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When purchasing trash liners, industry experts recommend that facility cleaning managers choose products with a high percentage of post-consumer recycled content (PCRC).聽
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鈥淚n the old days, we were thrilled if we could find a liner with 10 percent PCRC,鈥� says Ashkin. 鈥淭oday, we can find bags that have 75 percent PCRC, if not more.鈥滵espite the higher content of recycled material available in today鈥檚 trash liners, many green standards and guidelines advocate the minimum percentage. Green Seal鈥檚 GS-42 standard for commercial and institutional cleaning services supports the use of plastic trash can liners with a minimum of 10 percent PCRC, or a thickness of less than 0.7 mils. Similarly, the聽聽requires a minimum of 10 percent PCRC.聽In the state of California,聽聽require plastic trash bags intended for sale in the state to contain at least 10 percent PCRC. Manufacturers must also meet the annual aggregate use requirement that 30 percent of material in all plastic products should be post consumer material.According to Ashkin, this is not enough.聽鈥淎ll bags should have recycled content in them,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he good news is, some manufacturers have figured out how to improve their technology to be able to make the same thin bags using a higher percentage of PCRC.鈥澛營n addition to calling on manufacturers to improve their processes, Ashkin puts the onus on end users to purchase liners from a supplier that offers bags with a higher percentage of recycled content.聽鈥淒on鈥檛 let companies with poor technology drive the decision,鈥� he urges. 鈥淲e need to be leaders, and we need to do more.鈥澛燗lthough liners with a high percentage of PCRC are preferable when implementing green cleaning practices, some distributors offer a viable alternative in the form of liners that use pre-consumer recycled content, also known as post-industrial recycled content.Philip Rosenau Co. offers trash liners certified by UL Environment that contain reclaimed irrigation tubes. The amount of recycled content in these liners, which are the company鈥檚 main sustainable liner offering, fluctuates between 30 percent and 94 percent, depending on the availability of reclaimed tubing, says McGarvey.聽鈥淭he manufacturer makes irrigation tubes for farms, and by law they cannot burn or bury them, so they use them to make trash liners,鈥� he explains. 鈥淲hat we end up with is a thinner liner that is stronger than a lot of liners on the market using virgin material.鈥漇olutex Inc., in Sterling, Virginia, sells linear low density trash bags that contain anywhere from 65 percent to 75 percent pre-consumer recycled content. According to Charles Moody, president, the manufacturer makes these trash bags using shavings from the production of other plastic bags.聽鈥淚t鈥檚 not to the greenness of using plastic that was destined for the landfill,鈥� he admits, 鈥渂ut it鈥檚 still a better option than using 100 percent virgin plastic.鈥漌hile most high-density bags, such as desk-side trash liners and grocery bags, do not contain recycled content, manufacturers are beginning to respond to end-user demand for greener options. Moody鈥檚 high-density trash bag supplier recently informed him that the company plans to produce bags with 10 percent PCRC, and feedback from customers has been positive. - See more at:
