• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Advertise
  • About Craft Brewing Business

Craft Brewing Business

Professional Insight, Unfiltered

Craft Brewing Business Craft Brewing Business
  • News
  • Business & Marketing
  • Packaging & Distribution
  • Equipment & Systems
  • Ingredients & Supplies
  • Webinars & White Papers
  • News
  • Business & Marketing
  • Ingredients & Supplies
  • Packaging & Distribution
  • Equipment
  • Webinars & White Papers
  • COVID-19

Plastic can carrier recycling co-op debuts in Chicago

May 18, 2022Chris Crowell

plastic can carriers

Dozens of Chicago-area craft breweries are teaming up to help eliminate the plastic waste issue caused by millions of beer can carriers. Modeled on recent efforts in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont, where hundreds of thousands of can carriers have been rescued and reused, the Chicagoland Can Carrier Reuse and Recycling Co-op has the potential to prevent millions of the rigid plastic carriers from a wasteful single-use destiny.

The Co-op will awareness in the craft beer community that the plastic carriers holding many of their favorite beverages often end up in landfill – even when they’re tossed in the recycling bin. As a result, participating breweries are encouraging consumers to bring them back to be reused or properly recycled.

“People think they’re doing the right thing when they drop them in their single-stream recycling bins, but because recycling centers have difficulty processing them, they might be doing more harm than good,” says Alex Parker, founder of Craft for Climate, a Chicago-based organization that’s coordinating the co-op effort. “We want breweries and consumers to know that there’s a better way.”

The Reusiverse, a successful reduce-reuse-recycle model, will soon debut in and around Chicago.

Despite being marketed as “100% recyclable” by manufacturers, most plastic can carriers end up in the waste stream after just one use. It’s an unfortunate reality that has frustrated the environmentally conscious craft brewing industry for some time, mostly because pitching them into curbside recycling bins is actually part of the problem. In the Chicago area alone, it’s estimated that more than 10 million can carriers are in circulation annually. Less than 10% of them end up getting reused or recycled.*

Like almost all plastic packaging, snap-on can carriers (sometimes called holders, handles or toppers) are incompatible with sorting equipment. As a result, they get rejected at material recovery facilities (MRFs) and sent to landfill, which has negative impacts on the environment.

So far, more than two dozen breweries and bottle shops in the Chicago area have joined the co-op, including Half Acre Beer, Temperance Brewing, Art History, Midwest Coast, Une Anne/Hubbard’s Cave, and Orange and Brew, pledging to collect and reuse the durable packaging. Participating locations are listed on an interactive map.

Half Acre (Chicago), Temperance (Evanston), Heartland Beverage (St. Charles) and recycling education organization SCARCE (Addison) will serve as collection hubs, where participating businesses can bring excess, damaged or otherwise unusable discards to be properly recycled. Additionally, distributor Heartland Beverage has agreed to provide logistical support by picking up and delivering collected carriers to destinations along their existing distribution routes. Craft for Climate has also partnered with the Resource Center, a recycling pioneer in the city of Chicago for more than 45 years, to sidestep the troublesome single-stream sorting difficulty.

“What’s clear from discussions with breweries and other retailers is that businesses want a sustainable solution when it comes to packaging their products. Reusing can carriers over and over, which also saves businesses money, is one of the best ways to accomplish that,” says EcoFriendlyBeer.com founder Rob Vandenabeele. “The final piece of the puzzle is keeping them out of the waste stream at the end of their useful life through a separate-stream collection service.”

The co-op, which launches in conjunction with Illinois Craft Beer Week, is the result of months of planning and collaboration between Parker, sustainable candle entrepreneur Adam Dickens, and Vandenabeele, who has successfully organized similar efforts in New England.

Given the proliferation of plastic production, the importance of establishing successful reuse schemes to combat its negative environmental impacts has never been greater. The Chicagoland effort hopes to reduce the need for new carriers by allowing the ones already in circulation to be used over and over again. It’s difficult to calculate precisely, but creating a market for reusing them prevents unnecessary energy use to manufacture new ones, decreases greenhouse gas emissions associated with additional deliveries, and spares wildlife harm from entanglement or microplastic ingestion that can occur when plastic packaging isn’t properly disposed of.

“We think this program can really make a difference, and we think it’s replicable across Illinois and other places,” Parker says. “If you’re a brewery or bottle shop that wants to get involved than go ahead and start collecting carriers. It’s the first step toward addressing the problem.”

plastic can carriers
GreenLabs debuts plastic can carrier mail-in recycling program
INX-EcoCan
INX earns high designation for its eco-friendly beverage can inking system
Starlight-kegs-ready-for-delivery
Are you a steel keg champion? The Steel Keg Association wants to honor you
isuzu-electric-truck
Isuzu debuts all-electric commercial truck, great for hauling beer

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Bevana says

    May 22, 2022 at 9:51 pm

    The industry can always use more cool ideas like this that help us all to be just a bit better

    Log in to Reply
  2. Craft for Climate says

    May 18, 2022 at 11:59 am

    https://t.co/VPyewK0XfK

    Log in to Reply
  3. Mass. Brew Bros. says

    May 18, 2022 at 10:08 am

    Great to see this program catching on in other parts of the country.

    Log in to Reply
  4. Ecofriendly Beer Drinker says

    May 18, 2022 at 10:06 am

    Excited to launch this effort in #Chicago with Craft for Climate and Dickens Candles, as well as collection hub partners Temperance Beer Co., Heartland Beverage, Half Acre Beer Company, and SCARCE.
    .

    Log in to Reply
  5. Mass. Brew Bros. says

    May 18, 2022 at 9:19 am

    Great to see this program catching on in other parts of the country.

    Log in to Reply
  6. Ecofriendly Beer Drinker says

    May 18, 2022 at 9:13 am

    Excited to launch this effort in #Chicago with @Craft4Climate and Dickens Candles, as well as coll… https://t.co/Z9IYupUYpF

    Log in to Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Primary Sidebar

Latest News

  • State of California Craft Beer: Covid recovery challenged by competition, consolidation
  • MicroStar Logistics launches Network Services Division to manage reusable plastic pallets for the beer Industry
  • Analyst speculates on Heineken acquiring Boston Beer, stock jumps
  • United States Bartenders’ Guild now has access to WOTVS Hospitality Assistance Program

Sign up for our newsletter

unsubscribe from list

Most Popular Today

Recent Features

  • CCBA California Craft Beer SummitState of California Craft Beer: Covid recovery challenged by competition, consolidation
    March 23, 2023
  • Koga-brothers-karben4Karben4 Brewing to relaunch Ale Asylum brand
    March 20, 2023
  • 4 steps to understanding the filtration process in craft beer
    March 20, 2023
  • newbelgium_2023_wildnectar-shopping-basket_family_IMG_2Beyond beer: Examples of craft breweries exploring canned cocktails
    March 16, 2023
  • brooklyn 35 featureBrooklyn Lager turns 35 and more beers to know this week
    March 14, 2023
  • Backwoods Brewing to open a 19-acre resort called Party Acres in the Columbia River gorge this May
    March 13, 2023

Footer

  • Email Newsletter Sign Up
  • About Craft Brewing Business
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise on Craft Brewing Business
  • Media Kit Download
  • Privacy and Terms

© 2023 · CBB Media LLC