With about 180 million individual cards to be exchanged (excluding packaged children’s cards), this holiday is heavy on paper cardstock. Despite the tons of paper used for this holiday, Valentine’s Day represents only about 12.5% of the 7 billion U.S. greeting cards sold annually. With Hallmark and American Greetings controlling over 80% of the market, anything these companies do to make greeting cards more eco-friendly does have immediate “green impact”. Thankfully, both companies do offer cards with recycled content. With about 30% of all greeting cards containing some recycled content, over 1 million trees are saved annually. Marketing cards made from 100% recycled paper, American Greeting’s Recycled Paper Greetings www.recycledpapergreetings.com is the “green card” leader. Buy a greeting card with recycled content and you will not only be saying to your Valentine, “How do I love thee?” , you will be letting these corporate purveyors of messages hear, “Let me count the trees”.

Saving our trees by using recycled paper to produce greeting cards must be supported by recycling the cards that are gifted. Greeting cards can be recycled wherever “mixed paper” is accepted. Since most municipalities accept “mixed paper”, please remember to recycle all your cards that are not personal keepsakes. If your municipality or hauler does not accept “mixed paper”, you have until February 28th to send your Valentine’s Day cards to St. Jude’s Ranch for Children. For 34 years, St. Jude’s has accepted used greeting card fronts and works with children to trim the cards and glue them onto pre-printed card backs. These refurbished cards are then packaged and sold by the charity. According to their website, “The benefits are two-fold; customers receive “green” holiday cards for use and the children receive payment for their work and learn the benefits and importance of “going green”. It is St. Jude’s commitment to “break the vicious welfare cycle and to teach the children to learn to earn”, they pay each child fifteen cents for each card made. While the program does not specifically create cards purposed for Valentine’s Day, this 34 year old program will use “anything…that starts with a used greeting card front. For a small postage fee you will be supporting a charity that has helped millions of children. To learn more about this greeting card recycling program, please visit their website at: www.stjudesranch.org

A favorite among Valentine’s Day gifts is the heart-shaped box filled with chocolates. Chocolates presented in individual wrappings, placed inside a cardboard carton which is then wrapped in cellophane just seem to make for a beautiful presentation! Today, even our favorite candy bar brands are specially wrapped to bring in the holiday. And, a chocolate lover’s holiday it is. In 2009, 58 million pounds of chocolate sold for Valentine’s Day. Wrap, wrap, and wrap! Who’s counting? I don’t deny that wrapping serves not only as candy “fashion”, but also enables mechanized production and helps to maintain product freshness, but when is the wrapping too much? When the wrapping does not incorporate any recycled content and is itself not recyclable- that’s overwrapped chocolate! Since most candy wrappers are wax-coated or made of layered adhered materials (paper, foil, and plastic) they are not recyclable. Plastic-coated, color inked-paper laminates may grab our attention for a few seconds at retail, but ultimately these super packaged eye-catchers end up sitting in our landfills for hundreds of years. A quote from, A Century of Candy Bars, by David Grager, is definitely some food for thought, “The simple sheet of paper used to protect our favorite candy bar, an item we rarely think about or consciously notice, one that we immediately throw into the trash, may tell us more about ourselves than we realize”. Not so sweet a thought?! Help may be on the way. Some emerging technologies may one day make wrapper recycling a reality. Material reclamation technology being developed by Polyflow Corp www.plyflow.uuuq.com and plasma technology used for aseptic brick recycling may one day be used to recycle candy wrappers. (To read more about recycling aseptic packages visit: www.www.recygal.com/2010/01/19/tetra-pak%c2%ae-building-a-foundation-for-carton-recycling-with-aseptic-bricks/#more-1453).

Despite the current lack of wrapper recycling, there is no reason why candy cartons and elements of candy wrappers cannot be made with recycled content. The food grade recycled cartons and papers available to candy producers are not widely used. Surprisingly, even many organic chocolate manufacturers do not place emphasis on the eco-friendliness of their packaging. Shameful! Since packaging is fashion and the confectionery industry follows trends, the current greening of America should eventually gain momentum in the candy arena too. In the meantime, at least recycle your candy cartons. Every carton we keep out of a landfill helps to save trees. And, of course, you can always support companies like TerraCycle® who make wonderful items out of reclaimed materials like candy wrappers. Visit www.terracycle.net to learn more about their efforts and how you can participate.

