58 percent of all cans recycled last year in the U.S., But...

Aluminum can recycling rates in the U.S. peaked at over 65 percent in 1994. At the time, the country was a world leader in the category. Times have changed.

In 2008, when the U.S. aluminum can recycling rate was at 54 percent and heading still downward, an aluminum industry trade group adopted the goal of getting to a 75 percent aluminum can recycling rate by 2015. Since then, can recycling rates have only slowly been nudging upward — 58 percent of all cans sold in the U.S. were recycled last year, the most in a decade —  and the U.S. aluminum industry is not only in danger of falling well short of its 2015 goal, if current trends continue, the U.S. may end up plateauing at around 60 percent for some time.

Unlike plastic bottles, aluminum cans may be remade into stock for new cans virtually indefinitely and at much lower costs than using virgin stock. Making aluminum from recycled cans consumes 97 percent less energy than making it from bauxite. Substantially lighter than glass bottles, aluminum cans are increasingly attractive to producers who see the giant potential savings in shipping costs.

Despite obvious advantages, aluminum can recycling in the U.S. and parts of Europe remain surprisingly low, especially as compared to countries like Japan, where aluminum can recycling tops 92 percent, and Brazil, where officials say the goal of recycling all aluminum cans is not far out of reach.

Experts point to a number of factors that explain the variance in aluminum recycling rates the including the falling cost of bauxite, energy prices, access to the recycling system, recycling laws, cultural and societal norms, as well as unique economic conditions in the given country. In Brazil, for example, where aluminum cans emerged well before the country's big economic growth spurt of the 1990s and beyond, as many as 180,000 people now earn their living by collecting cans daily, forming an informal recycling network that has not developed to the same scale in the U.S. and Europe.

Photo credit: Some rights reserved by Orin Zebest at flickr

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I have memories of brushing my teeth while visiting my grandparents when I was a kid and using a small device that clipped onto the end of the toothpaste tube that was used to spin and tighten the tube, thereby getting as much toothpaste as possible out of the tube over its lifespan. And although I haven't seen one of those things since those visits years ago, I know they worked and I'm pretty sure they still exist. But designers Sang Min Yu and Wong Sang Lee think they have come up with something  better and have developed a prototype toothpaste package they are calling SavePaste. SavePaste not only reinvents the toothpaste tube, it eliminates it altogether.

Rather than an unwieldy metal tube, SavePaste instead features a small TetraPaper package that can help you get those last pesky squeezes of toothpaste out of the container more easily while reducing packaging waste and material inputs.

SavePaste is still just a concept but if these packages are ever going to gain a substantial foothold in the seemingly unchangeable toothpaste package world, which it seems like they could, they will need to make a play for consumers who not only want a greener alternative, but who want the chance to get at more of what they paid for — without resorting to those old pasty tube-twirling doohickeys.

Hat tip: Yanko Design

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In the 1980s, at the apex of the 'Save the Whales' movement, the ubiquitous plastic six-pack holders were fast becoming symbols of a new type of environmentalism — consumer environmentalism. New attention was being given to waste, recycling and the lifecycle of the many consumer products and product packages entering the market and/or waste stream. I'm not even where I first heard it, but all of a sudden those flimsy white-gray plastic six-pack holders were getting a bad rap because birds were reportedly getting caught in them or snagged by them. I'm not even sure I remember the story, but it emerged as such a widely held belief that it soon became fairly common to see someone pull apart those plastic rings before throwing plastic bird-tangler-killers away. You might still do it. But the other day I came across an even better option.

Yes, the six-pack holders pictured above from Avery Brewing in Colorado have even more plastic than their flimsy predecessors but they are also 100% recyclable. And since they are HDPE #2 plastic, they can be recycled most anywhere, along with the cans they carry, obviously. Making more things out of plastic isn't on its face a good thing. But if these catch on, and recycling rates remain nearly as high for the plastic as they are for the cans,  less paper and cardboard will be needed in packaging and less plastic six-pack holders (broken down and not) will end up in landfills.

The word on the street is that other small breweries are also using the new beefier recyclable six-pack holders but this is the first and only beer I've seen using the new system.

What do you think about the new packaging? Have you seen any of your favorite local brews using them? If so, please tell us about it in the comments.

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Hilex Poly is working hard to develop a recycling stream that will change the way you think and feel about about plastic bags.

"We want to be the industry that helps improve and green other industries" explained Phil Rozensky, Director of Marketing and Sustainability, before leading myself and three other journalists on a tour of their impressively large (the world's largest) and efficient (machines run at 85%, a gold-standard) facility.  Keep scrolling to follow along.

