From MRF to mill

When the Foodservice Packaging Institute (FPI) launched its packaging recovery initiatives in 2012, it examined the landscape of then-current foodservice packaging recovery and determined one of the products with the biggest unmet recycling potential was the paper cup. At the time, only a few large recycling programs were accepting postconsumer paper cups, and the end markets that accepted them were doing so unofficially.

FPI, based in Falls Church, Virginia, commissioned numerous studies, many in collaboration with industry partners, to understand and document end-market acceptance; material recovery facilities (MRFs); programs; technical aspects, such as quantity and flow; and consumer awareness and understanding of recycling instructions. These studies have demonstrated that food service packaging, including paper and plastic cups, takeout containers and pizza boxes, can be recycled. More importantly, these studies have led to action and to increased opportunities for recycling.

“We listened to the questions and concerns from the marketplace and have worked hard to address them through research, collaboration and implementation of best practices,” FPI President Natha Dempsey says. “By working with MRFs, mills and other partners in the value chain, we’ve been able to make real progress on a material that was previously considered hard to recycle.”

In the last several years, FPI has launched more than 20 community partnerships, utilizing collaboration and communication to identify, test and increase acceptance of food service packaging for recycling. Notably, each of these partner programs now includes paper cups.

At the heart of each of these recycling success stories are the MRF-to-mill pathways.

Baseline research and access

Early in its research process, FPI reviewed the wide range of foodservice packaging (FSP) materials and formats to determine the quantities available for recycling. With paper FSP, the organization is targeting the inclusion of cups, containers, boxes and bags as acceptable materials in MRFs and residential recycling programs. With plastic FSP, recovery efforts focus on cups and containers. These categories are targeted for recovery because they have the potential to flow correctly in a MRF based on their form and size, have available end markets and generate the most volume. Baseline research has indicated:

In a city of 250,000 residents, approximately 3,000 tons of paper cups, containers, boxes and bags and plastic cups and containers are generated annually. A 10 percent recovery rate—which could be a realistic initial goal for new materials—would mean the addition of about 300 tons annually for the MRF, equivalent to approximately 240 tons of paper and 60 tons of plastic.

Baseline research also indicated that MRF acceptance and residential access to paper cup recycling lags behind most other FSP formats such as pizza boxes, paper bags and plastic cups and containers.

The end-market gap

FPI monitors and confirms plastic and fiber end markets for postconsumer foodservice packaging, publishing a map of available end markets. In general, plastics end markets, whether for mixed plastics or resin-specific bales, accept food service items such as cups and containers and do not distinguish between these and other plastic formats.

There also is widespread acceptance of pizza boxes by old corrugated containers (OCC) end markets, and a 2021 American Forest & Paper Association statement cited acceptance by 93.6 percent of its membership by volume of OCC consumed. The lack of defined markets for paper cups presented an obstacle to increasing their acceptance. FPI set out to identify and document mills that could successfully process paper cups.

Paper mill outreach and acceptance testing: Creating a mill specification

While the Washington-based Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) lists a specialty grade for preconsumer cup stock, paper cups currently are not included in postconsumer grade specifications. This is why FPI intensified its mill specification discussions with paper mill partners to grow recycling end markets for paper cups. FPI and its members worked with mills, providing data and test materials to support trials. Through pulpability trials and mill testing, FPI grew the domestic end market for postconsumer paper cups from four confirmed mills in 2017 to 34 in 2023, including one nonmill end market. These end markets include mills that accept paper cups in mixed paper bales as well as mills that consume cup/carton bales.

“We are committed to increasing paper cup recycling and we are working across our supply chain to increase access and collection rates of valuable paper cup fiber,” says Mike Farrell, senior vice president, mill division, at Atlanta-based Graphic Packaging International. “Our two most recent coated recycled paperboard machines are designed to accept even more paper cups as feedstock and we are excited to work with MRF operators to make that a reality.”

MRF flow studies and paper cup recovery options

In addition to building end markets for paper cups, there also is the recovery puzzle at MRFs. Having a home for paper cups in two different bale types means MRFs can decide which bale makes more sense for them operationally and economically. Regardless of which commodity a MRF targets, paper cups need to be sorted properly so they are included in the correct bale.

FPI collaborated with many industry partners to conduct multiple flow tests at MRFs across the U.S. to help understand how paper cups flow through various systems and equipment configurations and tested the flow of hot cups and cold cups, both flattened and in their original 3D condition to measure the variability. The goals of these initial tests are to determine if cups travel to the fiber line or the container line, how they react to different screens and where the optimal location for recovery is in a MRF.

