Sustainable choices

Vernon, Calif.-based Command Packaging has been manufacturing plastic carryout bags for retailers since 1989. The company, founded by President Albert Halimi and CEO Pete Grande, has focused on being a solutions-based partner to its customers, Grande says. “Overall the one common need all our customers have, regardless of the market, is the need for a more environmentally sustainable plastic bag,” he adds.

Grande’s career in the plastics industry began long before he established Command Packaging. His first job out of college was with Dow Chemical, and his career path was established when he joined the company’s plastics division. After he left Dow, he helped to convert grocery stores from paper bags to plastic bags in the mid-1980s while working for the plastic bag manufacturing company Hilex-Poly, where he served as executive vice president of sales and marketing.

Grande says, “The utility and inexpensive nature of plastic bags created a juggernaut and allowed me to have professional success, which ultimately led to the start of Command Packaging in 1989.”
 

Accentuate the positive

Fast-forward a couple of decades, however, and plastic bags, which were once touted as environmentally preferable, have become the target of many nongovernment agencies and legislators who have sought to ban their use. For instance, Los Angeles began 2014 by implementing a ban on single-use plastic bags. Shoppers in the city must now bring their own bags when grocery shopping or pay 10 cents per paper bag purchased at the store. For smaller independent markets and liquor stores that sell groceries, the ban does not go into effect until July 1, 2014.

Grande says plastic bags offer retailers many features and benefits they want to retain while providing their customers an environmentally sustainable solution. “We identified the need to manufacture high-quality plastic bags out of postconsumer recycled raw materials because those bags have the lowest carbon footprint,” he says.

This perceived need gave rise to Encore Recycling, Salinas, Calif., and Command’s newest product, the Smarterbag.

“As cities started banning plastic grocery sacks, we identified the opportunity to provide a sustainable plastic reusable bag solution to grocers, so we created Smarterbags,” Grande says. “An affordable reusable bag manufactured locally from postconsumer recycled plastic gives grocers and consumers a cost-effective solution that is really good for the environment.

“Encore Recycling was born out of the need to have a sustainable supply of high-quality postconsumer plastic since none existed,” Grande says of Command Packaging’s sister recycling company, which opened in October 2013. “This was an essential step in our ability to provide our customers with sustainable carryout bags.”

Grande says he recalls how plastic bags were embraced by the environmental community in the 1980s because paper bag manufacturing used so many resources and was a source of industrial pollution.

Today, however, single-use plastic bags have a bad reputation with some legislators and environmental groups. “As the movement to ban plastic grocery sacks began, I think my natural tendency was to look for a way to save the amazing benefits plastic offers while at the same time creating a product that is better for the environment,” Grande says. “Instinctively I believed that a very useful product like the plastic grocery bag can be improved if we would be willing to continue to embrace change.”

He says earlier this decade when market forces started to indicate that single-use or disposable products were no longer ideal, Command Packaging began to reconsider its business.

“Today we know we made the right decision,” Grande says of the company’s move to collect and recycle agricultural plastics, using the material to manufacture a recycled-content reusable bag that also is recyclable at the end of its life.
 

Encore performance

Command operates two plants. Its main bag manufacturing plant in Vernon is where the company makes single-use retail and restaurant bags as well as its Smarterbags, which are made from 50-percent-recycled agricultural LDPE (low-density polyethylene) plastic. Smarterbags are offered as “cost-effective, compliant and environmentally responsible bags” for retailers that are affected by plastic carryout bag bans, according to Command.

The company’s other plant is its Encore Recycling facility in Salinas, Calif. This plant produces the recycled LDPE pellets that Command uses to make its Smarter- bags. It also recycles high-density polyethylene (HDPE) from agricultural sources.

The two facilities combined employ more than 300 people, Grande says.

While Encore Recycling plans to collect, clean and recycle 100 million pounds of agricultural plastics per year as it ramps up production at its facility, the company will begin by recycling 20 million pounds in the first year and grow consistently until it reaches its goal, he adds.

