Category: Sustainable Packaging Coalition

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GreenBlue Sustainable Packaging Coalition

Environmental Trade Offs: A look at the sustainability of bag-in-box packaging

As more companies incorporate environmental sustainability into their business practices and long-term corporate goals, there are often trade offs and compromises between environmental and economic desires. A company’s primary drivers may or may not align with environmentally beneficial choices, and companies often straddle that delicate line between seemingly incompatible objectives. Ideally, they end up going for the best possible choice that meets both their economic and environmental desires, as well as their consumer’s needs.
BigBox_504x672Recently, Aristocrat Vodka unveiled their new bag-in-box (BiB) packaging design, which uses a plastic pouch and spout housed within a waxed cardboard box. The benefit of the BiB design is that the packaging holds more than double the volume as their traditional 750 ml bottle, so shipping becomes more efficient by volume, which may result in better fuel efficiency. Typically, the BiB design – commonly used for dispensing large volumes of liquids – consists of a flexible plastic pouch or bladder with a plastic spout housed within a corrugated cardboard box. The wine industry noticeably popularized this packaging in the past few decades. Companies have issued LCA studies for BiB packaging in comparison to other conventional packaging option for liquids – including PET bottles, LDPE bottles, aseptic bottles and glass bottles – and many studies have concluded that BiB packaging is environmentally competitive, and in many cases superior to, other commonly available packaging formats. Also, BiB packaging makes wine and other spirits a feasible option for large outdoor events, particularly if glass is prohibited. It’s generally viewed as a sustainability success when BiB packaging eliminates bulky materials, ships more efficiently, and adds consumer value.
But the individual components of the package reveal a more nuanced narrative in the switchover from the plastic bottle to the BiB package. On one hand, the plastic pouch uses less material, contributing to an overall reduction of plastic, but the caveat is that the flexible plastic pouch is not as widely recyclable as the plastic bottle in most communities. The flexible plastic pouch in the BiB packaging is a composite #7 plastic, whereas the plastic used for the traditional 750 ml bottle is PET, which is more widely accepted and recycled across the country. In 2013, EPA concluded that about 29.8% (75.8 million tons) of the MSW stream is packaging waste. Of that, about 18% (13.98 million tons) is plastic packaging waste and 27% (3.78 million tons) of all plastic packaging waste in the MSW stream is flexible plastic wraps, bags, and sacks. The majority of flexible packaging waste ends up in landfills because it’s often composed of multiple resins that are difficult to separate and because recyclers do not have the capabilities to accurately capture composite films and pouches.
Just as important to BiB packaging as the plastic pouch interior, the material of the exterior shell contributes to a package’s overall recyclability. However, unlike boxed wine packaging that uses a clean, corrugated cardboard exterior that’s fully recyclable, Aristocrat Vodka chose a waxed cardboard exterior. What are the benefits of this design? Waxed cardboard, which has been treated, coated, or saturated with wax, provides a waterproof barrier for moisture control. This feature allows consumers to either freeze or fill their boxes with ice to chill the product to temperatures more suitable for consumption.
While the chillable packaging offers consumer convenience, waxed cardboard is not considered recyclable by the majority of paper mills across the country because non water-soluble wax coatings will eventually create problems in the repulping process. While paper mills can handle a small amount of wax, they generally prefer clean cardboard and paper that is free of coatings, films, and liners; these substances will adhere and persist through the pulping process, impacting the longevity of mill equipment and contaminating the final product. From a market standpoint, it’s more challenging for a paper mill to produce high-grade product when the feedstock includes waxed cardboard that can cause imperfections, particularly when the residual wax and additives decrease tensile strength and reduce tear resistance. Wax chips also result in spots and can inhibit inks from drying properly on the final product. Since paper mills prefer clean corrugated cardboard, many communities have explicitly banned waxed cardboard from their recycling collection stream.
Fortunately, waxed cardboard is recoverable as organic waste and useful as feedstock for backyard composting. Additionally, there are new technologies that allow paper mills to process waxed cardboard, including a series of washers that separate a significant amount of wax. But access to these technologies and facilities is still largely limited. While 47 alternative wax coatings currently available on the market have undergone testing by the Fibre Box Association to be deemed “recyclable”, wax alternatives still have some limitations. They often only mimic certain characteristics of standard wax coatings, and they may not meet all performance criteria (temperature, moisture, light, oxygen) in the same way that standard wax meets all these criteria across the board. Nevertheless, recyclability of the BiB packaging could be improved if it used an alternative wax coating. Until economic feasibility exists for expanded use of these wax-processing technologies and wax alternatives, manufacturers, brand owners, and consumers should expand their knowledge about beneficial disposal options for waxed cardboard.
BiB packaging certainly facilitates more efficient shipping and offers certain consumer benefits such as portability. Despite the potential benefits, Aristocrat Vodka’s BiB package is a lost opportunity to offer a recyclable package. It’s encouraging that a major brand like Aristocrat Vodka is pushing for creative packaging that could move the liquor and spirits market toward more widely utilized sustainable packaging options, but work remains to pinpoint the best solutions that meet environmental sustainability, economic preferability, and consumer needs.

