Blog PostsRecycling Scholle Packaging’s 55- to 300-Gallon Bags
Is your company currently using Scholle Packaging’s 55- or 300-gallon bags? If so, Scholle Packaging would like to inform you of a recycling opportunity.
Recycle Technologies International (RTI) is interested in recycling 55 gallon to 300 gallon bags post-use, produced by Scholle Packaging. RTI is a composite railroad tie technology corporation. They exclusively manufacture and sell PermaTie™ plastic composite railroad ties. PermaTie™ composite railroad ties are made from 100% recycled plastic.
RTI would like to secure a constant stream of post-use plastic and can recycle 50,000 – 70,000 lbs daily. There is a rather large demand for plastic railroad ties as every year, 20 million wooden ties need to be replaced in North America alone. (For more information on how RTI’s PermaTie™ technology is helping the environment, please read RTI’s research report below our blog entry.)
RTI can supply you with a Certificate of Destruction and a Certificate of Manufacture if you choose to recycle your company’s post-use bags. These certificates provide evidence that the plastic bags are not only being recycled but that the recycled plastic is the main component in the manufacture of composite plastic railroad ties.
If you are using bags manufactured by Scholle Packaging that are smaller than 55-gallon, please note that your bags can be recycled where number 7 plastics are accepted. Learn more at earth911.com.
Please contact Rex Crick at RTI if your company is interested in recycling post-use 55 gallon to 300 gallon bags. To learn more about RTI, PermaTie™ railroad ties and their environmental benefits, please visit http://www.permaties.com/
Rex Crick, Ph.D.
Chief Executive Officer
Recycle Technologies International, Inc.
email: rcrick@rti-railroad-tie.com
Carbon Credits: The Environmental Benefit of Composite Crossties
Compiled by Rex E. Crick, Ph.D. (Recycle Technologies International) from sources listed within. An average of 20 million wooden crossties are replaced in North America each year. Each standard tie is roughly 7 x 9 x 102 in (17.8 x 22.9 x 259 cm) and weighs approximately 220 lb (100 kg). To understand the real magnitude of the number of ties replaced each year, consider that 20 million standard railroad ties placed end-to-end would span a distance of nearly 32,200 miles (51,800 kilometers); a distance equivalent to 1¼ times Earth’s equatorial circumference.
The number of wooden ties used globally each year is roughly 4 times that of North America or about 80 million ties. Considering that each tie is pressure-treated with a minimum of 20 gallons of creosote or other chemicals (necessary to provide resistance against biological and chemical attack), such a quantity of ties also represents millions of gallons of potentially hazardous chemicals being introduced into the environment. New York State and the European Economic Union have banned the use of creosote from all uses except a few industrial applications such as railroad ties. Proposed EEU legislation, if enacted, will extend the ban to railroad ties and preliminary committee discussions in several US state legislatures would do the same.
The use of engineered composite plastic ties as replacements for chemically treated wood ties will divert significant amounts of recycled plastics from landfills, and prevent millions of trees from being cut down. To satisfy the demand for ties in North America, the Earth loses between 5 million and 7 million trees each year (one tree produces 3 to 4 wooden ties). Globally the loss is greater than 20 million trees each year; a growing percentage of this loss is attributable to slow growing hardwood varieties found in Africa, Myanmar (Burma), Malaysia, Indonesia, and South America. Avoiding the use of wooden ties also removes the possibility that the environment could be damaged by exposure to many millions of gallons of chemical treatments. The use of recycled plastic crossties provides a further environmental benefit by reducing the buildup of greenhouse gases and the related problem of global warming potential that may be underway. This is a fact that can be documented by comparing the production of composite plastic crossties with the production of wooden crossties.
It is possible to quantify the environmental effect of using recycled plastic railroad crossties as a substitute for traditional wooden crossties. The information pertaining to wooden crossties and plastic crossties given in Table 1 is based on referenced numbers from the US EPA report, Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Management of Selected Materials in Municipal Solid Waste and summarized in the joint EPA and US Army Engineer Memorandum for Record, An Estimate of the Effect on Greenhouse Gases by Using Recycled Plastic as a Substitute for Treated Wood Railroad Crossties. The information listed for the steps leading to the production of the preservative Creosote comes from the World Bank Group Environmental, Health, and Safety Guidelines, Coke Manufacturing. The information listed for calculations concerning the tie treatment process comes from the Canadian EPA Priority Substances List Assessment Report Creosote-impregnated Waste Materials. All calculations are to be considered as conservative estimates because each of the mentioned sources caution that specific information was difficult to constrain.
The units pertinent to these comparisons are the Metric Ton Carbon Equivalent (of gas) per short ton (2000 lb/909 kg) of (solid) material utilized, or MTCE/ton. In Table 1, the MTCE/ton “cost” of producing and using a recycled plastic railroad tie is compared with the MTCE/ton “cost” of producing and using a wooden tie.
The difference between the total MTCE/ton for producing a wooden tie and the total MTCE/ton for producing a plastic tie (0.99 MTCE/ton) represents the amount of carbon that would NOT be released to the environment by using one ton of plastic ties (9 ties) in place of one ton of wooden ties. This credit is static if the plastic tie lasts only as long as a wooden tie. If the plastic tie outlasts the wooden tie, which it will in most cases, the benefit to the environment will be greater. Thus a composite tie lasting 50 years with a manufacturing cost of 0.28 MTCE/ton would provide 5 times the carbon credits as a wood tie lasting 10 (6.35 MTCE/ton of creosote treated wood ties – 0.28 MTCE/ton of composite ties = 6.07 MTCE/ton)
Considering that most estimates place the longevity of a plastic tie at a minimum of 50 years, Table 2 shows MTCE/ton credits gained by using a plastic tie in place of a wooden tie lasting from 50 to 3 years. The longer a wooden tie remains in service the less the MTCE/ton differential between plastic and wooden ties.
The replacement of 20 million ties in North America in 2008 is the equivalent of 2 million tons of wood at the cost to the environment of 2,540,000 MTCE/tons. Published and internet sources confirm that at least 81 million wooden ties will be replaced globally in 2008. This replacement is equivalent to assaulting the environment with 10,287,000 MTCE/tons of carbon.
