GEMI Recycling Post-Industrial Contaminated Plastics Project Update
NAMI Environmental Conference January 28, 2020
Kellen Mahoney, GEMI
www.gemi.org 1 Agenda
1. GEMI Introduction
2. Challenges / Opportunities: recycling post-industrial food film packaging contaminated with food residues
3. Other Relevant Initiatives Addressing Plastic / Film Waste
4. GEMI’s Path Forward
www.gemi.org 2 About GEMI
LEADERSHIP: GEMI is an organization of corporate sustainability leaders dedicated to fostering global environmental sustainability excellence through the sharing of tools and information.
MEETINGS: GEMI provides a forum for corporate sustainability thought leaders to learn from Director and Manager-level peers, develop collaborative solutions, and engage with strategic partners to advance solutions to emerging environmental sustainability challenges.
SOLUTIONS: GEMI captures the vision and experience of corporate sustainability leaders through the development of a range of tools to help companies improve the environment and provide business value.
www.gemi.org 3 25+ Years of GEMI Solutions
www.gemi.org 4 PREVIEW: Upcoming GEMI Release
*To be published March 2020.
www.gemi.org 5 GEMI’s Contaminated Plastic Work Group
In 2019, GEMI formed a Contaminated Plastic Work Group to engage key stakeholders across the value chain to foster pre-competitive collaborative cross- industry dialogue and develop business-driven solutions that can enhance domestic recycling and material management capabilities for potentially contaminated post-industrial plastics while increasing value for stakeholders across the value chain.
2019 GEMI Members Contaminated Plastic Project Participants
www.gemi.org 6 GEMI’s Contaminated Plastic Work Group
PLASTIC / PACKAGING
PROTEIN PRODUCTION
RETAIL / SERVICE
RECYCLING / DISPOSAL
www.gemi.org 7 GEMI’s Food Film Packaging Project Objective
• The GEMI Contaminated Plastics Work Group designed an initial project focused on unique challenges related to post-industrial food film packaging (FFP) contaminated with food residues.
• In Phase 1 of this project, GEMI developed a landscape assessment document outlining challenges, issues for industry consideration, and activities already underway by other organizations related to recycling post- industrial food film packaging contaminated with food residues.
• Looking forward to Phase 2, GEMI is proposing a three-step program to further research and pilot solutions to advance recycling of FFP contaminated with food residues. The goal of this project is to develop a model that could be replicated to address similarly challenging post- industrial contaminated waste streams from other industries.
www.gemi.org 8 GEMI Contaminated FFP Recycling Workshop
As part of GEMI’s research and stakeholder outreach related to this project, GEMI held a workshop in Washington, DC in August 2019 to convene different stakeholders from across the food film packaging value chain to explore challenges and opportunities related to recycling of post-industrial food film packaging contaminated with food residues.
Participants in that workshop included organizations such as:
• American Chemistry Council • Smithfield Foods • Corn Refiners Association • Sodexo • EcoHub LLC • Standley Plastic, Inc • Food Marketing Institute • Sustainable Packaging Coalition • Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries • The Sustainability Consortium • Maple Leaf Foods • Tyson Foods, Inc. • Obaggo Recycling, LLC • UL Environment & Sustainability • Plastics Industry Association • Waste Connections • Retail Industry Leaders Association • Waste Management • Sealed Air
www.gemi.org 9 Challenges / Opportunities in recycling post-industrial food film packaging contaminated with food residues
Why is this important?
www.gemi.org 10 www.gemi.org 11 Why Post-Industrial Contaminated Plastics?
While a variety of collaborative programs exist to address plastics in the economy and develop new circular solutions, based on GEMI’s investigation such efforts are currently predominantly focused on post-consumer single-use plastics with more limited attention to post-industrial waste streams.
www.gemi.org 12 Why Post-Industrial Contaminated Plastics?
Leading companies across industries have established clear goals around waste reduction and zero waste but can be challenged in finding practical solutions for recycling of post-industrial contaminated plastics.
www.gemi.org 13 Why Post-Industrial Food Film Packaging?
While challenges with contaminated materials vary across industries, investigation by GEMI indicates that there is a specific opportunity in the area of post-industrial flexible food film packaging (FFP) contaminated with food residues.
www.gemi.org 14 Why Post-Industrial Food Film Packaging?
