Hefty diverts 1M pounds of hard-to-recycle plastics from landfills

Reynolds Consumer Products, Lake Forest, Illinois, has announced that the Hefty EnergyBag program has diverted over one million pounds of hard-to-recycle plastics from landfills. The program is designed to give consumers in participating markets the ability to collect these hard-to-recycle items and see them converted into what Reynolds calls valuable resources.

“We are really proud of surpassing our ambitious goal of diverting one million pounds in jut three years,” says Lindsey Walter, director of the Hefty EnergyBag program. “We are grateful to the many people and communities out there who have embraced this program as something we can all do together to make our world a little better.”

In partnership with Dow, Midland, Michigan, and other community collaborators, the program was set up to complement existing recycling programs, allowing unfavorable plastics to be picked up at curbside.

Participants can place the plastics in the Hefty orange bag, tie the bag when full and place it in their curbside recycling cart or bin. Once collected, the plastics are converted into resources, including fuel and new plastic products like park benches, composite decking and concrete blocks. The bright orange bags used for collection make it easy for recycling facilities to separate and forward the materials they cannot process, says the company.

“We are grateful for Hefty’s partnership and their ability to help galvanize people so that we all can do our part to help minimize hard-to-recycle waste by converting it into valuable resources,” says Julie Zaniewski, Dow’s North America sustainability director for packaging and special plastics. “We are encouraged by people’s desire to be a part of the program and the impressive growth it has seen thus far."