Recycled Content in Corrugated
- Filed in:
- Containers, rigid,
- Metrics, standards, and LCA,
- Food
What is the trend toward the use of recycled fiber content in corrugated shipping cases in North America (percentage of total)? What is the acceptable level of recycled material for "machineable" (suitable for automation) corrugated containers (RSC, HSC, FOL)?
Thanks for your thoughts and comments in advance.
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Recycled Content in Corrugated
Thomas Oris
Obviously, one variable is the machinery itself. Without understanding that, it would be hard to give a solid figure. With that said, at Morton Salt (where I lead procurement), we have moved to high levels of post consumer recycled content for a vast majority of our corrugated needs, with only minimal adjustments required. Our post consumer recycled content ranges from 60 - 100%, with most of our business above 96%.
Please note, there is a difference between recycled content and post consumer content.
Corrugate content
Geoff P
This thread led me to check the websites of the major corrugate manufacturers in my region and I found zero information regarding recycled content. Each had an environmental policy with regard to their plant operations, but nothing about the recycled content of their materials.
I called my primary vendor and they seemed mystified by my question regarding recycled content. Is there someone from the industry that can comment on the current status and constraints of recycled content in corrugated containers? I think there may be some issues regarding strength of material.
Corrugate content
Thomas Oris
Geoff,
As Adam mentioned, it is hard for most suppliers to pin point, or guarantee a minimum level of recycled content. However, let me focus on "recycled content." There are at least two forms: post consumer content and post industrial content. Many corrugated suppliers will talk about recycled content and they usually mean post industrial. By this, they recover scrap material from their manufacturing process and then re-use the material. Post consumer is just that, it goes through one complete process, meaning the paper is recovered after reaching the consumer level.
Adam is also right, we need virgin paper. Fibers will break down over time. BUT... there is a lot of room to increase the overall consumption of post consumer material.
Good Questions
Adam Pawlick
Mark -
This is a great question. Depending on if you are talking post consumer or post industrial recycled content the answer will vary greatly. Last time I checked with the corrugated industry most shipping cases, on average, ran around 40% recycled content. A lot of companies do not specify the amount of recycled paper in their shipping cases for a couple of reasons:
1. Specifying the amount of recycled content limits the number of mills you could use to produce your paper and increases the variables into costing (i.e. at some points in time recycled is much cheaper than virgin, other times not so much).
2. Industry standard average (again, around 40% last time I checked) is pretty high already so there are bigger fish to fry.
3. You need virgin paper to produce recycled paper. If everyone tried to convert to 100% recycled content in their shipping containers we would rapidly run into issues with supply. We have to produce new virgin paper in order to feed the recycle stream. This is especially true since there isn't 100% collection (i.e. not every box produced is gathered to recycle).
As you recycle paper (and this happens with polymers as well) the fibers (carbon chains for polymers) begin to break down and shorten. This typically weakens the structure and changes its properties, lowering the compression strength for a given basis weight. You also introduce some contaminants so your coloring may change a bit.
I'll defer more details to the paper/corrugated suppliers on this board, they will have a great deal more information than I, but I hope this helps.
Great Illustration of the Real Challenge, eh?
MVEwing
I started out by asking what I thought were pretty direct questions. What has been discovered is they weren't anywhere near direct enough!!
I'm doing research for a client. I can imagine the challenges that a CPG faces trying to make good business decisions about how to get their products to their end-user/consumer in the best saleable condition and at the lowest cost. Add to this the "weight" of complying with a sustainability scorecard (an Eco rating was just announced yesterday) and well intentioned stakeholders and it's easy to understand why inaction is often the result.
In real terms, the OEMs in the corrugated handling community have based many of their designs relying on the "memory" inherent in corrugated materials. When this changes (more recycled content/less "memory"), a significant operational impact will occur on many packaging lines in North America. Lower OEE, higher TCO, unplanned downtime and wasted corrugated material will be an anticipated reality.
Anybody need a Change Agent?
Great discussion, great forum.
Thanks,
Mark V. Ewing
Packaging from Waste
Sherri
Isn't packaging paper (such as corrugated) made from a waste product to begin with? My understanding is we log for lumber, and that some of the waste product of lumber production is used to produce corrugated.
I'm also hearing that in the U.S. our recycling % on corrugated is already extremely high (upwards of 80%).
There's no virgin material for packaging paper in Asia (where a very large % of the boxes in the U.S. are made). Selling Asia our OCC (old boxes) defrays our trade imbalance. And doesn't Asia have mostly newer recycling machinery - that on the average is better for the environment than the much older machinery here in the U.S?
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