Sustainability\eBottlesSustainabilityStatement, Plastic Bottles Glass
Bottles & Jars - eBottles.com Buy by the Case Wholesale
Sustainability: Design for Recyclability ®
Sustainable developments can be defined as those that “meet present
needs without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their needs”
eBottles promotes
the use of Glass and PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate, Resin
Identification Code #1) for cannabis packaging as the most
sustainable option for our products due to their common
presence in the waste stream and the ease and high value of
recycling these materials. PET is the most widely used
packaging resin, PET is also the most widely recycled plastic
material in the world.
Design for Recyclability® is an initiative by
independent recycling companies, consumer product companies,
equipment manufacturers, testing laboratories, organizations,
and others committed to the success of plastics recycling. The
goal of the program is to educate packagers on the impact of
package design to achieve maximum recycling opportunities. The
primary consideration is to create packages which can be
easily recycled through the use of automated equipment thereby
ensuring sustainability in the market. Recycling is the best
choice for rigid packaging such as bottles and jars. The
barrier to more cost effective recycling is the plethora of
materials and colors in the waste stream and the mixture of
difficult to separate items used in individual packages.
Due to its clarity and natural Oxygen and CO2 barrier
properties, PET is the most widely used packaging resin. It is
easily blown into a bottle or formed into a sheet, thereby
becoming the resin of choice for beverage, food and personal
care applications. PET bottles and jars are accepted in
virtually all recycling programs in the United States and
Canada.
Over 2 billion pounds of PET are collected for recycling
annually. The EPA estimates that 1% of municipal solid waste
in the U.S. is attributed to PET containers.
RPET IS EMPLOYED FOR NEW PRODUCTS SUCH AS:
New PET containers
Polyester carpet fiber
Fabric
Shoes
Luggage
Upholstery
Sweaters
Fiberfill for sleeping bags & coats
Industrial strapping
Sheet and film
Automotive parts
The use of recycled PET in place of virgin resin typically
results in reduced energy consumption, lower cost, and reduced
environmental impact.
DESIGN FOR RECYCLABILITY® CONCERNS:
PET does not normally have the desired properties for
closures, attachments or labels so other polymers are commonly
used for these items and affixed to the PET package. PET
properties can be enhanced with colorants, UV blockers and
other additives. Each modification and addition to the base,
clear PET in a package must be considered for its effect on
the recycling stream. Items should either be economically
removed from the PET in the typical recycling process or be
compatible with Recycled PET (RPET) in future uses.
The density of PET is 1.38 and so it sinks in water. Closures,
labels and attachments should be made from materials with a
density less than 1.0 that will float in water and therefore
be readily separated from the PET.
Additives to plastic materials are available which increase
the rate of degradation of plastic both in aerobic and
anaerobic environments. While these additives significantly
improve the time required for plastic to degrade, there are no
official test standards which when met can allow a marketer to
make the claim that their packaging is “Biodegradable”. ASTM
D5511 is the standardized test method developed to determine
the amount of plastic degradation which will occur in a
controlled environment in the presence of pretreated household
waste. Claims of performance are limited to the numerical
result obtained in the test and can not be used for
unqualified “biodegradable” claims. The State of California in
particular has fined several companies for making this claim:
Important
California Notice
California law prohibits the sale of
plastic packaging and plastic products that are labeled
with the terms ‘biodegradable,’ ‘degradable,’ or
‘decomposable,’ or any form of those terms, or that imply
in any way that the item will break down, biodegrade or
decompose in a landfill or other environment. These
restrictions apply to all sales in or into the State of
California, including such sales over the Internet.
PUBLIC RESOURCES CODE - PRC DIVISION 30. WASTE
MANAGEMENT [40000 - 49620] PART 3. STATE PROGRAMS
[42000 - 42999] CHAPTER 5.7. Plastic Products [42355 -
42358.5]
Recycling is the best choice for rigid
packaging such as bottles and jars. The barrier to more cost
effective recycling is the plethora of materials and colors
in the waste stream and the mixture of difficult to separate
items used in individual packages.
COLOR: CLEAR PET IS PREFERRED:
Clear material has the highest value as a
recycled stream since it has the widest variety of end-use
applications. It is the most cost effective to process through
the recycling system. Transparent light blue packaging is a
suitable product for recycling. Light blue material is often
included with the clear material stream to act as a bluing
agent and offset some yellowing. This not only adds volume to
the high value clear stream, it improves its quality when used
in limited amounts. Normally it can also be added to the green
stream with little negative effect. Transparent green
packaging is preferred.
Green material has significant volume in the
marketplace. At the Materials Recovery facility (MRF), it is
baled along with the clear PET and may comprise up to 30% of
the PET bale. The green material is separated from the clear
by the original reclaimer, who may process it into a value
added product, or send it to a reclaimer dedicated to green
material. Its value is second only to clear material. However,
green is not without its issues. Because a consistent, clear
color is critical to future products using clear RPET, the
recycling process includes a great deal of machinery and
manpower dedicated to separating colored material. This adds
significant cost to the operation. Even so, small but
significant amounts of colored material, including transparent
green, pass into the clear stream, thereby affecting the
quality of clear RPET. Markets such as clothing, carpet, soft
drink bottles and thermoformed sheet depend on very precise
colors, using clear material as a basis.
Most communities with curbside
collection allow for collection of colored PET bottles and
these are often included in bales of clear PET bottles. PET
reclaimers can use color auto-sorters to remove the colored
bottles from the clear stream. However, reclaimers regularly
report that there is low market demand and low value for mixed
color PET containers. Reclaimers report that transparent
colors can be used in applications such as bulk fiber and
black sheet and are more likely to find a market application
than opaque colors. Today, most reclaimers report that opaque
bottles do not often find an economically viable market and so
become a waste stream.
