Letters to the Editor
On “Kicking the Can”
Good afternoon.We are a subscriber to Coffee Talk Magazine and we have noticed the “kicking” around of steel cans in favor of polybags. I’m writing, not because we are a can manufacturer in the United States who provides tinplated steel packaging to the coffee industry, but because you may be misleading a very environmentally conscious group of consumers to believe that bags are their best packaging choice. Showing smashed and soiled cans on your cover was a slap at our industry and our material.
Steel is the most recycled product in the US and has an infinite life cycle. Steel can be made into another item after recycling without loss of quality and uses less energy than making new. Separation from other waste materials by magnet makes the recycling process highly efficient and lower in cost. There is no better package for shelf appeal and for preservation of freshness.
The foils, plastic valves, and liners of coffee bags make them less recyclable or not recyclable. The paper/poly blend excludes coffee bags from being considered part of paper recycling. Cans can be reused. Bags are not. A number of plastic containers cannot be recycled into secondary products. Even among those that can be (#1 and #2), once the secondary products are used the plastic cannot recycled again. A good resource for support of the steel can facts that I have stated is this website http://steelrecyclingfacts.com/. As a coffee magazine, I’m not sure what is gained by showing a bias toward a particular packaging choice. It is not the same as the full page ads claiming that steel can is not a good contemporary choice. All is fair in marketing.
Donna Sichette
Marketing Specialist
Independent Can Company
1300 Brass Mill Road
Belcamp, MD 21017
POSTED BY:
Ryan D. Huether
Vice President of Business Development
Independent Can Company
http://www.westernspecialty.com
6/4/12
Link to original post: http://www.coffeetalk.com/june12-letters-to-the-editor/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=june12-letters-to-the-editor
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