Shrink wrap is a prevalent material used across many industries. You’ll find in your grocery stores, and wrapping entire pallets full of shipments. Unfortunately, most of this stretchy, filmy, sticky plastic that can be somewhat of a nuisance ends up going straight into the trash – 95% of it to be precise. That’s a lot of plastic going to our landfills, and in certain industries it gets to be a voluminous waste stream accounting for tens of cubic yards a week, meaning multiple dumpsters full of the stuff. Without making a concerted effort to separate shrink wrap out from the rest of your waste, it’s a loss as opposed to something that could be an added revenue stream for your business.
3 Things About Shrink Wrap
- It’s Recyclable
It doesn’t occur to many people that shrink wrap is actually recyclable since it doesn’t have the token recycle tag on it that has trained us to know what goes in the blue bin. The fact is that there are many businesses that will gladly buy your shrink wrap and recycle it. Any amount of shrink wrap is worth recycling if just to make more space in your waste cans, and reduce your hauling costs even by a little. If you want to learn more about how you might actually save money by recycling your shrink wrap here are some measurements that will make it easier:1 gaylord = 40 cubic feet = 1.5 cubic yards
40 gaylords = 1600 cubic feet = 60 cubic yards
60 cubic yards = 6 ten-yard dumpsters
Perform an audit to figure out what your weekly totals of shrink wrap waste are and then subtract that from your hauling bill and you will determine how much you could be saving by recycling it as opposed to sending to the landfill.
- Keep it Clean and Separate
In order to recycle shrink wrap, you need to keep it separate from the rest of your waste. Since most shrink wrap waste is created in unpacking, be sure that those employees have separate bins for it. Most recycling firms want shrink wrap to be both clean and have all the labels removed in order for them to buy it back from you. Once removed from packaging the shrink wrap should be immediately placed in a waste bin to reduce the chance of its picking up dust, which will happen quickly as it is a sticky plastic. - You Don’t Need a New Baler for Shrink Wrap
If you already use a baler for something like cardboard and have enough shrink wrap waste to bale, the good news is that you don’t need to buy a new baler to start recycling this as well. If you generate between 2,000 and 4,000 pounds per month a 42-yard compactor will do the job you need to be done. It will take about 20 gaylords of shrink wrap to fill it up the compactor to make one bale.
If you are creating tons of shrink wrap waste a month it is definitely worth contacting a company like KenBay to learn more about what kind of baler you need to start recycling your shrink wrap. We can also help you get connected with the right people who will gladly recycle this waste product for you.
