Community Partnership | Detroit, MI
Foodservice Packaging Materials Accepted
Paper cups*Cartons*
Paper bags
Pizza boxes
Molded fiber carriers/takeout containers
Molded fiber egg cartons
Aluminum foil containers/pans/trays
Rigid plastic cups
Rigid plastic clamshells/containers
*New items added during partnership
Background
The City of Detroit offers free curbside recycling services to all single-family homes and small multi-housing buildings. Recyclables are collected through the efforts of haulers such as Advanced Disposal and Green for Life Environmental (GFL). Subsequently, these materials are directed to either GFL's Material Recovery Facility (MRF) or the Resource Recovery and Recycling Authority of Southwest Oakland County's (RRRASOC) MRF.
As of 2021, the participation rate in Detroit's recycling program stood at 38.8% among its 270,000 households. In addition, Detroit and RRRASOC have consistently maintained notable recycling rates throughout their history. In 2020, their impressive recycling rate of 36.3% outperformed both the US average (32%) and the Michigan average (18%).
Operational and End Market Planning
Given their strong track record of sustainability, RRRASOC, GFL, and the City of Detroit were ideal candidates to expand their acceptable items list and introduce paper cups and cartons into a community that already excelled in recycling.
One of the key components of the FPI Community Partnership program is to foster collaboration across the entire recycling ecosystem, ensuring the active engagement of all stakeholders. That meant working alongside several local mills to showcase that paper cups and cartons could indeed be included within existing bales, as attested by earlier successes in FPI community partnerships.
Operational changes at the MRFs were needed as well. While several of GFL's largest and most advanced MRFs had the capacity to process up to 95 tons of recyclables per hour and effectively separate paper cups and cartons from the recycling stream, its New Boston MRF in Michigan did not have the technology needed to sort and process these items. With an equipment grant jointly awarded by FPI and the Carton Council, GFL was able to purchase technology that could handle this new commodity.
Once the end markets and operational changes were in place, both MRFs began accepting paper cups and cartons and including them in their mixed paper and carton bales, respectively. This high-quality fiber material is sent to paper mills, mostly within the Great Lakes Region, and processed into new recycled-content products.
Outreach & Education
In 2021, the City of Detroit, RRRASOC, and GFL rolled out a joint targeted educational campaign to notify residents and customers of the changes. FPI’s communications grant supported an outreach campaign and the development of educational pieces including updated recycling flyers; a joint campaign launch video; a RRRASOC postcard mailer; wrap ads placed on RRRASOC hauler trucks; social media outreach; a best practice recycling video for Detroit; updates to their recycling websites and Waste Wizard tools; and outdoor signage including an event banner.
The campaign kicked off at a recycling promotion and education event at GFL’s New Boston, Michigan MRF to celebrate the addition of paper cups and cartons to the recycling collection. The event consisted of a press conference with GFL representatives Paul Roberts and Joe Munem; Ashley Elzinga, FPI; and Jordan Fengel, Carton Council of North America.
Results
The custom-created materials and graphics were distributed among the community and through social media platforms. In 2022, Detroit updated branding for its Detroit Recycles campaign and recirculated revised graphics to its residents. Their social media ads reached almost 237,000 unique users, generated almost 260,000 impressions, and had high engagement (96 post comments, 563 reactions, and 185 shares). The recycling best practices video received almost 39,000 plays on YouTube and generated over 70,000 impressions.
Post-campaign MRF audit results are pending and will be updated when complete.
Next Steps
The City of Detroit continues striving towards their recycling and waste reduction goals, working to enhance its recycling infrastructure and community education. In 2022, the City’s Green Taskforce outlined sustainability goals which included: diverting more building materials from landfills through a closed-loop system and sustainability checklist for new developments; requiring new developments to plan for double or triple waste streams to make waste diversion simple for tenants; and continuing to fulfill the 2021 Event Waste Reduction Resolution requirements.
November 2022