The No.1 gift associated with Valentine’s Day is a bouquet of roses. This year, over 100 million roses will be sold for the holiday. With growing, packaging and shipping all taking tolls on the environment you may want to consider sending an organically grown bouquet. An online purveyor of organic flowers, Organic Bouquet, offers flowers grown to meet certified guidelines for sustainable crop production, ecosystem protection, fair labor practices, community benefits, and product quality. All orders are packaged using recycled and recyclable materials. To atone for the carbon footprint generated by shipping, the carbon emissions from each shipment are “offset by rolling funds into the Nicaragua Restoration Project”. Over a forty year period, this project will sequester more than 150,000 tons of carbon dioxide by reforesting over 850 acres of abandoned pastures with native trees. Check out www.organicbouquet.com for your floral needs.

As Valentine’s Day fast approaches and soon leaves us for another year, let’s try and keep all our holiday traditions as green and as renewable as possible. Please submit any suggestions you may have to keep our gifting greener; we can all learn from each other. Happy Valentine’s Day!

© 2010 Recycle Life, LLC
The RecyGal^TM and the RecyGal character, logo are trademarks of Recycle Life , LLC

References for this article were obtained from: www.recycledgreetingcards.com, “Environmental Info”, USAID, Expro El Salvador, Program for Export Promotion, for the Micro, Small, and Mid-Size Businesses, San Salvador 7, July 7, 2005, www.grinningplanet.com , “Congratulations!..On Overpaying for the Greeting Card”, February 8, 2005, www.emotioncards.com, “The History of Greeting Cards”, www.poemhunter.com, “How Do I Love Thee”, Elizabeth Barret Browning, www.slashfood.com , “Why we Give Candy on Valentine’s Day, H. Raskin, February 4, 2010, www.earth911.com, “Recycling Mysteries: Candy Wrappers”, B. Hammad, May 18, 2009, www.www.underconsideration.com, “A Century of Candy Bars- An Analysis of Wrapper Design”, David Crager, The Gazette, “Valentine’s roses bloom by the millions”, D. Wilson, February 11, 2000, PR Newswire, “Organic Roses on Valentines Say ‘ I love you and the earth too!’”, January 25, 2005, www.organicbouquet.com

The name Tetra Pak® has become synonymous with the aseptic brick package (an innovative packaging process that allows liquid food stuffs to remain shelf stable without preservatives or refrigeration). Since the early 1950s, Tetra Pak®, a Swedish company, has been packaging liquid milk in aseptic cartons. Today, with operations in over 165 countries, its cartons are used for juices, wines, soups, and sauces too. To learn more about Tetra Pak® visit: www.tetrapak.com

Comprised of 6 layers of materials, the Tetra Pak® aseptic brick allows for light weight, efficient, non-refrigerated shipment and storage of liquid foods.

To have a close look at a Tetra Pak® carton for yourself, just visit your grocer’s child-size juice section. In the USA, many “on the go” parents depend on Tetra Pak® packaged juices to keep their toddlers happy and well hydrated. So, what about milk?

By the time Tetra Pak® got its start, the USA was already developing wide spread refrigerated distribution. Remember the milkman? While the milkman serviced regional dairies and local communities, the advent of superhighways enabled trucking companies to expand distribution across the country. As trucking companies expanded so too did the distribution of refrigerated food stuffs; Americans everywhere were enjoying fresh milk.

In our fresh milk market, the Tetra Pak® concept has not fared so well; utilizing a process coined “UHT” (ultra high temperature) the milk is heated for a shorter time and at a higher temperature than the process used to produce fresh milk (pasteurization). The UHT milk (now free of all bacteria) is filled into a sterile carton (brick) creating a shelf stable, long life product. Given the higher temperature of processing required for UHT, the inherent milk sugars caramelize and give the UHT milk a bit of a “cooked” flavor rather than the familiar “fresh” taste Americans prefer. This difference in milk flavor has kept Tetra Pak® from establishing a large share of the USA liquid milk market. For beverages where UHT processing does not adversely affect flavor such as chocolate milk and juices, the aseptic brick has found better consumer acceptance.

