Packaging company’s tubes and cores plant diverts nonrecyclable coated scrap to energy recovery.
Sonoco, a diversified packaging company based in Hartsville, South Carolina, has named its Tulsa, Oklahoma, tubes and cores plant a gold level Sonoco Sustainability Star Award recipient for the plant’s successful efforts to achieve landfill-free status.
According to the company, while recycling had been a plant priority for some time, its staff strived for a completely landfill-free facility. In 2014, the team identified an opportunity to divert nonrecyclable coated tube scrap to a sourcing company and initiated a recovery program.
“In addition to recovering this coated tube scrap, which is difficult to manage, this program also reduced overall facility costs,” says Lynn Ratliff, plant manager. “It was truly a win-win.”
According to Hilary Culbertson, corporate communications and investor relations for Sonoco, scrap material generated at the Tulsa facility is recovered for energy at a Covanta-operated facility through Phoenix-based Republic Services because of its difficult-to-recycle combination of components.
Administered by
Sonoco Recycling, the company’s recycling business, the Sonoco Sustainability Star Awards program comprises three tiers:
- gold recognizes facilities that have achieved 99 percent landfill diversion;
- silver is awarded to facilities achieving 95 percent landfill diversion; and
- bronze recognizes facilities that have made significant waste reduction achievements, such as drastically reducing their waste streams or implementing a new composting system.
A recycling leader with locations worldwide, Sonoco Recycling annually collects more than 3 million tons of old corrugated containers (OCC) and other grades of paper, metals and plastics. In addition, the company says it has experts who provide secure, reliable and innovative recycling solutions to residential and commercial customers.
Currently, Sonoco Recycling operates five material recovery facilities (MRFs), serving more than 125 communities in which curbside-collected residential and commercial materials are processed. The company also says it operates recycling programs, which identify waste reduction opportunities that reduce operating expenses for many of the largest consumer product companies in the United States.