Fresh & Easy Diverts 400K Pounds of Plastic from Landfill
by Lori Brown
Published on March 6th, 2009
1 Comment
Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, a British-owned grocery chain with locations in California, Arizona and Nevada, has announced the use of a new recycling technology to divert plastic trays from the landfill. Through the use of an ultra-violet light sanitizing machine, more than two million trays, representing more than 400,000 pounds of plastic, have been reused rather than discarded.
Trays pass through machines like these to be reused again in Fresh & Easy Stores. Photo: Goodcleantech.com
The UV light technology, custom built for Fresh & Easy by Las Vegas-based UV Doctor, disinfects and sanitizes the plastic display trays for reuse, eliminating over 1.1 million pounds of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere.
“By being thoughtful in how we operate all parts of our business, we’ve been able to make a significant difference in our overall environmental impact,” said Fresh & Easy CEO Tim Mason. “We are looking for ways to reduce our carbon footprint- from energy efficient refrigeration to lights in stores that automatically dim to our solar panel installation on our distribution center.”
This plastic tray reuse program is part of the company’s commitment to reuse or recycling all packaging and display materials. They have also been selected as a pilot member of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Volume Certification Program and have joined the California Climate Action Registry to disclose greenhouse gas emissions.
Trey Granger
posted on March 10th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
I find plastic to be one of the more fascinating items you can recycle. Has anyone seen the video about how the sorting of recyclables work (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X-Hcwdh70U&feature=PlayList&p=467B27787314C442&index=23)? The machines can identify it by resin type, whereas steel is separated using magnets and aluminum uses eddy currents. We have so much technology around recycling plastic, so it’s a shame that we don’t recycle more of it.