution and it’s terrible! That is the main reason why I made this idea.”
• “It is really important to reduce the waste to keep our earth cleaner and healthier for ourselves and for generations to come.”
• “We came up with the idea by brainstorming and writing our ideas on a piece of paper.”
• “We were brainstorming when we laid [our] eyes on one of our classmate’s beautiful lunch bags and POOF, the vision came to our minds.”
• “I decided on the topic Zero Waste, because I love nature and I love trees. I hope my idea could protect nature and save the trees.”
• “I realized that nature had come up with a perfect package [oranges and bananas].” So why even make it [packaging]?

Here are some new made up materials and terminology from the kids for all the marketing and branding folks out there:

• Phytoplastic: plastic that could be made from post harvest wheat and corn straw
• Biopotastic: plastic that could be made from potato processing waste
• Biococoplastic: plastic that could be made from coconut husks
• Weg: Super strong material that could be made from spider silk. Of course WEG also stands for Webs Ending Garbage because the material will be composted or recycled.

In the end, one kid’s phrase stuck in my noodle and I leave you with it. “All I’m trying to say is the product I thought of is a really good product.” Be sure to stay tuned for the announcement of the winners on May 2^nd!

As a brief review of Economics 101, a free market is one where prices are determined by supply and demand. In the past several years, we have seen a steady rise in the price of many commodities, most notably oil, metals and the products that are in turn impacted by these price increases.

Aluminum also has seen price increases. Worth between $0.70/lb and $1.00/lb, aluminum cans are one of the most valuable packaging materials used. So why did we throw away 1.3 billion pounds of aluminum last year? This is equivalent to the aluminum in more than 27,000 Airbus A320s, according to Alcoa. (PSI EPR Dialogue, Jan. 19, 2010)

Using an average value of $0.85 for baled used beverage containers, this represents more than $1 billion thrown in U.S. landfills annually. So why aren’t we recycling more of them? Isn’t that what a free market would suggest should happen, especially when we have industries clamoring for these materials? Because aluminum is such a valuable resource, this is a prime example of how the free market is not adequately addressing the value of materials.

Aluminum has been the backbone of many recycling systems, yet its recycling rates have remained flat below the 50 percent mark over the past five years, according to EPA estimates (which do not include cans imported for recycling). Aluminum Assn. recycling rates do include growing numbers of cans imported for recycling purposes, according to the Container Recycling Institute, and show rising recycling rates over this same period from 52 percent to 58 percent.

So how can it be when some material pricing is at market highs, U.S. aluminum can recycling rates are not increasing proportionately? Where have we gone so terribly wrong that there is a disconnect between the value of a material and our infrastructure to recapture that material?

Perhaps we have done too good a job on selling convenience and disposability. While our grandparents and great-grandparents of the Depression Era were radical savers, the current generations are so far removed from where things come from that they are also removed from the value of the materials they buy. We have encouraged a system where we blame consumers for not participating in the recycling system, yet we send signals that products are disposable-not valuable-to make it convenient for everyone. Marketing shapes behavior and, as marketers know, consumers are Pavlovian. If consumers are rewarded, they tend to respond.

To incentivize behavior that recognizes the true value of resources, the regulatory response in some states has been container deposits. But we are still throwing away over $1 billion of cans a year so this incentive is not enough. Outside of regulation, there is a role for marketers who influence and shape consumer behavior to get in the game in a coordinated and meaningful way to develop effective recycling messaging that drives consumer behavior, such as through the SPC’s Packaging Recovery Label System.

The alternative is to continue bearing the consequences of some of the lowest recovery rates in developed countries, which equals money down the drain. The idealism that the free market would keep valuable materials out of landfills is not working, so it’s time to think about other market incentives or drivers to prize aluminum and other materials for the valuable resources they are.