Pre-Sponsor Meetings

What percent of the company's annual revenue is generated exclusively from small formatted products?

• i.e. what are the current consumer trends, sales, manufacturing costs

How much attention and or consideration is given within the design process to the disposal and or recycling of the product?

• i.e. in terms of material, the way the package is made, the amount of waste produced, etc

Have you considered the option of moving towards a biodegradable material as opposed to a material (plastics or polymers) that has to be composted within packaging?

• i.e. cork, bamboo, linoleum, bioplastics such as plastics derived from soybeans, MDF which can be derived from potato starch, mycelium (fungi), hemp, etc.

Is the lack of recycling of small format packaging goods an infrastructural issue for recycling plants, a product issue for the company that produced it, or both?

• Are there expectations, rules or guidelines that pertain to the recycling and or the disposal of a product prior to its production?

• Who determines these expectations, can they be modified/negotiated, etc.

*In relation to your THESIS(sustainability insight system) work (e.g. Coffee breakdown - Sustainability snapshot/KPI Set/ Supply chain diagram) have any of your member/partners been able to complete such detailed mappings of their supply chains and key performance indicators in an effort to find new alternatives/solutions? Is that something we can have access to? (supply shift reports?)

Another way of asking this is, "what is the current status of your member/partners?" are there any progressive leaders, are some lacking far behind? where are we now?

*What change agent have you seen the most success with and gives you continued hope? Sourcing//production techniques and materials//consumer education and supply//end of life infrastructure//policy? or some combination of them all?

Some small format packaging, like many other consumer products, may contain references that tell users to "check with local recycling facility" but most consumers don't know how, or even want to take those extra steps. Have you had any strong partnerships with municipalities, or civil groups that have been exemplars for solving this information breakdown?

Once the products are purchased, they become the responsibility of the consumer, however, that doesn't mean that the producer is completely off the hook. Have you ever considered incentive programs to encourage proper disposal of products?

Due to a heavy focus on weight as an indicator, have you identified any MRF's that would be interested in specializing in small format recovery if subsidized?

Information on Guest Speaker:

• Provided by Professors from Class:

Professor Kevin Dooley, chief scientist for the Sustainability Consortium will be with us to talk about the small format packaging project. He is an expert on recycling and will provide important insights on the landscape we’re working in.

• Kevin Dooley Website: http://www.public.asu.edu/~kdooley/

Lots of information regarding his career and his own personal projects; definitely worth familiarizing yourself with prior to the meeting tomorrow so we can get more specific answers to what he believes where and in what area a solution may reside in/ where we should focus our research on.

Questions:

What critical event is required to change the path dependencies of current companies facing small-format plastic production challenges?

In your consideration of organizational innovation, who is best positioned to make progress on SFP's - suppliers, recyclers, governments, publics?

Colgate Palmolive - Tom's of Maine, - fully recyclable #2HDPE tube - phased switch - partner with MRFs, Public change

Single stream collection and public responsibility

Global Kaiteki and Brightmark, chemical recycling really an option?

As per the ASTRX program:

• MRF's are most concerned over packaging with little value (plastics 3-7)

• MRFS want brands to consider marketability to end markets at the beginning of the packaging design process

• MRFs are focused around speed and quantity, while reprocessors are are more focused on bale quality

  • How real of an action item is this? Does this happen at scale, or will it ever?

  • Does something like the Carton Council need to be created for small format plastics to help make reprocessors/MRF's happier?

    • Bridge to circularity - material and format collaboratives. is that us? is anybody else on this?

      • can we count on recycling champions to engage with us?

• Only 1 out of 11 MRF's were concerned about small format plastics due to operational and sortability issues.

  • So it seems like they aren't a big problem, but they also don't care for them for profits sake

• Can you speak to the quote on page 16 about secrecy in the industry

Do you see any hope for policy and legislation like Canadas (single use plastic ban, and the current bill to Break free from Plastics

In the Design for recycled content, one quote discusses the gradual growth required to shift to using recycled plastic, and they suggest starting with low hanging fruit. Does a similar analogy exits for small format plastics and MRFs? Whats the easiest buy in at the smallest level for MRFS? or for producers? or for any of the 5 things below.

Direct re-use? anybody doing it well?

I'm going to make sense of this.... This was just raw notes.

no data its waste - such a small % of the waste stream. its not profitable

single stream programs - people assume everything is recyclable

good material, and non-recoverable material

most value, top of the hierarchy

*residual belt (last chance belt) look for higher commodity

some human sorting, some tech sorting - systems arent 100% perfect - 96-98% optical sort is really good

whats happening with small is its essentially ending up on residual belt - not any people that are actively trying to sort this stream

not enough volume, not enough value (we go for the big stuff)

its made from good material - but I don't know what it is

the reality of it making it there

less than 1/2 of 1% of the waste stream coming in.

IF we had more optical or robotic sorting we could "theoretically" capture it -

conversation for 10 years with brands- "toothpicks" - we can do it. We've asked for people to step up and help. nobody wants to. optical sorters are .5 million.

Carton Council approached them - viable in-market? (consistent buyers, and

its not our financial responsibility to go sort the toothpicks

Toms - made it recyclable - didnt make it change the product look/feel

Annd bedarf - lots of conversations with her. (colgate palmolive)

Board of US plastics pact.

changing the packaging is where its at.

sus people want to change to have it recovered headbutt with marketing people who say it wont sell

*something to identify it, we can grab it - AI tracking

have to take advantage of the technology to identify stream composition so you can tune your technology

recording - we support AMP robotics - whole business aligns - robot manufacturers aren't there yet. they work, but they may not make an impact

BHS machineX robots - its gonna

Robotics are good at quality control after human pickers have first pass - lower demand

optical sorting - near infrared has come a long way - its like having a robot, just doesnt have arms

6million retrofit on optical from MSS - nashville TN - game changer on the fiber side

austin 12k tons a month

Dallas - brand new MRF coming in - state of the art - a lot more of small % stuff can be captured - its amount of infrastructure

after 1/2/5 whats the next thing - small format is not it - flexible, more of something else...

audit for cartons - 3/4 year to year to even - 10k tons a month to make 1 truckload (Not worth it)

Plastic containers 5-6% of total waste stream - any subset is soooo tiny.

the questions are easy - cost of recovery - value - tons

ROI ROI ROI ROI

1-2 years (20% return) we'll look at it

product would still have to be approved for recycling by APR - covering r

the next thing - thermoform packaging PETG not bottle grade - its a contaminant

3-7 blend with some other industrial use (composite)

the smaller and more unique stuff gets less and less likely to be recycled

PRF - secondary sort on 3-7 - go broke - regrind flake or 2ndary market competition

Next gen MRF is just a bigger MRF - more opticals and more robots (so your residual becomes next to nothing)

Currently residual is 10-20%

plastic tubes - are the leading

what I would love to see - report like the Transparent2020 but for small format

major audit costs time and money - turns the MRF into a lab

Friedman recycling - in the event you want to get in touch with them. Maurice Freeman -