Plastpac promotes closed-loop recycling
Kenilworth, N.J.-based Plastpac is promoting closed-loop recycling of its plastic corrugated boxes.
With more than 40 years in the food packaging business, Plastpac has developed a closed-loop recycling program that enables the company’s Polycrates plastic boxes to be picked up from a depot, cleaned and recycled.
After being displayed and emptied of produce at retail stores, the plastic produce boxes can be baled and sent to a recycling plant where the plastic is formed into plastic resin pellets. Those pellets are used again to create new cartons, said Margaret Weber, CEO of Plastpac.
“We get it back and we turn it into a product, so there is zero waste that is happening with our box,” she said.
The company’s Polycrate boxes can effectively replace waxed corrugated cartons or wood crates that are typically used with iced or water-cooled product, she said.
“You don’t need to cut down trees, and you need to (fill) any landfill with wax cartons,” she said. Retailers can recycle the plastic corrugated boxes much like they bale and recycle standard corrugated boxes.
The Plastpac cartons are 100% recyclable and are much lighter than Reusable Plastic Containers, wax cartons or wood boxes, Weber said.
“The product itself will say fresher, which has been proven (with )the broccoli and the corn, three to five days longer than in a corrugated box and five to six days longer than in a wood box,” she said.
Weber said the cost of the Polycrate boxes is about the same price as the wax corrugated box and about 20 cents cheaper than a wood box. “Our box is there to replace the wax corrugated boxes because those cannot be recycled, and to replace the wood box,” she said.
She said plastic corrugated cartons by Plastpac are becoming more and more requested by retailers for items like broccoli and corn.
The cartons work well for produce get ice, are hydrocooled and that need to sit in a refrigerator, she said.“You could take cabbage, ship it out in a regular straight corrugated box and use it within 24 hours, and nothing will happen,” Weber said. “But if you have a cabbage load that’s going to cross from Texas to Jersey, and it’s going to sit in the refrigerator for two days, your boxes are going to be collapsed.”
Plastpac has nine patents on its plastic corrugated cartons, and Weber said variations of the cartons also are used for seafood around the globe.
The company can manufacture up to 35 loads of plastic corrugated cartons per month, and Weber said each load includes as many as 35,000 boxes.
