Las Vegas, NV –The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, Inc. (ISRI) today presented Cascades Fine Papers Group with their annual Design for Recycling® Award.
In order to be considered for the Design for Recycling® Award, candidates must demonstrate progress towards ensuring that the products they build and create can be recycled safely and economically, using existing recycling technologies and methods; eliminating or significantly reducing materials that may impede recycling, including hazardous or toxic materials; increasing the yield of a product’s recyclable materials; and the increased use of recycled materials in manufacturing.
Cascades earned the recognition by developing and implementing a 100% Recycled and Recyclable Ream Wrapper for its fine paper that eliminates plastic contaminants, reduces waste, and turns waste that would have ended up in a landfill into a recyclable commodity.
ISRI is the force behind Design for Recycling®, a voluntary program that urges manufacturers to make products that can be recycled from the start. Such design benefits not only the environment, but the economy as well as shareholders and consumers recognize the benefits of designing a product that will have several lives.
“Most companies and design engineers are rightly concerned with things like consumer needs, production costs, energy efficiency, and safety,” said ISRI President Robin Wiener. “But rarely do you find companies that put emphasis on what happens to their products when they have reached the end of their useful life. It is evident that Cascades is one such company that is concerned with overall life cycle of their products and producer product responsibility.”
Cascades is always thinking of ways to reduce a product’s footprint. As stated by Julie Loyer, Communication and Sustainable Development Advisor at Cascades Specialty Products Group, “Having to discard the wrapper because it contaminated the paper recycling process was an issue for us. We created a multi-disciplinary team to find a solution and we created a packaging that is as environmentally friendly as the paper it wraps. We are proud of the result, and also being recognized for such by the Design for Recycling Award.”
ISRI created the concept of Design for Recycling® to encourage more companies like Cascades to help protect the environment and create a sustainable means for conserving natural resources. Design for Recycling® seeks to achieve two very basic goals: first, to eliminate or reduce the use of hazardous or toxic materials that may present a grave danger to the environment or put a recycler’s workforce in jeopardy, and second, to discourage the use of materials that are not recyclable or manufacturing techniques that make a product non-recyclable using current technologies.
Past winner have included Wind Simplicity, Coca-Cola Recycling Company, The Herman Miller Company, the U.S. environmental Protection Agency, and Hewlett Packard.
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