Per USDA data, meat processing is the largest single component of food and beverage manufacturing in USA, representing 18% of total F&B manufacturing capacity.
www.gemi.org 15 Why Post-Industrial Food Film Packaging?
According to the North American Meat Institute (NAMI), U.S. meat production totaled 52 billion pounds in 2017 and U.S. poultry production totaled 48 billion pounds in 2017.
Source: NAMI
www.gemi.org 16 Why Post-Industrial Food Film Packaging?
Today, plastic packaging is critical in contributing to the economic and environmental goals of the US meat and poultry manufacturing sector, supporting food safety, shelf life and operational efficiency.
• Packaging enables efficient global distribution of products, preventing spoilage and damage, while minimizing transportation impacts.
• Flexible packaging can often be a highly resource efficient solution, particularly when considering its role in Image © Sealed Air preventing avoidable environmental impacts of food waste.
www.gemi.org 17 Why Post-Industrial Food Film Packaging?
• However, plastic packaging that has been in contact with protein can be a significant challenge for companies striving for zero waste, as it is not readily accepted into traditional recycling facilities.
• A variety of issues contribute to this challenge, such as: • Volumes and Weight (low weight material, many low volume generators) • Material Composition (varying) • Smell / Odor / Vermin Issues (due to food residues) • Storage / Transportation • Cleaning / Drying / Deodorizing • End Markets / Demand for Material / Customer Acceptance • Cost (compared to landfill, and compared to virgin materials) • USDA / FDA Requirements
www.gemi.org 18 Why Post-Industrial Food Film Packaging?
• Concrete facility-level data on the volume of contaminated food film packaging (FFP) waste is currently scarce, as there is limited value in separation/weighing of materials without existing markets.
• Based on film purchase volumes, GEMI has estimated there to be an annual volume of 27,000 - 32,000 tons of contaminated food film packaging waste generated within GEMI workgroup member facilities in the USA that could potentially be diverted from landfill if practical and economical recycling options were developed at scale.
www.gemi.org 19 Why Post-Industrial Food Film Packaging?
• The opportunity for volume could be much greater than GEMI’s initial estimates suggest. A recycler specializing in processing of food films reported to GEMI that they estimate the annual volume of contaminated food film waste in the United States to be over one billion pounds, when accounting for the average production volumes of food companies operating in the US.
• Recognizing the key role of plastic packaging in supporting sustainability and product safety within the food industry, together with industry goals related to zero waste and reduction of plastic waste, GEMI believes there is a unique opportunity to advance best practice in recovery / recycling of flexible food film packaging contaminated with food residues in the United States.
www.gemi.org 20 Overview of Selected Initiatives Addressing Plastic / Film Waste
What are others already doing that may be relevant to GEMI’s goals?
www.gemi.org 21 Snapshot of Current Landscape
These logos represent a small snapshot of some of the business and NGO groups currently focused on issues related to plastic waste. GEMI conducted a landscape assessment of key projects from many such groups to assess potential relevance to GEMI’s contaminated food film recycling project goals.
www.gemi.org 22 Prioritizing Opportunities for Further Engagement by GEMI
Based on that landscape analysis, GEMI identified three organizations as being higher priorities for further engagement • Goals and activities have high likelihood of relevance to GEMI work group objectives. • Reasonable opportunity and pathway exists for future GEMI engagement and collaboration.
www.gemi.org 23 American Chemistry Council (ACC) Chemical Recycling Alliance (CRA)
• What is it? CRA is a project of ACC that is advocating on behalf of technologies that convert post use plastics to monomers, chemical feedstocks, transportation fuels and other valuable products of advanced plastics recycling and recovery technologies.
• Where is it focused? ACC’s Chemical Recycling Alliance works to: grow awareness of the benefits of chemical recycling technologies that convert post-use plastics into chemicals, fuels and other products; grow and scale chemical recycling into a viable industry solution; and, demonstrate broad support for chemical recycling technologies through an expanding network of allies.
• Relevance to GEMI? Potential partner in helping GEMI participants understand and prioritize a range of existing / emerging chemical recycling technologies in the US and investigate feasibility of select technologies as solutions for contaminated food films.
www.gemi.org 24 PLASTICS NEMO for Film Project
• What is it? PLASTICS’ New End Market Opportunities (NEMO) for Film project seeks to identify new end markets for return-to-retail films processed in an efficient manner that offers cost competitiveness to prime and offspec PE resin.
