By Mike Verespej
WALTHAM, MASS. (Updated Jan. 30, 9:30 p.m. ET) — Spearheaded by Recycline Inc., a consumer products manufacturer that makes its products out of 100 percent recycled polypropylene, a limited nationwide program to collect and recycle PP food containers is underway at 65 Whole Foods Market locations in 13 states.
Eleven Whole Foods stores in Florida will join the Preserve Gimme 5 program on Feb. 16. Preserve is the brand name for Recycline products, which include toothbrushes, razors, food storage containers and kitchen tableware, mixing bowls, and colanders.
The program, which began Jan. 27, is thought to be the first wide-scale PP food container recycling involving a major supermarket chain in the U.S. The other partners in the program are organic yogurt manufacturer Stonyfield Farms in Londonderry, N.H., and the Organic Valley Family of Farms, a cooperative of 1,200 farmers in 32 states and one Canadian province.
Consumers can also deposit their Brita water filters in the Preserve Gimme 5 recycling bins at Whole Foods supermarkets. There will be one Preserve Gimme 5 bin made from 100 percent recycled high density polyethylene near the front or outside each store. The cost of the bins and the transportation of the material back to Recycline with be shared equally by Stonyfield, Recycline and Organic Valley.
“Like us, our partners want to make sure there are growing recycling opportunities” for their products, said Eric Hudson, founder and chief executive officer of Recycline.”They have an interest in showing responsibility for their products after they are used. We want to have a lower impact on the environment, and there is less impact on the environment when you recycle than if you landfill it.”
John Wiley, director of the environment for Recycline said the program will only provide “a small percentage of the material we consume in a given year–roughly 4 million to 5 million pound per month in each Whole Foods region.” When Florida is added, the program will be in four of the chain’s regions. “But if we can expand this to 1,000 stores, it would meet all our volume needs and projects.”
That is not an unrealistic expectation, said Hudson. “We think the program will expand to all seven regions of Whole Foods Markets and we think it will happen quickly. We also are in discussions with others about adding this program. We will evaluate how quickly we can expand this based on the success of the first 4-5 months.”
Hudson also believes that the Preserve Gimme 5 program will spur others to launch similar programs, noting that Rubbermaid Inc. is looking into a take-back program for its Takealong food storage containers. “A lot of companies are now looking at taking on a responsibility for their products at the end of their lives,” he said. “Our program doesn’t cost a lot of money and doesn’t have a big budget.”
The program builds on a mail-back program Recycline started about a year. Under that program, consumers can mail back, in a box, to Recycline — via ground shipping and at their own cost — used PP food containers as long as the packages do not weigh more than 50 pounds. Those are typically yogurt, margarine and sour cream containers, ketchup bottles and cream cheese containers, as well as some ice cream tubs and food storage and take-out containers.
Since the Waltham, Mass., company started in 1996, it has had a mail-back program so consumers can use postage-paid, prepaid mailers to return used toothbrushes, tongue cleaners and razors to Recycline, with those products recycled into plastic lumber and decking products.
Stonyfield said that it has sent somewhere between 3 million to 6 million yogurt cups to Recycline since the two companies first partnered in 2000. The cups are recycled into raw material for Recycline products. Recycline estimates that its recycling and collection efforts will keep 1 million pounds of polypropylene out of landfills in 2009.
Information on mailing products back to Recycline and a list of participating supermarkets can be found at www.preserveproducts.com. The Park Slope Food Coop in Brooklyn, N.Y., which is only open to members, was the pilot store for the program and is also a participant in the Preserve Gimme 5 program.