Plus the Oregon Perspective by DEQ and Material Recovery Facility Representatives

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Elinor Cobb
6 years ago
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1 Oregon Carton Recycling Forum Jointly sponsored by the Carton Council and the Association of Oregon Recyclers The Carton Council s Carton Recycling Access Campaign September 21, 2011 Strategy Overview Plus the Oregon Perspective by DEQ and Material Recovery Facility Representatives.

2 What are Cartons Made From? Shelf-stable aseptic cartons contain on average 74% paper, 22% polyethylene and 4% aluminum Cartons are Not Wax Coated

3 What are Cartons Made Refrigerated gable top cartons contain about 80% paper and 20% polyethylene From? Cartons are Not Wax Coated

4 What s the Problem? Cartons Don t Belong in the News Newsprint Mills Utilize a Drum Pulper Designed to pulp NEWS and Magazines Uses a gentle pulping action to remove contaminants in large pieces Doesn t chop up incoming material into smaller pieces like other high sheer pulpers Rejects contamination in large pieces Whole bottles, plastics, etc. Plastic coated papers and papers with wet strength additives SP RECYCLING CORP

5 Pulping Issues Gable Top and Aseptic Cartons Should not go to Newsprint Mills/Drum Pulpers Wet strength in gable top cartons prevents pulping Since they don t fully pulp, the larger pieces are rejected in the screening drum portion of the pulper Can result in 70%+ material loss for gable tops Aseptics may pulp up in newsprint mills but those mills don t recover poly byproduct Results in 26% material loss for gable tops SP RECYCLING CORP

6 Pulping Issues Gable Top and Aseptic Cartons Should go to Tissue Mills with Hydro-Pulpers Able to use screens and batch pulping to separate layers of carton Can adjust pulping time and temperature to speed process and breakdown wet strength Have screens to separate poly and poly/aluminum byproduct and recovery that Can achieve 100% yield with no material loss Yields a very high quality virgin fiber, free of any ink SP RECYCLING CORP

Percent Newspaper 39% Cardboard 30% Other Paper 25.5% Plastic/Metals 0.

7 When Cartons go in Commingled Recycling... Gable top cartons are 0.24% of the material sent to be sorted at MRFs They leave the sorting facility as : Material Percent Newspaper 39% Cardboard 30% Other Paper 25.5% Plastic/Metals 0.46% Glass / film / garbage 4.8% Total rigorously sorted: 25.5% Red = useless Blue= might be of use GREEN= useful to end market, recycled

8 Compare to aluminum cans Aluminum cans are 0.3% of incoming material Incoming aluminum cans go out as: Material Percent Aluminum 67% Scrap Metal 0.07% Newspaper 22% Cardboard/Other Paper 4.5% Plastic/other metals 3% Glass / film / garbage 3% Total rigorously sorted: 67.07% Red = useless Brown = might be of use GREEN= useful to end market, recycled

9 Producer Responsibility at its BEST Building the Recycling Supply Chain Cities Sorters Brokers Mills

10 Carton Recycling Strategy Working Backwards from End Markets #2: Assist / impel MRFs to Sort Better Mills/Pulping Process Sorters & Brokers Communities Haulers #3: Work with cities and the public to achieve Household Access Paper Products Tissues Plates Paper Consumer #1: Start with End Markets retool with needed equipment Developing Markets for Poly/Au Componen t

11 Who CAN handle Cartons Carton Council is Building Domestic Markets Currently Taking Cartons Planning to Take Cartons Potential Future Market ReWall (Q3 2011) Great Lakes Tissue RCM * * * South Georgia Tissue (Q1 2012) GET Mill * Aseptic Only ** Not Currently Buying

12 Products in Use

13 What about other Cartons? All paper items intended to stay strong when wet will have either wet strength cartons, napkins, towel, plates, etc. or a Poly plastic coating cups, plates boxes cartons etc. Poly Right and Poly Wrong Photos of ice cream carton, frozen food etc Cartons are Not Wax Coated * * * * * * SOME times you can find waxed cups Which could potentially be composted

14 Sorting it Out aaaarg!! Wet strength in gable top cartons and other paper food boxes prevents pulping -need added technology and chemistry that is not standard Aseptics (without wet strength) may pulp up in Some paper mills have de-inking technology, newsprint mills but those some don t. There is no standard, and no mills don t have capacity to way to sort out the variety of handle the poly lining combinations of paper/plastic/ink/other

Using Recycled Paperboard

Using Recycled Paperboard A primer on recycled paperboard. Sources of fiber, contaminants and their removal and the impact on the properties of recycled paperboard Technical Bulletin No. 13 Revised March