Georgia Pacific has announced that they’re going to try to reclaim more contaminated paper products including cardboard as recyclables. GP says that every year 170 million tons of waste is deposited into landfills or burned because it’s considered nonrecyclable. GP says they’ve probably found a solution to that issue.
The patented process GP has developed, which they call “Juno Technology,” can recover more fiber and reduce waste. They say Juno extracts the usable fiber from landfill sites and feeds it in to their existing pulping process while stripping away plastic coatings and food contamination that otherwise makes paper products non-recyclable. Other recovered items can be returned to their respective recycling streams while diverting millions of tons of waste from landfills.
While GP has tested this technology in pilot project, the Toledo mill demonstration is designed to prove that it works on a commercial scale. GG says they believe that Juno will position Toledo and Lincoln County on the “leading edge” of sustained innovation with this new approach to recycling paper products.
How this possible breakthrough in paper product recycling will affect local solid waste garbage bills for residents has not been established.