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GreenBlue Sustainability Tools Sustainable Packaging Coalition

Why Aren’t More Forests Certified?

Protecting and managing forests, and all the essential services forests provide, is critical to the well-being of our planet and its inhabitants. Forests provide clean air and water, wildlife habitat, and a home to an enormous and vast array of biodiveristy. Forest also provide recreational value, resources we depend on every day, and support economies all over the world. Forests are so much a part of our everyday lives they are often taken for granted. How can we protect forests when we depend on them for so much?
Active forest management, and particularly sustainable forest management (SFM), are strategies to help strike a balance in the relationship between society’s needs and maintaining forest health. Forest certification programs, first introduced in the 1990s, are one tool that have been established to assure stakeholders SFM practices are being followed. The Programme of the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) gives a good definition: “Sustainable Forest Management certification provides forest owners and managers with independent recognition of their responsible management practices … certification provides forest owners and managers — families, communities, and companies — with access to the global marketplace for certified products.”
Today only about 12% of the world’s forests are certified to third-party systems such as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI). This is despite the fact that many companies request certified wood for their products. Demand in many industry sectors — solid wood, paper, and packaging — is much greater than the supply of certified wood. It begs the question: Why aren’t more forests certified?
This was the fundamental question that SPC’s Forest Products Working Group (FPWG), a collaboration of 20+ companies across the supply chain, spent the last year and half trying to answer. Working across the forest products value chain, from landowners to brand owners, the the FPWG companies found that there are a number of reasons why forest certification has not been more widely adopted, with a specific focus on the United States.
Through a series of interviews, workshops, and research, the group has found that the underlying issue is that forest certification needs to offer a more compelling value proposition to small private landowners in the United States. Likewise, forest certification also needs to offer a more compelling value proposition to brand owners. Over the course of the next few months, the FPWG will be sharing their findings from this project, including the process the group used during the project called the Value Innovation Process, or VIP. An approach that was integral to developing our findings because we asked, first: “What is the job that forest certification is hired to do?” Or in other words, getting a better understanding of “what is the value of forest certification” before looking at ways to fix certification as is.

Using the VIP, the FPWG sought to understand why many landowners and forest managers have opted not to seek certification. At the other end of the value chain, we also explored the dynamics driving leading brands and other corporations to focus on buying certified products. We also reached consensus that there are many uncertified forests that are currently practicing sound, sustainable forest management. Against this backdrop, the group is seeking to find additional strategies to enhance the value of certification.
The FPWG interviewed numerous members of the value chain including landowners, foresters, loggers, merchants, printers, manufacturers, brand owners, associations, consultants, and more. The FPWG hosted two in-person Summits where we brought value chain members and representatives from FSC, SFI, and ATFS to discuss strategies to better drive the value of forest certification. The findings were numerous. Often complex. And in the spirit of innovation, not surprisingly, findings varied enormously. In the next few months the FPWG will be discussing sharing in more detail what we heard across the value chain.
In the context of the VIP, we continue to seek answers to complex questions such as:

