Company switching to corn-based plastics
By Harold Brubaker, PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

The …retail giant, which is also the nation’s largest grocery seller, is beginning to switch from petroleum-based to corn-based plastic packaging.

The first substitution, starting Nov. 1, involves 114 million clear-plastic clamshell containers used annually by the retailer for cut fruit, herbs, strawberries and brussels sprouts, Wal-Mart executive Matt Kistler said Wednesday at a conference in Philadelphia.

“With this change to packaging made from corn, we will save the equivalent of 800,000 gallons of gasoline and reduce more than 11 million pounds of greenhouse gas emissions,” said Kistler, vice president for product development and private brands for the company’s Sam’s Club division.

The adoption of environmentally friendly packaging at Wal-Mart Stores …Inc. is a win for NatureWorks LLC, a Minnesota-based division of agricultural commodity giant Cargill …Inc.

It comes as oil — the source for most plastic — is seeing prices rise and thus ratcheting up the cost of plastic materials.

Kistler did not say whether the new plastic costs more or less than the materials it replaces, but said Wal-Mart expects the price will be less volatile.

Snehal Desai, global commercial director for NatureWorks, said the company’s plastic — known as PLA, or polylactic acid — is competitively priced with petroleum-based plastic, which is used for soda and water bottles.

PLA plastic can be composted in carefully regulated municipal operations. It also is recyclable.

Containers and packaging accounted for 32 percent of municipal solid wastes by weight in 2003, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The company will feature the packaging in its 3,779 Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club and Neighborhood Market stores in the United States.

Kistler said the corn-based plastic also will be used to make calling cards and gift cards sold at Wal-Mart for the holidays.

In addition, it will be used for the windows in cake and doughnut boxes.

The conference focused on “sustainability,” a term that refers not just to a material’s ability to be recycled, but also how valuable it remains when it is reused. In plastics, for instance, the goal is to avoid the downward spiral into less valuable products such as park benches.

“Just because a material or package is recyclable doesn’t necessarily mean it is sustainable,” said David Luttenberger, director of Packaging Strategies Inc., of West Chester, Pa., which produced the conference.

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