TLMI to conduct waste survey

At its annual meeting in early October, TLMI chairman Craig Moreland, of Coast Label Company, informed members that the organization will be launching a liner waste and recycling survey later this month. The brief survey will ask members to submit figures on how much liner and matrix waste they produce each year.

‘This could be tough because everyone measures waste - or doesn’t measure waste - in different ways,’ Moreland said. ‘It might take a little work, but it will be worth the effort.’

Later during TLMI’s environmental committee meeting, co-chairs Philip Coates of UPM Raflatac and John Crosby of Grand Rapids Label, said TLMI needs to get a baseline figure for how much waste is generated in order to reduce matrix by 30 percent, which is outlined in TLMI’s strategic plan.

‘The industry has a problem, and the industry has to come up with a solution, and that’s what TLMI will do,’ Coates said.

At the committee meeting, Heather Valentino, Avery Dennison’s North America sustainability manager reported findings from a similar study Avery Dennison commissioned with AWA Alexander Watson Associates. Their survey found that the industry produces 325,000 tons of release liner waste, and 52,000 tons of matrix waste, the majority of both are going to landfills, Valentino reported. AWA interviewed 34 companies in US and Mexico who agreed to take part in the survey, and extrapolated data from those interviews.

However, some environmental committee members thought their findings were too low. TLMI hopes to get a bigger response to its survey, and has set a lofty goal, aiming for about 300 survey respondents.

TLMI will send the survey in October, and responses will be due back by early November and a report will be prepared by early December. Industry Insights is conducting the survey on behalf of TLMI. The association provide assistance to companies looking for help calculating their waste.