  • How might we gain assurance of Sustainable Forest Management when certification is not an option?
  • How might we focus on value chain members who can have the most impact on driving the value of forest certification?
  • How might  we address feedback that certification is overly complex, expensive, and does not deliver optimal desired value?
  • How might we stimulate better dialogue across value chain from landowners to brand owners?
  • How might we overcome perceptions that landowners are not practicing sustainable forest management?
  • How might we educate multiple stakeholders about forestry and forest ownership?
  • How might we create a better value proposition for small private landowners and brand owners?
  • How might we create market incentives, policies or other mechanisms that will fundamentally help keep forests as forests?
  • How might we explore innovative strategies to go beyond certification?
  • How might we gain a better understanding of supply and demand?

In the spirit of innovation, we welcome input from multiple stakeholders as we continue to tackle these complex issues.  Stay tuned for more findings and notices of upcoming events.

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GreenBlue Recover More Sustainable Packaging Coalition

Conversation about current challenges in the recycling industry

I’m not usually a talk radio person, but a talk radio show has very much caught my attention recently. Last week, The Diane Rehm Show on National Public Radio explored New Challenges to Recycling in the United States. The guests engaged in a conceptual yet pragmatic discussion about how previous policy decisions in recycling are now starting to cause problems, and how different communities could approach these issues going forward. The conversation included some interesting details about the connection between the price of commodities and recycling, such as how the price of oil impacts whether companies choose to manufacture products out of recycled materials.
Another part of the discussion explored how a recent increase in size of curbside recycling bins has resulted in a greater volume of materials being sent to recycling facilities. Unfortunately, an unintended consequence of that increased volume has been an increase in what waste management professionals deem “aspirational recycling,” or consumers indiscriminately throwing miscellaneous materials into their recycling bin, in hopes everything will somehow get recycled.
The problem with that kind of sorting behavior, according to the guests of the show, is that some of those items can cause interruptions and mechanical snags in the recycling process. An example provided was a rubber hose: if its presence wasn’t detected on conveyor belts shortly after reaching the recycling facility, it likely would later become entangled in one of the machines, requiring a temporary shutdown of recycling operations.
The show also looked into how consumers feel and behave around these issues. One call-in listener provided unique anecdotes about her pleasant experience in Sweden, where she sorted her recyclables into sixteen different bins.
As a new Project Associate for GreenBlue working primarily on the How2Recycle program, this show particularly interested me as someone who is eager to interpret the most recent and controversial issues in recycling. These often confusing topics can be difficult for even a well-intentioned recycler and environmentalist like myself to wrap my head around. For example, why do American localities have such vastly different recycling and composting systems?
Consider the following example: I recently relocated to Virginia from Oregon. As a resident of Portland, I had curbside composting in addition to recycling (with glass in a separate bin; or, I could return glass to the grocery store to receive a deposit refund). But as a resident of Albemarle County in the greater Charlottesville, Virginia area, I now don’t have access to a curbside recycling program, even though my not-too-distant neighbors closer to downtown Charlottesville do have curbside recycling—and the instructions for sorting there are different than in Portland.
It’s mind-boggling how different communities seem to recycle in such conflicting ways; the guests of Diane Rehm skillfully explain how and why. What’s fascinating is that those differences between communities, in turn, uncover a great deal about the complexities of culture and economics in the United States. The podcast is not only a solid listen for recycling professionals who want to hear about the contours of current tensions within the industry, but also anyone who is broadly curious about the future of recycling.

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GreenBlue Sustainable Packaging Coalition

Introducing our new Project Associate, Kelly!

Kelly Cramer, Project Associate Sustainable Packaging Coalition
Tell us about your background.