Given that worldwide two thirds of all Tetra Pak® bricks are used for packaging milk, if a market does not have a large share of its milk packaged in aseptic bricks, it is conceivable the market development for this type of packaging will be marginal. With the average American consuming 13.5 gallons of non-flavored milk per year (equivalent to over 16 billion 32oz Tetra Paks® of milk) that is a market you do not want to be a marginal player in! However, it seems that Tetra Pak® only has a marginal share of the huge, non-flavored milk market and so concentrates in the niche for flavored milks, juices, and soup bases. So, how does Tetra Pak’s® niche position affect the recycling for aseptic bricks in the USA?

In order to develop a sound recycling system for any material, there must be a sizable volume of material to reclaim. Without a steady supply of reclaimed material, efficient processing and market development for the recyclable cannot come to fruition. Because the aseptic brick is a multilayer package of several materials, it takes ingenuity and special techniques to separate the various components and to reclaim them. In markets like the USA where Tetra Pak® use is less main- stream, emphasis on developing reclamation techniques and an infrastructure to support them is not top priority. Here in the USA, many eco-conscious consumers still think the recycling process for aseptic brick packaging is either not possible or “very expensive and awkward, and is therefore only available in a very few places”. So, what happens to the cartons when junior has finished his apple juice? Sadly, in the USA many of these cartons do not get recycled. However, in established European markets, like Germany, aseptic bricks have recycle rates greater than 65%. And, in developing markets where Tetra Pak® technology has gained a foothold due to lack of refrigerated distribution, recycling advances have grown right alongside milk sales. Recycling Tetra Pak® does not have to be “expensive and awkward “, it just needs to be done with a common sense approach that fits the particular market.

Because the aseptic brick is composed of about 75% long fiber paper, 20% low density polyethylene, and 5% aluminum, the paper market is the most developed downstream use for reclaimed aseptic bricks. The paper fibers are recovered at paper mills and make “excellent raw material for the corrugated paperboard sector”. The process to separate the paper from other materials in the brick is called hydrapulping. Basically, hydrapulping uses water and industrial strength blenders to separate the paper from the polyethylene and aluminum layers. The paper is recovered, leaving the polyethylene and aluminum as a residual.

Depending on the particular recycling market, the polyethylene and aluminum residual can be repurposed in a variety of ways. In Germany, the residual is used by the cement industry for energy recovery and bauxite replacement whereas Brazil uses it to make products like roofing materials, buckets, and brooms.

To see how Tetra Paks® are recycled in a developing nation like India, please watch this video from Mumbai:

If a complete separation of materials is required, a novel process called thermal plasma technology can be employed. After the paper has been recovered, the aluminum/polyethylene residual is heated to a high temperature in the absence of oxygen. When polyethylene is heated to a high temperature it does not burn but breaks down into smaller particles forming paraffin. The aluminum melts down and is recovered as highly pure ingots. The plasma technology is very efficient: “90% of energy yield is actually achieved in the process.” Emissions are near zero.

So, now that we have established that aseptic brick packaging is recyclable, where is recycling available? Currently, beverage carton recycling (including the aseptic brick) is available curbside in at least half of our states. Fourteen states (CA, CO, CT, FL, IL, MA, ME, MI, NJ, NY, OH, RI, UT, WA) have many communities which collect used cartons. Eight states have 3 to 10 communities with collection (AZ, GA, LA, MS, MN, NC, NE, OR), and three states have only 1 community which collects: (PA, TX, LA). Oh, and Washington, D.C. collects cartons for recycling too. According to Tetra Pak®, “20% of total US residents across 26 states (they’re counting Washington, D.C. as a state) have access to carton recycling”. With 25 states not even having one community with collection, there is a long way to go to recycle all the used beverage cartons (including regular “gable top” cartons used for fresh milk and juices too). To find out if your community has curbside collection of beverage cartons, visit:www.aseptic.org

