Live from the Packaging Recycling Summit: Juggling EPR regulations, focusing consumers on responsible sourcing and improving circularity in thermoforming

On Monday, during the first day of the Packaging Recycling Summit, consumer goods industry stakeholders heard the latest insights on recycling from industry experts in Anaheim, California. The world of packagingHere’s what they found out.

Finding the Right Perspective on EPR

For Reid Lifset, a researcher at Yale University who spoke at the Summit, the effectiveness of EPR systems comes down to looking closely at what has the greatest impact.

Lifset spoke on a panel discussion on EPR fundamentals, real-world examples, and developments in key U.S. states, alongside Neil Menezes of General Mills Inc., Ajit Perera of Talco Plastics Inc., Phil Martinez of MCC Label, and Scott DeFife of the Glass Packaging Institute. He explained that reducing emissions should be the primary goal of minimizing environmental impact.

“We talk about increasing recycling and sometimes increasing reuse, and we talk about diverting landfill, but when you look at the science behind it, we know that most of the benefits of recycling and reuse come not from diverting landfill, but from replacing virgin production. When you use recycled content instead of virgin content, you typically use less energy, and that’s where the main benefit comes from. This focus on landfill diversion is something we tell the public because it’s easier to understand, but it doesn’t accurately reflect what’s happening,” Lifset said. “We want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, so we should be designing our systems to minimize emissions, not minimize landfill. Those two things don’t always go hand in hand.”

Consumers’ changing interest in sustainability

As Kasra Eskandari, Associate Director at NeilsonIQ, said at the Summit, consumers consider sustainable packaging to be the most important feature that makes a brand sustainable, but the separate topic of responsible sourcing of raw materials is becoming increasingly important.

Eskandari said: “Consumer perception goes beyond just reducing plastic packaging. They want to look at the entire life cycle of a product. Where does it come from? How is it produced? How is it disposed of?”

The untapped potential of PCR in thermal form

As Megan Moore, program director for the National Association of PET Container Resources (NAPCOR), said during the Summit, the use of PET bottles for post-consumer recycling (PCR) has increased in recent years and now accounts for the majority of packaging being recycled and recovered.

Moore discussed the potential for improving the circularity of thermoforming in a panel with Jeff Snyder of Rumpke and Zach Muscato of Plastic Ingenuity. She said that, on the other hand, recycled thermoformed packaging is a relatively untapped source of PCR content.

“We’re not using that thermoforming stream as much as we could and should. We have excess recovery capacity, according to NAPCOR, but we don’t currently have the material in the U.S. to feed the domestic market,” Moore said. “We have a lot of market drivers who export our feedstock to Mexico for processing, and some feedstock comes from Asia for processing, so it’s a dynamic market. But today we could increase our PET recovery by almost 30 percent if we had the supply. A big part of that is recovering thermoformed material that’s recyclable, whether it’s commingled or ideally in a separate thermoforming bale.”