Sustainable packaging visionaries

President Jamie Gott and executive vice president Sandy Gott of Feversham, Ontario-based bottled water marketer Ice River Springs talk about their firm’s new bottle-to-bottle PET recycling capabilities—and much, much more.

Pw 2605 Gotts
Packaging World:
How would you describe your approach to sustainable packaging?

Sandy (left) & Jamie Gott:
One thing it’s not is a knee-jerk reaction to a trend. We’ve been working on sustainability since we went into business. With this newest initiative, bottle-to-bottle recycling, it’s not just recycling. It’s how we recycle. We’re not trucking in100% RPET from California, where we’d be burning so much diesel we’d be creating as much carbon as we’re pulling out by using recycled content. Our trucks are within 15-20 minutes of the MRFs (Municipal Recovery Facilities) every time they deliver product. So they drop off a delivery, drive 15 minutes for a load of baled PET, and bring it to our facilities to be turned into a preform and then a bottle. It’s a closed loop. Our resin has 1⁄17th the carbon footprint of virgin resin. Also worth pointing out is that we’re not only recapturing our own bottles from the waste stream. We’re taking carbonated soft drink bottles, ketchup bottles, relish bottles, and so on. With this operation in full swing, we’ll take some of the peaks and valleys out of the supply situation where the MRFs are concerned. They can be more confident that we are a constant market for what they are collecting and baling.

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