Bail storage: an HDPE sanctuary
An estimated 8 billion pounds of plastic bags and wraps are tossed out as trash every year in the US alone.

The world's population uses plastic bags at the rate of one million every minute.

Many people think that because plastic grocery bags aren't accepted at Municipal Recycling Facilities (they clog machinery and start fires) they aren't recyclable.  In fact, the high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic that composes these grocery bags is 100% recyclable and Hilex Poly's"Bag-2-Bag" recycling facility in North Vernon, Indiana does just that.

The facility operates under the guidance of 250 employees working around the clock to crank out 28 million plastic bags every day.

Bailed plastics are brought in by rail and truck from participating retailers and industries.

Sorting
The reclaimed grocery bags are passed through a magnetic metal detector and hand-sorted to remove contaminants such as car keys, bowling balls, submarine sandwiches and any other materials that may have wound up in the mix.

Centrifuge and Extrusion
A quick, wet spin-cycle forces more contaminants to sink to the bottom of a centrifuge where another extrusion process draws a steaming pile of undesirable materials (namely receipts) out the side via a screw mechanism.

Plastic Shred
The remaining plastic is shredded into flake and treated in a silo with a hot air dryer.

Compounded North Vernon Pellets
A scraper and two heat sources push across the plastic as it is formed into pellets.  Pellets from the wet-line process described above and the dry-line process (which includes higher-value stretch films and first-use plastic bag scrap such as handle cut-outs) are reprocessed to form compounded North Vernon (CNV)  pellets.

It takes about a dozen CNV pellets to make a post-consumer recycled grocery bag
100% post-consumer recycled plastic bags are possible, but demand is outstripping supply such that Hilex Poly currently produces bags with a minimum of 25% recycled content.  Their goal is to be manufacturing 40% post-consumer recycled plastic bags by 2015.

The Bubble Machine
CNV pellets are weighed and mixed in a barrel at the bottom of these extruders where they are heated to 430F.  By the time the bubble forms a cone, its temperature has dropped to 200F thanks to cooling air that runs the length of the film.  When the film reaches the floor above it is wound onto rollers at a manageable 120F.  The rollers spin clockwise to offset twisting.

Plastic Film Rolls

The average roll weighs about 1500 lbs.  Tan rolls in the foreground and gray rolls in the background are made from post-consumer plastics--the white and blue will become first-run bags; "breaks my heart to see it go away like that.  It should have a note, 'return to original owner'" said Regional Manager, Doug Johnson, who followed the company from Texas.

Water-based Ink Printing Presses
None of these are currently printing "return to original owner".

A Bag is a Bag is a Bag Again
Hilex Poly's "Bag-2-Bag" program has saved well over 30 million pounds of plastic from the landfill.
Phil Rozensky speaks on behalf of the misunderstood polymer, reminding us that "there is no such thing as a single-use bag".

Most Americans reuse their plastic bags as garbage liners (about 60%), some will return them to a retailer to be recycled (13%) and others toss them out egregiously (20%).  If you're like me, you have a stash in a kitchen drawer and call on them to act as leak-proof lunch sacks and to protect your gear and electronics when out  in a drizzle.

One unsettling fact I learned was of the United States' growing demand for 'reusable' polypropylene bags.  According to the U.S. International Trade Commission, we import 1.8 billion of these bags each year.  Six times the population of just over 300 million. These cheap (15 cent) imports are quickly becoming the next disposable bag.

The best way to combat plastic pollution and waste of this magnitude is to stop accepting bags of all kinds and tote own (make sure it's made with a strong, natural fiber).  Still, it might make sense to bag the ban and refocus productive energy and educational resources on promoting this sustainable, domestic, green industry that provides us with cradle-to-cradle consumer convenience.

Return grocery bags, overwraps (from paper towels, tissues and bottles), newspaper bags, dry cleaning bags and other clean home polyethylene films (#2 or 4) to participating locations and ask local merchants to consider the switch to post-consumer recycled grocery bags.

Follow Allison Leahy on twitter or reach her by email.

For more info on why "Gray is the New Green" watch Earth911.com's interview with Hilex Poly's Director of Marketing & Sustainability, Phil Rozenski-- here.

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Published by The Freedonia Group, Green Packaging to 2014 found that lower manufacturing costs and continued demand for "green packaging" —defined in the report as packaging that comprises recycled content, or reusable or degradable packaging—will outpace growth in the larger packaging sector with the fastest gains anticipated for degradable packaging and plastic recycled content packaging.