• Where is it focused? Phase I sought to understand the performance of material with minimal processing and map out potential end markets to explore. Phase II then sought to better understand potential variability of the stream and provide samples to potential end users for direct application testing.
• Relevance to GEMI? Promising end markets for plastic films are being developed and tested through the NEMO program which may help support the identification of new end markets of relevance to contaminated food films by GEMI participants, such as the application of waste plastics as feedstock in asphalt production.
www.gemi.org 25 Sustainable Materials Management Maryland (SM3)
• What is it? SM3 is a group of public and private entities working to improve the environment and create economic development and job creation opportunities in the State of Maryland by constructing creative and innovative sustainable materials management projects and activities through voluntary public-private collaboration.
• Where is it focused? Design and implement materials management initiatives and projects for Maryland that will: foster new materials management businesses in Maryland, conserve natural resources, meet climate change goals for 2030 and beyond, and embrace new and more effective measures of success.
• Relevance to GEMI? Potential forum to explore feasibility of regional model to address contaminated food films from meat industry in Delaware, Maryland & Virginia region. Potential to identify relevant new technology solutions developed by SM3 academic collaborators and small businesses.
www.gemi.org 26 GEMI’s Path Forward
Where are we going from here?
www.gemi.org 27 Challenge to be Addressed
• While a variety of collaborative programs exist to address plastics in the economy and develop new circular solutions, such efforts appear to be predominantly focused on post-consumer single-use plastics with more limited attention to post-industrial waste streams.
• For companies in the food industry seeking to maximize recycling of their post-industrial waste, flexible plastic packaging that has been in contact with food residues is one of the most challenging components of their waste streams since it is not readily accepted into traditional recycling facilities.
• Through this project, GEMI is seeking to identify unique opportunities to practically and efficiently enhance domestic recycling and material management capabilities of post-industrial food film packaging (FFP) contaminated with food residues.
www.gemi.org 28 GEMI’s Path Forward
Action Developing 2020 external engagement strategy to define and formalize partnerships with 1-2 key organizations identified as higher priorities based on GEMI’s analysis in order to leverage existing research and programs to support development and testing of contaminated FFP as a feedstock for relevant mechanical and chemical recycling technologies.
Potential partnership opportunities currently being explored include: • ACC Chemical Recycling Alliance. GEMI is investigating potential to work with ACC in sharing research on chemical recycling technologies in the US, and joint investigation of feasibility of contaminated FFP as feedstocks for select chemical recycling technologies.
• PLASTICS NEMO for Film. GEMI is investigating potential to work with the PLASTICS Industry Association to explore potential collaboration around sharing research on end markets for films and pursuing joint investigation of contaminated FFP as feedstocks for selected applications identified through NEMO, such as asphalt.
• Sustainable Materials Management Maryland. GEMI is investigating potential to work with SM3 to explore development of regional model to address contaminated FFP from meat processing in MD/DE/VA region, as well as incubation of new technology solutions through Maryland academic institutions.
www.gemi.org 29 GEMI’s Path Forward
Action We will continue to gather data on types and volumes of waste materials generated in food processing and food service facilities to strengthen potential value proposition for recyclers and identify other challenging waste streams that could be addressed through pre-competitive collaboration.
Examples of other challenging materials generated in food processing and service facilities could include: • Gloves • Food bags • Plastic wraps • Contaminated corrugate • Plastic banding • Waxed cardboard • Styrofoam
www.gemi.org 30 GEMI’s Path Forward
Action We will explore level of industry commitment, and sponsorship, to engage third party in research and development of pilot hub and spoke recycling model for contaminated FFP in key region(s) with significant concentration of meat processing plants.
Potential target regions to consider might include: • Maryland / Delaware / Virginia • North Carolina / South Carolina / East Tennessee • Central California / Southern California • Georgia / Alabama • Arkansas / Oklahoma / Texas • Iowa / Nebraska / South Dakota • Illinois / Wisconsin / Indiana • Ohio / Kentucky / Indiana
www.gemi.org 31 QUESTIONS?
As GEMI moves forward with this project, we welcome additional input and engagement from groups across the meat industry value chain.
Thank you!
Kellen Mahoney Program Manager, GEMI [email protected] This document was produced for the Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI). The information contained in this presentation is based on the professional judgment of the authors and may be used at a company’s discretion. GEMI and its member companies make no warranty, expressed or implied, and assume no liability for the information contained in this document.
www.gemi.org 32