To wrap it up, I’d like to mention a wonderful aseptic brick packaging endeavor. A Canadian company based in Québec, Groupe RCM, is working with the Québec government, Narel (a dairy cooperative), A. Lassonde Inc., (a fruit juice company) and Tetra Pak®, to build a recycling facility to recycle plastic and paper waste, “specifically Tetra Pak® aseptic containers…as well as plastic (low-density polyethylene) bags and films”. The facility will utilize a high-speed “thermokinetic” process developed by the Québec Center of Industrial Research. What is so amazing about Groupe RCM is that it is an organization with the mission to provide jobs for handicapped people and to better the environment. Groupe RCM collaborates with the regional Center of Services for Intellectual Deficiencies and provides employment for many mentally deficient individuals. The new recycling facility will add 65 more jobs that will be mostly filled by handicapped workers. I can’t give Groupe RCM enough kudos for keeping waste out of landfills and providing meaningful employment to disabled persons. Learn more about Groupe RCM at:www.groupercm.com

Come on America, with aseptic brick recycling examples like those in Canada and India, we can definitely do more!

© 2010 Recycle Life, LLC
The RecyGal^TM and the RecyGal character, logo are trademarks of Recycle Life , LLC

References for this article were obtained from: “Empowering the Bottom of the Pyramid via Product Stewardship: Tetra Pak Entrepreneurial Networks in Brazil”, Orsato, Renato, et.al, October 10, 2007, INSEAD Business School, Fontainebleau, France, “How is a juice box made?”, www.answers.com, “Tetra Pak and wine: a low carbon footprint alternative package”,www.wineenabler.com, Neil, January 25, 2009, “Commonly Recycled Materials- Aseptic Packaging” , www.obviously.com, “Refrigerated Transportation Timeline, pre-WWII”, www.33brinkster.com, “Got Data? Multiple Data Sources Track U.S. Food Consumption”, Morrison, R., et.al, March 2009, www.ers.usda.gov, www.tetrapak.com, www.aseptic.org, “A great leap forward for waste diversion- $3.5M investment in Groupe RCM plant in Yamachiche: Tetra Pak cartons, milk cartons, plastic bags and films can now be recycled into new products”, November 2009, www.newswire.ca, “Division Recuperation”, www.groupercm.com

Is the time right for MRF World to take plastics more seriously? Should plastics be at the forefront of curbside recycling? Just as co-mingling of recyclables has made collection at curbside easier, the co-mingling of information on recovered materials may provide some answers. Trust me. We are not mixing apples and oranges; the markets do share some interesting parallels. To see what drives the market dynamics behind all the plastic containers we recycle, we need to take a brief look at other recovered materials like paper, metal, and glass.

Basically, in fall of 2008, the demand for most reclaimed materials drastically fell. According to an article published in, The Gazette, Melissa Kolwaite (a spokesperson for Waste Management) said, “we have been in the recycling industry for 40 years, and the reality is that there are cycles in terms of highs and lows”. Kolwaite goes on to explain this particular downturn was so severe because it coincided with a worldwide recession. While that may be true, I think it is only part of the story (For more background discussion see: http://www.recygal.com/?p=684#more-684)

Up until the fall of 2008, strong Asian demand for reclaimed materials left MRFs scrambling to export more and more recyclables. Taking their “eyes” off local markets, shipment of scrap papers, scrap metals, and scrap plastics flowed to faraway places. Overcome by the lure of moola from Asia, investment and development in less “hot” opportunities came to a standstill. In many cases, development of more sustainable, closer to home opportunities were either totally ignored or put on the put on the back burner. Just when the “hot” strategy seemed to be paying off, Asia dried up!

As Asia wilted, reclaimed material prices melted: aluminum dropped by about 50%, scrap plastic fell by 20% (www.plasticsmarket.net), scrap glass by 58% (see:www.glassgo.net), scrap paper fell by 44% (www.paperfiber.net ) and recovered papers such as newsprint fell as much as 70%! The rapid price deflation not only lowered recycling’s profitability; it questioned its feasibility. Everything from aluminum cans to plastic soda bottles were in the fray. Needless to say, with the value for recyclables in the garbage, some of our recyclables went to landfills. What a shame!