CLOSURES AND DISPENSERS
Polypropylene and polyethylene closures and components that
float in water are preferred. Since these polymers float in
water, they are most easily separated from PET flake in
conventional separation systems. Additionally, the PET
recycling process captures floatable polyethylene and
polypropylene to create an ancillary stream of marketable
material.
Care must be taken when modifying the polyethylene or
polypropylene, with mineral fillers for example, to ensure the
modifier does not increase the overall density to the point it
sinks. Silicone, polystyrene, thermoset plastics, nylon and
acetal are examples of plastics that are expected to sink in
the float-sink tank with PET and be detrimental to PET
recycling. Sinking plastics are difficult to remove from PET,
thereby causing contamination in the final product. Reclaimers
may remove packages known to employ these sinking plastics
manually to reduce contamination levels if they are commonly
found in the recycle stream.
PE, EVA and TPE liners in plastic closures are preferred. PE,
EVA and TPE float in water and will be separated in the
recycling process with the floatable polyethylene and
polypropylene closures. Since PET reclaimers can recover PE,
EVA and TPE in the float stream, they are preferred liner
materials. Dispensers, closures or lidding with metal
components require testing to determine the appropriate
recyclability category Metal contamination is highly
undesirable in recycled PET so the use of metal components
with PET packaging is discouraged; metals create wear in
process machinery, increase operation costs and yield loss,
and are a primary source of defects in products made with
recycled PET. MRFs and PET reclaimers use magnets, eddy
current separators and metal detectors to keep packages with
metal components out of the process stream. Any metal
components that trigger these devices will cause the entire
plastic product to be removed from the stream and render the
package non-recyclable. When metal components are not detected
and removed by process equipment, the package generally passes
into the granulator and the metal components are considered
detrimental to PET recycling. In cases where a package with a
metal component passes through metal detection, some PET
reclaimers remove these manually from the stream to reduce the
impact of metal contamination; packages removed manually
become waste. Aluminum components are particularly difficult
to remove effectively due to the limitations of eddy current
separators and flake sorters in detecting smaller nonferrous
components or granulated pieces.
The use of PVC closures or closure liners renders the package
non-recyclable per the Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR).
PVC sinks and is extremely hard for the recycler to remove,
particularly in small pieces. The recycled PET stream is very
intolerable to even minute amounts of PVC.
LABELS, INKS AND ADHESIVES
Label selection should be considered
carefully to find the solution most compatible with the
recycling process that also provides the necessary performance
characteristics. There are many label designs available and
each of these designs performs differently in the various
recycling processes. As a minimum, labels should use adhesives
that release from the bottle and be designed so Near Infrared
(NIR) sorting machinery can identify the bottle polymer with
the label attached. Label systems, adhesives and inks designed
to perform in specific portions of the recycling process are
all beneficial. Removing adhesives is a significant component
to the cost of recycling so the packages using the lowest
quantity of appropriate adhesive are the most compatible. An
overview of labels and their compatibility with specific
portions of the recycling process can be found at:
Polypropylene or polyethylene labels with a specific gravity
less than 1.0 are preferred.
These materials float in water so they are separated from the
PET in the float-sink tank with the closures. Since they are
the same general polymer as most of the closures they do not
contaminate or devalue this stream.
Care should be taken to ensure that any modifiers to the label
material do not increase its density above 1.0.
Laminated labels require testing to determine the appropriate
APR recyclability category.Labels that break into small, very
thin pieces of material are more difficult to manage in the
recycling process because they behave erratically in a
float-sink tank. Therefore, labels that stay intact are
preferred. Carry-over of delaminated labels into the RPET can
result in contamination.
Full bottle sleeve labels require testing to determine the
appropriate APR recyclability category. Full bottle sleeve
labels cover a large amount of the bottle surface with a
polymer that is not the same as the bottle body. Because of
this, a sleeve label designed without considering recycling
may cause a false reading on an automatic sorter and direct a
PET bottle to another material stream where it is lost to the
process. Furthermore, some sleeve label materials cannot be
removed in the recycling process and contaminate the RPET
produced. Sleeve labels that have been found compliant with
the APR test protocols should be selected.
Pressure sensitive labels require testing to determine the
appropriate APR recyclability category. Pressure sensitive
labels generally require complete adhesive coverage which is
greater than other typical label methods. This raises the
importance of the compatibility of the type of adhesive with
the recycling process.
Adhesives resistant to washing in the recycling process allow
labels to remain on the PET and become contaminants in the
final product. Adhesives that have been found compliant with
the APR test protocols should be selected.
BIOPLASTIC PACKAGING
It is important to make a distinction between
bio-based and bio-degradable packaging.
Bio-based plastics are made of renewable raw materials such as
sugar cane, starch, glucose, vegetable oils and cellulose. The
raw materials are derived from different agricultural products
or plant residues and subsequently transformed into basic
substances to be processed into different types of
bioplastics. Bio-based plastics are not necessarily
biodegradable. In general, they have the same properties as
their fossil predecessors.
The big advantage of these raw materials is that they are made
from renewable resources and can be processed in an existing
recycling process and that they can be re-used for plastic
products. BioPET is a plastic based on 30% renewable raw
material and 70% oil-based raw material. Coca-Cola Company has
been using BioPET since 2009 in the form of the “Plant
Bottle”. The mechanical and thermic properties of BioPET are
similar to other oil-based PET products.
SUSTAINABILITY
PET (62%) and HDPE bottles (37%) together represent 99% of
all plastic bottles recycled
PP (1%) is often co-mingled
with HDPE when recycled due to its failure to have enough
material in the waste stream to reach “critical mass”.