Rekindling Our Recycling Success Story BY MARY DRAIN
I do, however, have another thought. When did our recycling success story get stamped out? Because to be clear, we have an outstanding recycling success story. In 2019, 92 percent of all corrugated was successfully recovered for recycling in the U.S., and the average cor- rugated box was made with 50 percent recycled content. That track record is miles ahead of any other packaging material’s recovery and re-use rates. Corrugated is one of few materials that is recovered for recycling through an established, healthy market and never needs to go to waste. The fiber in OCC is valuable, and in high demand by both domestic and foreign manu- facturers. Most OCC is used to make new paper products. All the above reasons and many more should make corrugated packaging like catnip to eco-conscious con- sumers who prefer their purchases come in sustainable packages. If our message has been smothered by the plastic industry’s manipulations, let’s rekindle it. Help our industry by shouting it from the rooftops and sharing it with all who will listen. FBA works relentlessly to get these posi- tive messages out via social media and our website, www. corrugated.org . Help us fan the flames by encouraging everyone you know to “follow” us. Maybe if we share it with enough people, the next 7th grade class will vote paper/corrugated as the most sustainable material – be- cause that is the truth. Mary Drain is the Director of Technical Services at Fibre Box Association (FBA). Reach her at mdrain@fibrebox.org.
A colleague’s junior-high student was recently working on a unit on Sustainability. In a class survey, the kids were
asked, “What is the most sustain- able material?” Given the choic- es of paper, aluminum, glass and plastic, more than half said “Plas- tic, because it is easy to recycle.” I’m not here to dive further into the manipulation by the plastics industry to get consumers to buy more plastic. Recent articles and
Mary Drain
features, such as How Big Oil Misled The Public Into Be- lieving Plastic Would Be Recycled (NPR), and Plastic War (CBC) have been shining a light on something our industry has known for a long time: not all items put in the recycling bin get recycled or even have functional systems for recy- cling once they’re sorted. Consumers have been sorting for decades. Unfortu- nately, most of the plastic they put in the recycling bin has not been and will not be recycled. In fact, no more than 10 percent of plastic produced has ever been recycled. And, at best (2018), the amount of plastic packaging and con- tainers recycled compared to generated is 13.1 percent.
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November 30, 2020
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