The market value for many recovered materials declined for 6 months, then in summer 2009 prices started to move up. As of 4th quarter 2009, prices for scrap plastic have actually reached or surpassed previous high levels. The big question is, “How volatile are these prices?” If there are any economists out there, I would really appreciate your thoughts!

During the whole mess, the decline in composite plastic value (an average index taken across all reclaimed plastics) lagged far behind that of metal (www.metalpricing.com) and paper. Although Asia’s pull out hurt PET (#1) bales (prices sunk another 40% to 60%), the across the board value for reclaimed plastics was not so drastically effected. To give you an idea how Asian demand drove the post consumer PET (#1) bottle market, we must take a look at the past decade. From 1998 to 2008, the total market increased by over 80% to reach 1,549 MM lbs. While U.S. reclaimer purchases declined by 6% (757 MM lbs to 713 MM lbs), the explosive export market grew by over 800% (89 MM lbs to 836 MM lbs). Half of this explosion occurred within the past three years! Overheated Asia pushed market growth as the captive PET (#1) market base remained relatively unchanged.

Plastic recycling (as we know it today) began with the PET (#1) bottle which was patented in 1973. Soon after its introduction, PET (#1) bottles began replacing glass bottles for many beverages. Although PET (#1) recycling began in 1977, it took “years” before most facilities began to accept this plastic for recycling. The breakthrough came in 1991, when Coca Cola^© introduced the first recycled PET (#1) bottle. Recycling of PET (#1) bottles has grown from 8 MM pounds in 1979 to an estimated 2,410 MM pounds in 2009. (A 300 fold increase in 30 years!) With volumes of this magnitude, PET (#1) is the most recycled consumer plastic. With a large, captive beverage market, reclaimers that specialize solely in PET (#1) weathered the recent storm better than those reclaimers focusing on more volatile materials like paper.

Because reclaimers often handle several commodities, including PET (#1), many of these “mixed” facilities were snagged by the lure of Asia. Focusing on fast, lucrative export sales, attention was taken away from building more sustainable business models closer to home. As the Asian market for reclaimed materials dried up, export focused firms were not positioned to tap other outlets for their recyclables. Many found themselves dumb struck or scrambling for new ways to justify their existence.

The recent upswing in reclaimed materials pricing, points to MRF recovery. As MRFs begin to operate more smoothly again, plastic reclamation should play a larger role. According to the “2008 Report on Postconsumer PET Container Recycling Activity” ¹, the total pounds of PET bottles and jars available in the U.S. for recycling were 5.366 billion. The amount of postconsumer PET bottles collected for recycling and sold in the U.S. was 1.415 billion pounds. The resultant Gross Recycling Rate was 27%. Honestly, wouldn’t you think it would be higher? While many professionals in the plastics industry are ecstatic with this recycling rate (the highest in the past 10 years), it still falls short of the 1996 rate of 31.7%. With 27% reclaimed, there is still 73% not accounted for and likely ending up in landfills. Let’s get more PET bottles collected and recycled!

The second most reclaimed plastic is HDPE (#2) – with a recycle rate of 29%, 71% remains as garbage. Over the past decade, usage of PP (#5) for food containers has continually increased. However, with a recycle rate of only 11.4%, there are lots of yogurt containers and bottle caps “missing in action”. Despite the low recycle rate, the trend for PP (#5) recycling is actually on the upswing. New brand initiatives should help to increase recycling awareness of PP (#5) and improve the overall recycle rate.

Preserve Gimme 5 Bin

Launched this past January, “Preserve Gimme 5”, is a noteworthy program. For more than a decade, the company Recycline has been marketing tooth brushes made from post consumer plastic under the Preserve brand. Preserve Gimme 5 is a partnership formed by the Preserve brand team, Stonyfield Farm, Organic Valley and Whole Foods. Consumers who purchase items packaged in PP (#5) like yogurt, cottage cheese, hummus, sour cream, etc. can return the used containers to a designated recycling station inside their local Whole Foods store. The program is expected to keep one million pounds of PP (#5) out of landfills this year.

