FLEMING STARTING TO USE RECYCLED STRETCH WRAP

DENISE ZIMMERMAN

SALT LAKE CITY -- Fleming Cos. here has come full circle with a recycling program at one of its divisions.

Two years and about 4,000 bins of stretch film after it first began recycling the film, Fleming has started using and recycling a new stretch wrap containing recycled resin.

For Fleming, it is the latest chapter in an effort that has resulted in a 50% savings in landfill disposal costs, reduced dock maintenance requirements, and a cleaner and safer warehouse environment, said Patrick Sorensen, the division's perishables warehouse manager.

The stretch film recycling program required an initial $500 investment for bins, signs and labor. But that was quickly recouped as a result of lower waste disposal costs, he said.

"We had been sending our compactor to a landfill once a week, spending $600 a month. Now we're sending it twice a month, saving $3,600 annually. We did anticipate savings at the landfill, but not quite that much," Sorensen said.

Fleming decided to participate in Mobil Oil Corp's recycling program only after careful evaluation. "We had to ask ourselves, 'Does the program have merit or not? What's it going to cost? How will we handle the bales?' "

The answer became clear on all counts, Sorensen said. Workers receiving shipments, about 80% of which are packaged in stretch film, remove the wrap right on the loading docks and dispose of it in waiting recycling bins -- a process not much different than when the material was thrown into waste bins.

Some shipments, due to their unstable nature, remain in stretch wrap until just before they're broken down for customers' orders. In that case, forklift drivers remove the wrap.

Full bins are moved to a separate area of the 380,000-square-foot plant for baling. Then, about every eight weeks or so a truck collects 15,000 pounds of the material and delivers it to a Mobil recycling plant in Jacksonville, Ill.

Among the products coming out of that washing and recycling facility is a reprocessed stretch film called Maretwrap R, which is now being used at the Salt Lake City plant. The plant supplies about 125 supermarkets in Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming and Utah.

"Initially, I was concerned about the consistency" of the material, which contains a minimum 20% post-consumer recycled resin, Sorensen said. But the word back from retailers is that "it's as good, if not better, than what we've been using."

Sorensen credited Fleming's 375 employees with the success of the program, noting that the workers already had been recycling cardboard, computer paper and aluminum cans in the break room. "We addressed it from the standpoint that there's benefits here for everybody."

Sanitation is one area he cited in particular. "We hold sanitation in high regard. Stretch film has a tendency to get everywhere, and the recycling program is helping us keep it out of the warehouse."

With the new program, maintenance workers have less scrap film to pick up, and when they do, there's a nearby bin -- 30 at the main plant and several at the neighboring dairy and grocery satellite locations.

Maintenance cost reduction, in fact, has been an unanticipated benefit. The savings may be hard to quantify, but it is there. "Stretch film finds its way into forklifts and ball bearings," costing us time and money, Sorenson said.