Jan 3 2011
Over the past several years, beverage bottlers have been "under the gun" from environmentalists, legislators and consumers to reduce their impact on the environment.
Especially experiencing the criticism have been bottled water suppliers since their products are abundantly found in landfills.
Major bottling companies like Nestle Waters North America and Cliffstar Corporation have discovered that their PET recycling post industrial and post consumer bottles not only reduce their environmental footprint, but can also generate considerable cost savings. Post industrial involves recycling of off-spec preforms and blown bottles.
Working with these bottling companies, Tampa, Florida-based Commercial Plastics Recycling, Inc. (CPR) developed a total solutions approach which has led to an increased percentage of recycled materials.
But the real surprise was that the recycling program realized dramatic cost savings through reduction of municipal waste disposal fees, in addition to the income from the recycled plastics. For example, the CPR recycling program enabled county taxes levied at one Nestle facility to drop from $124,000 to $5,000 per year. In effect, Nestle saw its gross tonnage of waste at the facility decrease from over 30 tons per month to around 10 tones per month. Even further reductions are anticipated.
The CPR program at Nestle has demonstrated that the key to a successful recycling program at a bottling manufacturer is to look beyond the bottles. The place to begin the search for additional plastics is in the trash. From there, work backwards to find the source and recommend a collection point. Astute bottlers like Nestle and Cliffstar recognize that they need not look any further than the recycling of post industrial bottles to realize impressive cost saving results. These valuable waste materials can account for over 75% of all of the recyclable material in their bottling facilities.
Beverage bottlers can explore the potential for dramatic cost savings in the recycling of post industrial bottles by visiting CPR at one of the 48 display tables during the NOVA-PACK 2011 table top exhibition.
The NOVA-PACK 2011 Conference will take place on January 26-27, 2011 at the Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island (near Jacksonville), Florida, USA.