I identify as a first generation Southerner; my parents are originally from the Upper Midwest, but I grew up in Franklin, Tennessee. I spent the last five years in Portland, Oregon, where I studied environmental law at Lewis & Clark Law School. Some of my formative experiences include exploring the Smoky Mountains during college, a summer in San Diego spent eating bean burritos and staring at the ocean, and having the fortunate opportunity to spend some brief but meaningful time in Latin America. I’ve been an environmentalist probably ever since a Keep America Beautiful commercial made me cry when I was 5.
Why were you interested in working with GreenBlue?
I was initially drawn to GreenBlue for its pioneering spirit; because GreenBlue is so oriented toward the future and innovation, it means the organization has unlimited potential for growth. Closely related to innovation is GreenBlue’s emphasis on collaboration. What’s compelling about collaboration is that GreenBlue is able to accomplish a tremendous amount for sustainability very quickly — sometimes simply by listening and facilitating conversations in a dynamic, objective way.
Coming from a legal background, I understand how trying to better the environment in an adversarial context comes with its own set of challenges: litigation and policy reform can take a lot of time and money, and involved parties usually have to resolve conflict in a relatively traditional way. Working with that sort of constant intensity and within such defined boundaries can often be impactful, but GreenBlue occupies a unique space outside that framework. It’s a space I find to be incredibly rare and powerful.
What are you most looking forward to working on at GreenBlue?
On a practical level, I’m excited about encouraging more and more companies to join the How2Recycle program, and see the label designs I help implement on products I use myself. Conceptually, I’m enthralled by the potential to help guide the future of sustainable materials management, and design strategies to support a circular economy for next generation environmentalists.
Fun facts about yourself?
I live on a farm and am pursuing friendships with six daring and elusive peacocks; my favorite writer and poet is Jim Harrison; I’m fascinated by pop culture, celebrity and television.
 

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Recover More Sustainability Tools Sustainable Packaging Coalition Uncategorized

Target & How2Recycle

Target’s Kim Carswell explains why the retail giant decided to join the How2Recycle program

Kim Carswell, Senior Manager of Packaging for Target

At Target, our guests are the center of everything we do.  We have a strong connection to our guests, and we continue to seek ways to be relevant to them.  Adding the How2Recycle label to our owned brand packaging is a way to heighten this relevancy.
Why did you decide to use the label?
Two reasons: our guests and our company strategies.
We know that how our guests manage their packaging when they are done with it is a key way for them to live sustainably. Adding the H2R label to our packaging will help them dispose of it the right way.  Using the label also increases the transparency between Target and our guests, which is important to us.
The label aligns with our three sustainability strategies:

  1.  Provide our guests with ways to live more sustainably
  2.  Offer a great assortment of sustainable products
  3.  Reduce waste

How did you go about it?
We were very intent to attach this work to other brand redesigns already in the works.. We are looking at a long term schedule that will allow the work to grow organically. We are keen not to create packaging waste when we change our packaging designs. We plan to flow through the changes so that old inventories can be depleted. Another key goal is to embed the addition of the label into current processes as much as we can to set ourselves up for a robust and sustainable approach.
What Target products currently use the label?

We have the How2Recycle label on our food brands including Market Pantry, Archer Farms, and Simply Balanced.  It is also on a wide array of our up&up products and select Spritz party supplies items.
And finally…
Here are 10 things we learned along the way and want to share with you. Success for Target, the Sustainable Packaging Coalition and all the other How2Recycle label users is for more and more companies to sign on, so we are delighted to share what we learned.

  1.  Tie H2R to company strategies
  2.  Take internal partners and engage them
  3.  Find and tap into internal leaders
  4.  Share the story
  5.  Attach this work to planned brand designs
  6.  Go to where people are
  7.  Keep a close connection with the SPC
  8.  Be flexible
  9.  Keep sharing the story
  10.  Recognize and celebrate the people and work

 

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GreenBlue Sustainable Packaging Coalition Uncategorized

In the Loop – Sustainable Brands '15

In the loop SB15
 

Executive Director Nina Goodrich (front right) Digging in on Circular Economy at SB15sd. Nina says “It’s not well understood in US.” (Photo courtesy of ThinkStep)

This week, GreenBlue’s Executive Director Nina Goodrich headed across the U.S. to moderate at Sustainable Brands 2015. Sustainable Brands is one of the largest global conferences that answer the question: How can you successfully innovate your brand for sustainability?
Nina moderated the “How to Structure Effective Recycling and Reuse Initiatives: Case Studies of Innovative Partnerships” session within the Circular and Sharing Economies track. Nina regularly speaks about the Circular Economy at conferences and loves to educate industry and consumers about how the Circular Economy can boost sustainability in their lives.
Speakers in the session included:


Carrie Majeske Carrie Majeske Ford Motor Company

John Gardner John Gardner Novelis

Meagan Smith Meagan Smith PepsiCo

Geof Rochester Geof Rochester The Nature Conservancy

SBLiz Maw Liz Maw Net Impact

Darren Beck Darren Beck Sprint

Michael Meyer Michael Meyer Goodwill Industries …

Like what you hear? Email Nina at Nina.Goodrich@Greenblue.org to discuss the Circular Economy further or tweet @GreenBlueOrg to tell us what you think!
 