From corn cups to sugar-beet takeout containers, degradable packaging is forecast to expand an impressive 13.6 percent annually to $685 million in 2014, driven by price competitiveness with conventional resins, manufacturing capacity expansions, and continued demand for greener manufacturing, goods and services.

Hat tip: Greener Package

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Now that would be a troubling headline for Yum! Brands PR. It's not a "real" headline but it might as well be.

If the era of social media and web 2.0 taught us anything, it is that corporations and organizations no longer have full control of their brands and how consumers interact with them. Their best hope is that they will be able to "manage" brand perception.

So when KFC rolled out reusable containers for their side dishes and implemented certain other changes in their food packaging to make it more sustainable, they weren't acting in a vacuum of corporate social responsibility. They were acting, at least in some part, to manage brand perception.

The Dogwood Alliance, an environmental group dedicated to holding corporations accountable for their industrial forestry practices in the South, has been pressuring the fried chicken chain to stop the practice of using pulpwood from endangered forests in the south, and in particular, the Green Swamp of North Carolina.

The campaign, called "Kentucky Fried Forests," identifies KFC's biggest paper-wasting culprit as the ubiquitous KFC bucket. And does so by deftly superimposing a chainsaw on the illustrated image of Colonel Sanders, the patriarch of the KFC brand.

“[W]hen you look at Kentucky Fried Chicken, it stands out as an iconic southern brand," says Dogwood Alliance campaign director Scott Quaranda. "So the most recognizable piece of the campaign is the KFC bucket of chicken.”

The Dogwood Alliance, which according to Brandweek, staged a summer protest outside KFC's Louisville, Ky.-based headquarters, has adopted public-sphere strategies to push companies like Staples and Sony to adopt more sustainable practices. They pushed Staples so hard that the office supply retailer is now a Dogwood ally.

Despite the timing of KFC's announcements in 2010 about their implementation of more sustainable packaging processes into their product lines, company officials say Kentucky Fried Forests campaign had nothing to do with the decision.

"The activities of special interest groups have no impact on the work KFC is doing to reduce the brand's environmental footprint," KFC said in a statement.

Not only does KFC not recognize Dogwood's role in any of this, apparently KFC and fellow Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM) sister restaurants Taco Bell, Long John Silvers and Pizza Hut have been reluctant to engage with Dogwood altogether. I'm not sure why. Maybe it has something to do with the chainsaw.

While the Dogwood Alliance has recognized some of KFC's packaging improvements, including introduction of reusable containers, as steps in the right direction, they aren't backing down from their main concern: paper products.

"I really appreciate the reusable container," wrote Dogwood's Scot Quaranda in reply our recent post, "but a bulk of KFC packaging is made from paper, in fact their iconic buckets come from endangered forests in the Southern US."

So is the chainsaw-wielding Colonel Sanders going away any time soon? Until KFC can do better with the bucket than making the lid from 30% recycled material, I'm guessing no.

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KFC has begun rolling out its new reusable polypropylene container and lid to replace their former single-use foam container for side dishes. The new sides container, which is also microwaveable and "top rack dishwasher safe," requires 25 percent less energy to produce and generates half the amount of greenhouse gases, as compared to the general-purpose polystyrene foam container it is replacing. KFC's expectation for the container is that consumers will reuse and eventually recycle the package.

“Through research, we found that consumers prefer reusable containers because it gives them control of how the item is reused or disposed of after purchase,” said Susan Miles, KFC Engineering Manager. “Our research also showed that 60 percent of consumers keep a reusable container for at least six weeks.”

The new reusable container has been introduced in about 60 percent of KFC stores and will be available nationwide by early 2011. Despite just launching, the new KFC sides container has already won a Greener Package Award in the food and pharmaceutical packaging category along with Coca-Cola's plant-based bottle.

"We believe this is the first meaningful introduction of reusable food containers in the fast food industry," said Megan Isaac, Senior Marketing Manager for KFC. "By the end of this year, KFC U.S. will reduce foam packaging use by 62 percent and reduce total plastic use by 17 percent.”

In addition to phasing out polystyrene sides containers, KFC will also be replacing plastic plates with paper ones as part of the company's plan to reduce its use of nonrenewable resources and ultimately eliminate foam packaging from its restaurants.

The question I have now is whether Chick-fil-A will follow suit and step out of the foam ages.

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