FPA President Marla Donahue and Ram Singhal, VP of Technology and Environmental Strategy recently toured the Milpitas, California Republic Services Material Recovery Facility to see the progress of the “Energy Bag” pilot program.  FPA and representatives from pilot co-sponsor, The Dow Chemical Company toured the facility which sorts the purple “energy bags.” 

The three-month “Energy Bag” Program, which is co-sponsored by The City of Citrus Heights and Republic Services in addition to FPA and Dow, has been designed to collect in the single stream recycling program, flexible packaging waste and other plastics not currently recycled.  The pilot is expected to show that resource recovery of flexible packaging is a viable end-of-packaging-life option with many positive long-term environmental and economic results, including reducing landfill, and creating energy resources.

At the conclusion of the Energy Bag pilot, FPA will produce a documentary video and “best practices” report.  These tools will be used to assist other communities and waste management companies that may be interested in implementing similar programs.

For more information about the Energy Bag initiative and to learn more about FPA resource recovery research, please visit www.flexpack.org and go to Sustainable Packaging.