Recycled vs Recyclable – What’s the Difference
Recycled vs Recyclable – What’s the Difference
There is a continuing trend in the business world to tout environmental friendliness or how “green” your product or company is. The pallet industry is no different, and there certainly is no shortage of claims being made by wood pallet competitors. That is a major reason why NWPCA partnered with the USDA Forest Products Lab and why the Pallet Foundation supported the funding for the Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) for a wood pallet – to put substance behind environmental claims with certifiable, third-party verified calculations of environmental impacts. The development of communication tools like the EPD are a hopeful step in the right direction, however there are other environmental claims being made which may cause confusion in the marketplace.
One popular claim is to identify a product as 100% recyclable. This is a useful marketing device because it associates full circularity with recycling, and because recycling is so ubiquitous in our minds, we immediately disregard what that term actually means. When it comes down to it, most things are capable of being 100% recyclable. The real question is, how much is truly recycled? To answer that question a few industry conditions require exploration:
- Is there an infrastructure in place to collect the thing after use?
- How difficult is it to turn it into something useable?
- Is it economically sustainable to continue recycling (is there a market)?
If all three of these questions are not easily answered, then the likelihood of the thing being recycled is less, unless an outside force like the government intervenes to subsidize the effort.
A good example of this is the recycling of plastic water bottles. In general, plastic water bottles are recognized as highly recyclable, but the EPA estimates that only 29% of plastic bottles are recycled . How could this be?
There is a high level of familiarity with the practice of recycling, whether at home or in public. Society continues to trend in a favorable direction when it comes to the recycling of plastic bottles, with environmental consciousness becoming more mainstream, but there are still many municipalities that do not offer curbside recycling and there isn’t a recycling bin next to every trash can you see. The use of plastics as a combustible fuel for energy production is another option for using recycled plastic, but with limited benefits (there is no fossil fuel offset), the practice is not widespread.
The process of re-melting and molding a new plastic bottle from recycled plastic is relatively straightforward, but it is highly susceptible to contaminations, whether they be foreign substances or other plastics. Once the plastic bottles are collected, they must be separated from other plastics and thoroughly washed, adding equipment and time that ultimately increase costs.
Finally, the market for recycled plastic bottles has grown over time but is still much smaller in comparison to the virgin market. Estimates show the recycled market in the US is a small fraction compared to the virgin market. The recycled market is estimated in the $10s of millions , while the virgin market is approximately $12 billion . It is difficult to get recycled resins to perform as consistently as virgin ones, so they are often mixed at a much lower percentage (5-10%) to mitigate quality control issues. Instead, recycled resins are processed into certain applications that require lower performance, such as textiles.
All these sub-optimal industry conditions lead to this object that is 100% recyclable not being recycled to near its potential.
On the other hand, it has been estimated that approximately 95% of wood pallets are recycled. A deeper analysis of the wood pallet industry gives a clear picture as to why wood pallets are recycled at a much higher rate.
Over the past several decades, a vast recycling network has emerged in the United States. It has grown naturally around areas of distribution hubs where many pallets are needed to keep the supply chain moving. Independent companies work with pallet users to collect used pallets to be repaired, remanufactured, or recycled. The pallet rental model also exists, which obligates pallet users to return a pallet after it has been used. The pallet rental pools have developed their own networks that supplement the independent network.
There are several opportunities to utilize used pallets. Many undamaged pallets are simply reused “as is” or easily repaired so that their performance can match the transportation requirements of many pallet users. Wood pallets are mostly made from metal (steel) fasteners and solid wood that is free of other substances. An unusable pallet can be easily disassembled for salvaged components, or simply mechanically separated from the metal fasteners during grinding to make wood fiber for mulch, biomass, or animal bedding.
The most recent industry market survey revealed that in 2016, 326 million recycled pallets were produced versus 513 million new pallets, so that almost 40% of the wood pallets constructed were recycled pallets . Because recycled pallets can generally be produced less expensively compared to new pallets, they have become a valuable part of the overall pallet industry. Furthermore, as a renewable material that is non-fossil fuel based, ground wood fiber from solid wood pallets has inherent value to downstream users. Carbon offsets exist for biomass users, and mulch and animal bedding users can rest easy knowing that it will biodegrade with no negative impacts to the environment.
Context always matters, and in the case of recycling it is vital to understand the difference between what is recyclable and what is recycled. By knowing the difference between these two ideas, a pallet provider can help eliminate confusion as to why wood pallets are an environmentally superior product.
1. EPA. (2021, May 26). Plastics: Material-Specific Data. Retrieved from: https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/plastics-material-specific-data
2. Grand View Research. (2021, May). Report: Recycled Polyethylene Terephthalate Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report. Retrieved from https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/recycled-polyethylene-terephthalate-pet-market
3. Ibis World. (2021, July 29). Plastic Bottle Manufacturing Industry in the US – Market Research Report. Retrieved from: https://www.ibisworld.com/united-states/market-research-reports/plastic-bottle-manufacturing-industry/
4. Estimated combined municipal solid waste (MSW) and construction and demolition landfills. Data on MSW from: Shiner, Z., Horvath, L., Araman, P., and Gething, B. 2021. “An Investigation of Wood Pallets Landfilled and Recovered at US Municipal Solid Waste Facilities.” Bioresources 16 (1).
5. Gerber, Nathan, Laszlo Horvath, Phil Araman, and Brad Gething. 2020. “Investigation of New and Recovered Wood Shipping Platforms in the United States.” Bioresources 15 (2). Gerber, Nathan, Laszlo Horvath, Phil Araman, and Brad Gething. 2020. “Investigation of New and Recovered Wood Shipping Platforms in the United States.” Bioresources 15 (2).
Brad Gething, PhD, NWPCA Vice President of Science & Technology, is the staff lead on many research projects including landfill avoidance, pallet market surveys, the environmental product declaration and life cycle assessment. He may be reached by email or phone: 703.519.6104.