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Sustainable Packaging Coalition Uncategorized

Biopolymers’ Interconnectivity

Tom Pollock breaks down what is happening at the biopolymer field and what was discussed at the SUSTPACK 2015 working session.

New Biopolymers Outlook for Sustainable Packaging

Need more proof that drinking beer can help save the planet? One of the many interesting key global trends Debra Darby, independent consultant of Darby Marketing, highlighted in her presentation “New Biopolymers Outlook for Sustainable Packaging” at SUSTPACK 2015 was the opportunity for organic waste products – including grain as the by-product of the distilling process – to find a new life in the exciting and innovative world of biopolymers.
Bags, flexibles, films, and coffee packaging were just some of the examples Debra cited in which consumers and brands have helped biopolymers products achieve pull-through in industry. Important to making this work will be industry collaboration and communication to drive development to join the ranks of such companies taking advantage of biobased materials such as Natureworks, Metabolix, BASF, Honeywell, Novamont, Innovia, Meridian Holdings Group, and Braskem.
 

Taking the Next Step: The Growing Production of Bio-Based Chemical Intermediates Enables New Opportunities

Julia Allen, Research Analyst, LUX Research
There are signs of hope in the biopolymer industry. Julia Allen, Research Analyst at LUX Research was an excellent follow-up to the previous presentation by providing a comprehensive overview of where biopolymers are today and what you can expect in the near future. Julia cited 7.4 million MT growth of emerging biopolymer technologies by 2018. Much of this will be led by intermediate chemicals, which she predicts is going to be the biggest driver and user of biopolymers. Through this is a constantly changing and sometimes difficult to predict industry, key producers behind capacity growth will be M&G Chemicals, Butamax, and BioAmber.
Maybe one of the most interesting points in Julia’s presentation was that bio-based chemical intermediaries will continue to enable current opportunities and help create new opportunities for sustainability in terms of new markets and applications. It’s encouraging to think about the many positive applications in this emerging market.
 

Bioplastics 2.0: Low-Cost Full Cycle Recoverable Packaging

Ian DeWeerdt, CFO, Full Cycle Bioplastics

Compostable. Marine degradable. Landfill degradable. High Performance. Affordable.

These are some of the most common promises you’ll hear about bioplastics but in many cases the reality is a bit more complicated. Ian DeWeerdt, CFO of Full Cycle Bioplastics, provided a compelling case for why industry is still working on fulfilling some of these promises and what available technologies could help bring us closer to the potential of biopolymers. PHA, for example, is an additive that can help us move toward our goals. It’s expensive today, and Ian suggested that focusing on cost could be an important strategy moving forward.
Why is it so expensive? Feedstock costs and GMO bacteria are the top two reasons. Feedstock yields require GMO bacteria, and containment of that bacteria is a big cost driver. Full Cycle Bioplastics, however, has found a strategy to address this challenge by using waste feedstock and natural bacteria. By working closely with waste haulers and composting facilities, Full Cycle Bioplastics has found a path forward for future PHA manufacturing facilities. When PHA volume goes up, Ian explained, PHA prices go down. And affordability, as we know, is a key component to meeting the overall sustainability benefits biopolymers can offer.

Biobased Packaging – An Industrial Ecosystem Perspective

Denny Hall, Executive Director, OBIA (Bioproduct Innovation Center), Ohio State University

How many national championships is enough for The Ohio State University?

