Rehrig Pacific Designs Roll-out Carts Made from Bulky Rigid PCR for Waste Management
The duo was honored with NWRA’s 2020 Sustainability Partnership Game Changer Award for its sustainability efforts.
Innovative solutions, out-of-the-box thinking, strong partnerships. These are some of the ingredients needed to achieve sustainability goals and to make the concept of a circular economy a reality.
In the waste and recycling industry, these ingredients are often readily available, as companies, municipalities and product manufacturers alike are working toward common goals of reducing waste, increasing recycling and designing products with end of life in mind.
“Ever since we got into the environmental industry, we have focused on sustainability, a circular plastics economy and creating innovative solutions to more effectively move goods, resources and ideas,” says Eric Paulk, national account manager at Rehrig Pacific Company, a leader in pallets, waste and recycling containers and supply chain solutions. “As a standard, we leverage about 30 to 40 percent of PCR [post-consumer resin] in our roll-out carts, and in 2019, we were challenged with incorporating more bulky rigid PCR content in roll-out carts for Waste Management.”
Waste Management, one of the leading waste management, comprehensive waste and environmental services companies in North America, tasked Rehrig Pacific, one of its primary suppliers, to utilize at least 10 percent bulky rigid PCR content in its roll-out carts. Rehrig Pacific accepted the challenge and ended up meeting that goal in just three months.
“By partnering with the team at Waste Management, we were able to expedite testing and approvals to deliver the solution in three months,” says Paulk. “We conducted our own internal testing as well as testing with a third party that certified the quality of the cart and ensured that we met all the standards that a non-bulky rigid cart would meet.”
To design the Envirocore Cart, Rehrig Pacific used its co-injection technology, which allows PCR to be injected into the cart and then wrapped with a colored, customer-branded exterior. With this technology, carts can be made with 20 percent PCR and 10 percent bulky rigid PCR in any color, which allows municipalities and haulers to maintain brand equity, drive the type of visibility and results that they need and create a demand and use for bulky rigid PCR.
The cart currently comes in two sizes—65 gallon and 95 gallon—and has been deployed in Southern California and Pennsylvania markets thus far. More deployments are expected in 2021 and beyond.
This unique and sustainable cart is a result of Waste Management’s strong partnership with Rehrig Pacific, and that partnership has led the duo to be honored with the National Waste & Recycling Association’s 2020 Sustainability Partnership Game Changer Award, which recognizes partnerships that have resulted in a meaningful and quantifiable sustainability outcome or breakthrough.
“Waste Management is committed to working with its customer base and supply chains to mitigate the effects of greenhouse gases to the environment,” says Mike Dowling, senior area supply chain manager at Waste Management. “Waste Management is proud of its partnership with Rehrig Pacific to create a closed loop system by which post-consumer plastics sourced from Waste Management customer recycling streams are used to create new waste cart assets—a process that reduces greenhouse gases and helps Waste management achieve its multiple sustainability objectives. Waste Management is honored to accept, along with Rehrig Pacific, NWRA’s 2020 Sustainability Partnership Game Changer Award and is committed to continuing to improve the environment we all share.”
“This award is a great honor. It has allowed Rehrig Pacific to showcase our sustainable product solutions that deliver tremendous value to our customers and the communities they serve,” says Marc Scott, vice president, environmental sales at Rehrig Pacific.
