Subtle Differences

A walk down the aisles of a local grocery or convenience store will reveal something that continues to get recycling industry professionals all shook up. In these aisles sit 20-ounce juice bottles, plastic clamshell packages encasing banana cream pies and containers cradling neon-colored deviled eggs that are creating quite the controversy—and it has nothing to do with calories of the food inside.

Much of the plastic food and beverage packaging on the market today is made with PET (polyethylene terephthalate) or PLA (polylactic acid). Recently, Coca-Cola Co. also introduced the PlantBottle, a PET plastic in which the resin is derived from plants and not the traditional petroleum. PET and the PlantBottle are recyclable but not biodegradable or compostable. PLA bottles are said to be compostable and recyclable, but they already have a bad reputation amongst many recyclers. All of these bottles and containers look deceptively alike, which has created a problem for consumers and recyclers, who cannot visually identify one bottle from the other. Recent developments on both sides of this debate may help with the identification problem.

Recyclers long have had an efficient system in place to recycle PET bottles and containers. PLA is marketed as a sustainable alternative to PET and is manufactured using a resin derived from plant sources, often corn.

Although PLA products are said to be recyclable and compostable, they contaminate PET containers when introduced to the recycling stream. High economic and environmental stakes have parties drawing their battle lines.


Getting in the Ring
In one corner stand proponents of PET, who say PLA containers are detrimental to the existing recycling infrastructure for products made from PET. Dennis Sabourin, executive director of National Association for PET Container Resources (NAPCOR), Sonoma, Calif., says NAPCOR stands by its statement that “PLA should not be introduced into the existing structure.” He adds that potential consequences for the PET recycling infrastructure are still too great, mainly because someone has to separate the containers to prevent contamination, and the costs associated with that are too high.

In the other corner, PLA manufacturers stand by the potential environmental benefits these containers offer and point out that not all PET bottles are recyclable either. Steve Davies, director of marketing for NatureWorks LLC, Minnetonka, Minn., says, “What is different about PLA is that we can take any PLA chemistry in many different formats, including in fibers, and recycle it back into lactic acid. That’s where we think the economics of PLA will be a game changer.”

Mike Centers, managing director for BioCor LLC, a PLA end user based out of Concord, Calif., says he likes to remind critics that, “While fossil fuels used in PET feedstock take thousands of years to develop, PLA feed stocks have a much shorter life cycle.”

BioCor is a venture designed to purchase, aggregate and process post-consumer PLA. Centers says the company purchases used clamshells, bottles and beer cups from sources like the San Francisco 49ers’ and the Oakland As’ stadiums. Once BioCor buys back post-consumer material, the company sells it to a recycler that processes it and eventually supplies it to NatureWorks as lactic acid. NatureWorks then turns the lactic acid into PLA.

Centers says his challenge has been in getting a sufficient volume of PLA material. He says the company expanded its operation to include clamshells and beer cups because of the low volume of water bottles available. Centers says, “BioCor offers 9 cents a pound to pull this material out and recycle this material. In 2010, we recovered 70,000 pounds and in 2011 we are slated to do slightly better than that.”

Although BioCor has had some success, it remains to be seen if other companies will enter into this market.


Sorting it Out
Separating PET and PLA requires money for optical sorters or manual sorting, both of which have recyclers worried.

NAPCOR’s Sabourin says many recyclers he speaks with don’t take the stance that there is a specific number of PLA bottles and containers at which point PET recycling begins to become disrupted. “We don’t take that position. We discourage the introduction of any PLA materials until a better solution is found.”

Sabourin also says introducing PLA into the PET infrastructure is not the most responsible choice, because much of the contaminated PET will end up in a landfill along with the PLA, thus defeating intentions to recycle or compost these containers.

The technology required to effectively sort PLA from PET is a multimillion dollar investment. Amanda Pratt, director of corporate communications for Rumpke, a Cincinnati, Ohio-based material recovery facility (MRF), says, “Challenges associated with PLA containers include technology, space and end use.”

MRFs like Rumpke are hearing their end users voice concerns over the integration of PLA.

Pratt adds, “Our hope is that PLA manufacturers and users will constantly communicate with collectors and processors, like Rumpke Recycling, and end users to ensure that all demands are effectively met and recycling options continue to increase.”
 
NatureWorks’ Davies says he sees a positive future for PLA for both manufactures and recyclers. Davies adds that Santa Monica, Calif., recently established a grant that is designed to make identifying PLA bottles easier. The grant helps PLA manufactures mark bottles with a green or brown line, for example, to let consumers know these bottles should not be placed in a recycling receptacle with PET bottles.

Bioplastics recently got another potential boost when NatureWorks received the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) BioPreferred label. The BioPerferred label is designed to inform consumers which products are made with “renewable biological ingredients.” Although the purpose of the endorsement is not necessarily to differentiate among PET, PlantBottles or PLA, only PLA containers would wear the label. According to the USDA, one of the goals of the endorsement program is to increase the purchasing of biobased products.

However, the missing link still seems to be what to do with PLA containers. Helping consumers identify the bottles is not the same as making sure they know what to do with them after they’ve finished their water or the last of that banana cream pie. Thus, recyclers still face the problem of having to separate PET and PLA.


Another Alternative
In May of 2009, Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Co. threw its weight into the mix when it introduced the PlantBottle, which, though it is a PET product, is made partially from plants. The PlantBottle can be recycled with other PET bottles and containers and won’t act as a contaminant. However,  consumers may be mistaking the PlantBottle to be compostable, which it is not.

A spokesperson for Coca-Cola Co. says, the bottle looks and performs just like typical PET, but “Because it’s made partially from plants, it reduces potential carbon dioxide emissions and dependence on petroleum and other fossil fuels compared with traditional PET plastic. Our use of PlantBottle packaging in 2010 alone eliminated almost 30,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide—the equivalent impact of approximately 60,000 barrels of oil from our PET plastic bottles.”

The company says it does not use PLA in its packaging and does not plan to in the future. “Given the recyclability of our beverage containers, it actually is more environmentally preferable to recover the material and energy for use again.

Coca-Cola Co. has partnered with H.J. Heinz Co. to produce ketchup bottles with the PlantBottle technology, the spokesperson for Coca-Cola. says. The company also says it would be open to similar partnerships in the future.

In 2010, more than 2.5 billion PlantBottle packages were available across nine countries. Coca-Cola says it expects that number to double to more than 5 billion packages in more than 15 countries. The company has set a goal to convert all of its beverage containers to PlantBottles by 2020.

To date, not all products packaged with the PlantBottle are 100 percent plant based. The Dasani PlantBottle packaging contains about 30 percent plant-based material. However, Odwalla high density polyethylene (HDPE) PlantBottle packaging is made from up to 100 percent plant-based materials. Coca-Cola’s spokesperson says the company is working toward 100 percent plant-based plastics for all of its products, adding, “Our ultimate goal is a carbon neutral, 100 percent renewable, responsibly sourced bottle that is fully recyclable.”

More information can be found at www.RecyclingToday.com/pepsico-canada-recycled-pet-bottle.aspx.



The author is assistant editor for Recycling Today and can be reached at kstoklosa@gie.net.