Another PP (#5) recycling program, “Recycle Caps with Aveda”, collects plastic bottle caps to melt and convert into post consumer recycled bottle caps. Depending on the type of cap, the post consumer plastic content can be as high as 25 – 100%. PP (#5) caps are found everywhere (beverage bottles, shampoo bottles, peanut butter jars, laundry detergent, etc., etc.). Unfortunately, millions upon millions of these caps are not recycled. Millions end up in landfills where they sit undisturbed for centuries; millions more find their way into drainage systems polluting waterways and physically choking marine life.

No one has captured the disastrous effects that floating bottle caps can have on marine life better than the photographer, Chris Jordan. Please visit his incredible website, www.chrisjordan.com, and see his new video which vividly shows the effects of plastic litter on avian life in the Pacific Ocean.

Dead Albatross with stomach full of bottle caps

After viewing Chris’s video, I am sure you will never want to “Not Recycle” another plastic bottle cap. Save them up and give them to Aveda. Aveda offers collection stations at its 150 U.S. stores and works with designated schools and independent salons to act as drop-off points for collected caps.

Aveda Cap Collection at University

Many colleges and universities participate in the program too; these organizations simply mail in the caps to Aveda for reclamation. Started in April 2008, Aveda collected more than 50,000 lbs of bottles caps in its first 7 months of program operations.

What is interesting about these recycling initiatives is that they are spearheaded by consumer products companies, not municipalities or MRFs. The companies behind these initiatives not only care about the environment, they are filling a void in the marketplace for recovered plastic. It is time that more MRFs take a serious look at PP (#5) collection and recycling. Investment in the recycling of clean, food grade plastics such as PVC (#3) or LDPE (#4) or PS (#6) would also make the industry less vulnerable to market swings and keep more plastics out of our landfills and waterways. The global market shake up of 2008 shows that recycling should be approached from a broad perspective. The days of narrow focus on “What’s hot”, need to end. By supporting efforts like Preserve Gimme 5 or Recycle Caps with Aveda we help to sustain worthy recycling programs. With continued corporate efforts, perhaps our municipalities will take notice and begin recycling these materials too. I sure hope my municipality does. In the meantime, I will be dropping of PP (#5) containers at my local Whole Foods store and plastic bottles caps at the closest Aveda pick up station. Does your city or municipality offer curbside pickup for any of the above plastics? Please let me know. This is a topic which demands further attention.

© 2009 Recycle Life, LLC
The RecyGal^TM and the RecyGal character, logo are trademarks of Recycle Life , LLC

References for this article were obtained from:
¹“2008 United States National Postconsumer Plastics Bottle Recycling Report”, American Chemistry Council and Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers, 2009 “Report on Post-Consumer Pet Container Recycling Activity”, National Association for PET Container Resources, 2009, “2007 United States National Post-Consumer Report on Non-Bottle Rigid Plastics Recycling”, American Chemistry Council, 2009, “Recycling Takes Hit As Needs Fall Back”, The Gazette, April 12, 2009, “Sagging Economy Trashes Demand for Recyclables”, Albany Times Union, December 26, 2008, “History of Recycling”, California Environmental Protection Agency Integrated Waste Management Board, California Department of Conservation, 1997, “Overview of the Recovered Paper Market, Moore & Associates, March 2009, “Is Export Important?”, Waste Age, July 2009, “U.S. Aluminum Can Recycling Reached 54.2 Percent in 2008.”, Business Wire, August 12, 2009, “Plastic Packaging”, www.ballcorporate.com, 2009, “Reduce, recover, reuse: preserve CEO Eric Hudson shares his vision to make stylish, eco-friendly products–and preserve resources and encourage recycling at the same time”, Brand Packaging, May 1, 2009, “Preserve Gimme 5 Program Offers Recyclers With Polypropylene #5 Plastics Convenient Recycling Option”, Food Business Week, February 12, 2009, “Aveda creates system to recycle bottle caps”, Plastics News, December 8, 2008, “Recycle Caps with Aveda”, aveda.com