During testing, on average, more than 80 percent of 3D cups and nearly 75 percent of flattened cups flowed to the container line.

MRF access and mill connections

With a beachhead of cup-accepting mills in place and an understanding of optimizing paper cup recovery at the MRF, FPI started working directly with MRF operators to get paper cup recovery jump-started.

MRF engagement involves technical support on equipment and operations, facilitating discussions with potential end markets and making the business case for including paper cups and other FSP. Partnerships were developed with primary MRFs serving residential curbside programs. The strategy was to add paper cup recycling access through MRF partnerships tied to end-market development. This strategy worked as the first MRF partners provided lift to paper cup recycling in 2017. Since then, FPI has facilitated more of these MRF-to-mill pathways and has partnered with numerous communities to add paper cups and other food service items to their recycling programs, including in Denver; Atlanta; Detroit; Madison, Wisconsin; Chicago; and Memphis, Tennessee, to name a few.

In May, Spring, Texas-based FCC Environmental announced its Dallas MRF now accepts paper cups and sorts them robotically with beverage cartons. The robotic sorter was funded via a joint equipment grant from FPI, the Denton, Texas-based Carton Council North America and New York-based Closed Loop Partners’ NextGen Consortium.

“The addition of paper cups provides a positive option for our customers,” says Bruce K. Magnuson, senior general manager at FCC Environmental. “Previously, paper cups were ending up in the landfill; now they can be recycled and made into something useful again. We are excited that we can divert more material from the landfill with this addition.”

Critical mass: Mill statement

Mill outreach, testing and collaboration continued, with nine mill groups publicly agreeing to a mill specification for paper cups in either the mixed paper bales or cup/carton bales they consume. In collaboration with participating paper mills, FPI facilitated the development of a joint mill statement on paper cup acceptance to provide a market signal to the recycling industry. The list of confirmed end markets represents more than 75 percent of the U.S./Canadian mixed paper market and continues to grow. Since this mill statement was released in December 2021, FPI has partnered with several additional MRFs and communities across the Midwest and Southeast as well as added participating mill locations.

Moving beyond a mill spec

To solidify paper cup recycling and create an industrywide recognized tradeable commodity bale, FPI and industry partners have proposed a new ISRI grade specification that includes paper cups, which would formalize the mill spec cup/carton bale that already is being traded. A formal ISRI grade spec would further strengthen market confidence that these bales would be tradeable, valuable and predictable in their composition. This specification currently is being developed for consideration by the Paper Stock Industries chapter of ISRI.

FPI messaging, education and community partnership program

In FPI’s pursuit of greater FSP recovery, its community partnership program is the vehicle that pulls everything together—the MRF/mill/end market partnership, MRF operations support, community education resources and grants to support resident messaging campaigns.

FPI provides general resources and guidance for communities to add FSP to their recycling programs and reduce contamination. Community partners are provided with an additional level of expert support to launch and maintain successful curbside recycling programs for a full suite of FSP, including paper cups, as well as promotion and support for their recycling program. FPI also works with partners to audit key program metrics pre- and postlaunch to ensure ongoing success.

“Consumer awareness is essential to this recovery effort,” Farrell says. “More and more, consumers want to recycle their cups, but many don’t know whether their local program accepts them or how to prepare them. In partnership with FPI and our quick-serve restaurant customers, we are building programs to increase education about how to recycle paper cups responsibly.”

Access gains and marketplace momentum

Residential access for paper cup recycling had nearly doubled to 11 percent by 2022, according to a cosponsored study by FPI and NextGen Consortium.

FPI is generating good momentum year over year, achieving substantial recycling access gains with a series of solid program launches this year. Since 2017, FPI’s community partnerships have added paper cup access for approximately 6.9 million households and have expanded the suite of other FSP that residents can recycle. FPI’s efforts to grow paper cup recycling recently brought access in the mid-South region into cities like Memphis and Tulsa, Oklahoma. FPI continues to engage in the Chicago and Dallas-Fort Worth regions to expand FSP recycling across the entire metro areas and also launched statewide partnerships to start adding paper cups and strengthen plastic recycling access in North Carolina and South Carolina.

Matt Todd is a senior consultant at Resource Recycling Systems based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. For more information, visit www.recycle.com.