It seems as if they aren’t quite satisfied, yet as Denny Hall, Executive Director of the Bioproduct Innovation Center at OSU (OBIC) gave the eye-opening example of the over 95% waste diversion rate for the total of Ohio State football games at their expansive home stadium. OSU led the nation in the 2014  Zero Waste challenge Denny and his team participated in. Although that’s an impressive statistic, what is more impressive is where waste was diverted to and what OBIC is doing with it.
Bioproducts represent an important economic development opportunity, especially for rural America. OBIC’s “Cell to Sell Innovation Pipeline” is creating new supply chains by looking at working with agricultural biobased feedstocks. A OBIC survey of biobased markets revealed that consumers are not quite as knowledgable about products as they hoped. People think they know about this technology, but when pressed to name applications and companies, Ohio State came up with a rare loss. Denny suggested a need to create a coordinated marketing effort to spread understanding of biobased products and applications that matched the value the indicated for utilizing biobased materials. An excellent example Denny cited was similar to that of the natural food trend. With 2,363 companies part of the USDA bio-preferred program and 18,442 products available in the U.S. – it seems that the potential is there through technologies such as anaerobic digestion.

Certification vs Collaboration – Securing End of Life Options for Compostable Bio-Packaging

Susanna Carson, President, BSI Biodegradable Solutions
Susanna Carson, President, BSI Biodegradable Solutions, doesn’t take “No” for answer. In her excellent presentation, Susanna relayed her story about brand value and waste through the perspective of her company Besics‘ efforts to find opportunities for composting biopolymer products. Noting that it is the consumer making the choices and pushing the market, demand for bio-packaging is clearly gaining momentum. Besics realized compostability needs third-party certification and collaboration through the value. Susanna’s research found that biopolymer acceptance at composting facilities in her region is about 53%. Twenty three percent outright banned biopolymers and 24% gave a “kinda-sorta” answer. The source of the “no’s and kinda sorta’s” was the claim that ‘bio-plastics don’t compost’. Ms. Carson suggested a gap between the science of compostability and compost facility operations.
P.S. An excellent job by moderators Brad Rodgers of PEPSICO and Nina Goodrich of GreenBlue. The presentations and presenters provided a logical and informative flow to a complex subject. Looking forward to see what has progressed at SPC Advance in Charlotte later this year!
 
 

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Sustainable Packaging Coalition

A Unique Approach to Understanding Consumers

When hundreds of packaging professionals are gathered at an event together, a discussion surrounding consumers is inevitable. It is interesting that we as professionals in the industry make so many assumptions about consumer understanding of sustainability attributes of packages but rarely do we talk to consumers about their assumptions. And when we do bring the general public together for surveys or tests, they are typically addressed with leading questions in an unfamiliar office space designed to get answers and move on to the next person.
Wednesday morning at SUSTPACK, Cara Cosentino of Watch Me Think exemplified how videos of consumer interactions with packages are great tools for better industry understanding of the public. Cosentino mentioned that Watch Me Think started as a way for companies to get to know their consumers. Those of us in the packaging industry are all “consumers” too, so it’s odd to think that we might not be able to, but grasping consumers’ thoughts is a constant struggle. Using consumer videos, Watch Me Think has created a comfortable atmosphere for people to express their opinions honestly and effectively.
Cosentino showed the audience glimpses of consumers (or “thinkers” as Watch Me Think likes to call them) interacting with everyday packages and explaining their feelings of sustainable packaging in general. The organization strives to be an authentic look at consumers and her examples certainly showed this authenticity. A few people in the video mentioned that they prefer reusable and recyclable packages and that sustainability is on their mind when grabbing packages off the shelf; however, a few opened up and said environmental efforts have “absolutely no effect on products I purchase.”  These consumers mentioned that money and convenience influence their purchasing decisions much more than sustainability factors. Regardless of the purchasing practices, all of the consumers expressed frustration with over-packaging. E-commerce, toy, and pharmaceutical packaging were among the categories mentioned guilty of over-packaging.
In the SPC’s How2Recycle Label Program we often struggle with consumer understanding, as we are creating on-package recycling labels that will be displayed on millions of commonly purchased packages. It would be interesting to see how consumers feel about the different terminology used in How2Recycle and how well they understand and appreciate seeing the many different label types (Widely Recycled, Check Locally, Store Drop-off, and Not Yet Recycled). Extensive consumer testing was done during the development of How2Recycle, but now that the label is commonly found on store shelves it would be fascinating to see real-time videos of consumers interacting with it!
In the meantime, we appreciate all consumer feedback through our online survey at how2recycle.info. Let us know what you think of the program!