Grande stresses that Encore is recycling for a purpose and not just for the sake of recycling. “You have to have downstream products that can and should be made well with recycled materials,” he says. “You have to have an adequate supply and know what you are recycling.”

The agricultural industry in California is a consistent generator in terms of the types and volume of plastics it uses, Grande says. Because the plastic is very dirty, however, it can be difficult to recycle and not suitable for a number of applications. “There are a whole lot of steps that you have to take that are highly technical and proprietary to get good, clean, usable raw material,” he says of Encore’s process.

While he says Encore would be able to add processing capacity beyond its current 100 million pounds to handle all of the agricultural plastics used in California, he emphasizes the need for healthy consuming markets for this material so that it truly can be recycled into new products. “There is a nexus between Encore and the Smarterbags that we are introducing to the California grocery market,” Grande says.

The company’s Smarterbags are targeted at grocers and restaurants in areas of California where single-use plastic carryout bag bans are in effect. “For 10 cents they can buy a California-made recycled bag that is recyclable at the end of life,” Grande says. He adds that the bags are not only a win for retailers but also for consumers and the environment.

“There is a big enough market in reusable bags in California that we could take 100 million pounds of agricultural LDPE and turn it into Smarterbags in the next 18 months,” Grande says of Encore’s and Command’s plans for the near future.
 

Challenges confronted

Encore has established locations in Woodland, Calif., at the Yolo County landfill as well as in Salinas where growers can drop off their agricultural plastics. The company works with multinational growers, such as Dole, Driscoll, Pacific Gold Farms, Ramco and Red Blossom Strawberries, as well as with independent growers to ensure that their plastics are collected and recycled.

Much of the LDPE Encore collects originates at hothouses and is used to grow strawberries and other fruits and vegetables. It is a relatively high-yield material, Grande says, unlike mulch film, which can be extremely dirty and contaminated.

Once the plastic has been collected, it is transported to Encore’s Salinas plant. Here it is sorted, washed and extruded into pellets using a proprietary process that Grande prefers not to describe in detail. However, he adds that while the equipment is readily available on the market the system incorporates numerous modifications as well as Encore’s intellectual capital.

Grande describes the recycling process, which also employs water treatment technology to clean the plastic using a closed-loop filtration system, as “very complex.”

He says, “Recycling of flexible plastic, whether it’s agricultural film or curbside collected plastic, creates unique challenges. The bulk of discarded plastic is dirty, and getting flexible plastic clean requires very sophisticated equipment and substantial investment.”

He adds, “In addition to the challenges of collecting, cleaning and recycling, to be successful at plastic recycling you need to have an end-use product or products that can use the recycled material. Just selling recycled plastic resin on the open market is not a sustainable business model given the volatility of virgin plastic materials.”

Command Packaging’s Smarterbags provide an outlet for the black LDPE pellets produced at Encore Recycling’s plant. While the majority of Encore’s output will be used to produce Command Packaging’s Smarterbags, Grande says the company also will sell its recycled pellets to other manufacturers across the U.S.

He adds that Encore and Command have had to design and employ many innovations to make their business models work. However, he adds that the companies’ most important innovation is creating a system that cost-effectively diverts agricultural plastic from landfills and repurposes that material into a new, reusable bag that costs less than a single-use paper bag or an imported reusable bag.

“We will continue to grow our recycling and reusable bag business in California and, as the market develops, will grow in other states,” Grande says of Encore and Command’s future plans. “We are always looking for the next great opportunity, but our team believes we are well-positioned to exploit the coming paradigm change to recycled content in plastic bags, so we expect tremendous growth to occur from this.”

He adds, “Beyond the products we currently make, there are many products that are being made from virgin materials that could easily be produced from recycled plastic. We will continue to expand our recycling business and look for products we can evolve into reusable or made from recycled plastic.”

The author is managing editor of Recycling Today and can be contacted via email at dtoto@gie.net.