A national foodservice company will be saving 50 tons of plastic wrap a year by simply using rubber bands to secure items on shipping pallets.

The ubiquitous plastic shrink-wrap encasing millions of shipping pallets every year is clogging the municipal solid waste stream, wasting the money of producers and consumers. Once the wrapped pallet arrives at its final destination, the plastic is cut off and normally ends up in a landfill. And the waste is astonishing: in 2005, 2.81 million tons of plastic film wrap ended up in the municipal solid waste stream in the United States.  But the problem is not merely one of weight, but also one of volume. Have you ever tried to crumple up a bunch of that plastic, only to have it spring back to life seconds later?

In a five month pilot program to test the use of rubber bands in securing smaller product loads on warehouse pallets, U.S. Foodservice in Fort Mill, South Carolina used 11 percent less shrink wrap by employing industrial rubber bands whenever possible.

“Plastic shrink wrap is made from petrochemicals and can only be used once, but rubber bands are reusable with an average life span of six months to a year,” said Dan Harris, President, U.S. Foodservice-Fort Mill.

Now these are not your average rubber bands. They’re about 1/16 inch thick and can stretch to fit around a pallet up to 4 feet by 4 feet. And rubber bands won’t work to stabilize every load. But the decrease in plastic wrap use has been significant, amounting to reductions of more than 100,000 pounds of wrap per year for U.S. Foodservice.

Image via Aero Rubber