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GreenBlue Sustainable Packaging Coalition

Introducing GreenBlue’s Newest Intern: Erica Stratton

Erica joins the GreenBlue team as a project intern for the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, working with Anne Bedarf on recovery initiatives. Learn more about what brought Erica to GreenBlue below:
After graduating from the University of Virginia in May, I was on a job hunt to find a position that would allow me to continue growing my interest in sustainability while staying involved in the Charlottesville community. But, as I am sure most recent grads can attest to, the goal of finding the ideal position proved to be harder than expected. So when I heard about GreenBlue’s internship position last month, you can be sure I was quick to send in my resume. With only a general idea of what GreenBlue did, I went into my interview with Anne Bedarf and left knowing that GreenBlue would be a great fit for me.
During my time at UVa, I was a sustainability employee and worked as part of the recycling team. We focused on event planning and outreach/education to raise awareness among the student population about recycling initiatives on Grounds. This included disseminating information about what could and could not be recycled as well as encouraging students to recycle as much as possible. Although it operates on a much larger scale, GreenBlue’s How2Recycle program has a similar goal. Through the use of a comprehensive and clear labeling system, How2Recycle enables companies to be transparent and take the confusion out of recycling for their consumers. The label provides individual disposal instructions for each component of a product’s packaging. Below is an example of a How2Recycle label:
how2recycle_label_cookies
I wish UVa had used labels like these on their food and drink packaging while I was there. It would have made my job a lot easier!
My connection to How2Recycle’s mission is just one of the many reasons I was drawn to interning at GreenBlue. I have always been passionate about finding a job that would allow me to contribute to my local community. For this reason, my job search has revolved around the local government and nonprofit sectors.  As a successful sustainability nonprofit, I felt that interning with GreenBlue would give me an inside look at how an established ‘green’ nonprofit operates. While I have only been interning for a couple of weeks, I can tell that I will gain as much from my assignments as I will from just observing and being part of the day-to-day life here.
In addition to this, I was delighted by the open and bright layout of GreenBlue’s office space. With a plethora of windows, brightly painted walls, and a jungle of office plants, I always feel energized to work. It allows for a collaborative atmosphere where employees can mingle and aren’t confined to their desks. The office is also dog friendly–which is especially exciting since I just adopted a new puppy!–and just a 15-minute walk from my apartment. It’s pretty much the ideal workplace!
I could go on and on about how great interning at GreenBlue has been so far, but I think I will end it here by saying how excited and grateful I am for this opportunity. I can’t wait to see what experiences the next few months will bring!

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GreenBlue Sustainable Packaging Coalition Uncategorized

GreenBlue Receives an Innovation in Plastics Recycling Award

With America Recycles Day just behind us (this past Saturday, November 15th), here at GreenBlue we are thrilled to announce that we have received an Innovations in Plastics Recycling Award from the American Chemistry Council (ACC).
ACC’s Plastics Division hosts the Innovation in Plastics Recycling Awards annually to recognize organizations bringing new technologies, products, and initiatives to the industry to improve plastics recycling. GreenBlue’s Store Drop-off Label was chosen as one of three winning innovations of this year’s awards.
seventh_gen_store_drop_off
The Store Drop-off Label is intended to educate consumers about the recyclability of plastic bags, films, and wraps at nearby grocery and retail stores with drop-off bins. This label informs consumers about recyclability while they are physically handling the package, so there is no confusion.
The How2Recycle Label currently has 32 participating companies, over half of which are using the Store Drop-off Label. We are looking forward to the expansion of the How2Recycle Label in the coming years to help close the loop on the consumer side, and we are thankful to ACC for helping us spread the word!
If you are interested in learning more or joining the How2Recycle Label, email me at kelly.lahvic@greenblue.org or follow us on Twitter @how2recycle.