US poultry plant switches to environment-friendly boxes

Mountaire Farms, US-based poultry processor, has switched to recyclable, wax-free boxes for product to reduce the environmental impact.

The company converted the boxes used to transport poultry products from its plant in Lumber Bridge, North Carolina to waxless boxes that are recyclable and compostable.

According to reports, the boxes, made by Interstate Container, are not coated in wax like the majority of boxes used to transport cold or ice-packed foods.

Mountaire and Interstate Container began testing the waxless boxes in March last year as part of an initiative by Global Green USA's Coalition for Resource Recovery to test recyclable boxes for transporting food.

After the pilot programme ended in September, Mountaire decided to convert all of its modified atmosphere packaging (boxes in which the atmosphere is modified in order to extend the product's shelf life) to the recyclable boxes. It also planned to switch all of its ice-packed products to modified atmosphere packaging so it could eventually switch all of its boxes to waxless versions.

Last month, Mountaire finished converting to waxless boxes at its Lumber Bridge facility, the largest poultry plant in the US.

Aside from being recyclable, the waxless boxes are smaller than previous boxes, saving on materials, and by moving away from ice-packed boxes, Mountaire expects to save millions of gallons of water annually. If all of its new boxes are recycled, it would result in some 100,000 fewer tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually.

Global Green USA estimates that about 1.5 million tonnes of non-recyclable wax-covered boxes are trashed a year. Not only would a great amount of emission and material reductions come about by large-scale switches to waxless boxes, but garbage hauling and disposal costs would be reduced.