From the Managing Editor's Desk
Dan Bolton,STiR managing editor
In July, Keurig Green Mountain was named in a federal class action suit accusing the company of falsely labeling its coffee pods recyclable. A US District Judge in Oakland, Calif., determined the claim was untruthful because Keurig knew that K-Cup coffee pods are too small to be sorted at municipal recycling facilities (MRF). While Keurig’s pods are made from polypropylene, a plastic accepted at MRFs nationwide, none of these facilities divert small objects into the recycling stream. None.
The judge ruled that “common sense would not so clearly lead a person to believe that a package labeled ‘recyclable’ is not recyclable anywhere.”
The convenience of capsules is embedded in millions of homes and offices in the West and a growing segment in Asia, and the deep pockets of Keurig’s owner, JAB Holdings, will avert serious harm to the world’s second-largest coffee capsule supplier. But the ruling makes it clear that labeling a product with a recycle symbol requires not just the “possibility” that it can be recycled–but the probability that it will be recycled.
Single-use packaging is not going away. There are no single-use plastics commercially available that truly solve the problem of disposal so the immediate task is to act together to make single-use plastics a sparing solution.
Here are a few things to consider:
• Packaging is over-engineered. Begin with the end in mind. There needs to be a better match between the barrier properties of the product with a vision of how it will break down. Downgauging, for example, is underutilized. Thin-wall bottles made of bio-friendly materials work just fine and are much more likely to compost.
• Certification of components does not ensure compostability. The finished multi-laminate combination of coatings, inks, adhesives, and wraps is a packaging system likely to be much more difficult to dispose of than its components.
• Rely only on science-based information. Eco Packaging’s Jeanne Cloutier, a co-founder of the OSC2 (One Step Closer) packaging collaborative advises: “Don’t rely on bite-sized information from Instagram alone for your education. Align with upstream materials suppliers and manufacturers and ask to be provided with sustainable packaging choices.”
Forty senior corporate executives now meet monthly as a “packaging collaborative,” launched seven years ago, to promote less packaging, and plastic-free, compostable, non-GMO solutions. “As a start, get educated in the form of joining the OSC2 packaging collaborative,” Cloutier told New Hope publications, “Realize that this is not a fad, and that compostable packaging is not going away (except after it is composted).”
STiR continues its series on sustainable packaging solutions in this issue with a look at degassing values and the new Flo capsules made of Ingeo, a promising compostable from NatureWorks. In recent issues, writers have explored a number of solutions from Danimer PHA to Futamura’s NatureFlex, and products from One Earth and E. Hofmann Plastics.
Armed with new films of next-generation plastics, brands are taking up the challenge. One example is Coca-Cola which recently promised to switch to 100% recycled PET in the EU countries it serves. Suppliers are making headway with additional momentum from OSC2.
There is reason for optimism.