Chemical recycling issues delay Wendy's recycled-content plans

Orlando, Fla. — A high-profile 2021 plan by restaurant chain Wendy's to include 20 percent recycled plastic in its drink cups has hit a snag: It can't get reliable supplies of resin from the chemical recycling processes its plastics industry partners are using.

The original rollout, which was widely covered in business media, called for Wendy's to include recycled polypropylene in some cups starting in early 2022 and to transition its entire line this year.

But a Wendy's executive said at an industry conference June 28 that it's been difficult getting consistent supplies of plastic from the chemical recycling processes, throwing off its plans.

Chemical recycling generally uses high heat or chemical reactions to break down plastics, compared with the grinding and shredding used in traditional mechanical recycling.

"One of the challenges we had is that the advanced recycling material that we had planned, and still plan, to include in the cups isn't there today," said Liliana Esposito, Wendy's chief corporate affairs and sustainability officer. "We need to get not just to the 20 percent stage but also be confident that we won't go backwards from that or be disrupted from that."

Wendy's, its cup supplier Berry Global Group Inc. and plastic supplier LyondellBasell Industries first disclosed their plans in a joint 2021 news release, where they said Wendy's was switching its restaurants from paper cups with a plastic lining to all-plastic cups, and that the plastic cups would have 20 percent recycled material.

They said the paper cups had limited recyclability because they used a lining, and the move to all plastic polypropylene cups would divert more than 10 million pounds of waste from landfills "as Wendy's works with Berry to expand recycled plastic use throughout its entire cup set."

But Esposito told the American Chemistry Council's Innovation and Circularity Summit, held June 28-29 in Orlando, that the chain has delayed using recycled plastic because of supply chain problems getting recycled resins.

"We can't say to 7,000 restaurants, 'Oops, in February we couldn't get access to the material we needed so you need to change out your cups,'" she said. "I think we will get there but there's still some work to do."

In a brief interview after her presentation, Esposito declined to discuss details of the recycled-content use and in response to a question about whether the cups have recycled content, she said: “We’re not claiming that at this point. We’re working on that, but we’re not. I wouldn’t make any claims on that today.”

In a June 30 follow-up statement, Berry said it has been supplying resin made by advanced recycling to Wendy’s since September 2022, meeting the initial 20 percent recycled-content goal that the restaurant chain outlined in 2021, when it said it would have the recycled resin in one of its larger cup sizes in 2022.

In 2021, the companies said they would add the remaining cup sizes this year. Berry said in the statement it was working toward that goal.

“For the remainder of 2023, we are working closely with our resin suppliers to help Wendy’s meet their goal of the inclusion of recycled content across their drink cup portfolio,” Berry said.

It said it has supplied Wendy’s with more than 500,000 pounds of advanced recycling resin certified to the ISSC-Plus standard.

Bill Norman, president of Berry’s Consumer Packaging North America unit, pointed to technical issues in supplies of advanced recycling material, in the same June 28 interview with Esposito.

“It’s technical, as you heard in there, technical issues on the startup,” he said. “We’re making sure there’s an assurance of the supply so that when [there’s] that logo on the cup of 20 percent … that it’s consistently able to be provided.”

In their October 2021 announcement, the companies did not mention potential challenges like that.

They called the plan to use 20 percent recycled plastic, certified to the ISSC-Plus standard and using mass balance measurement methods, as a "quick-service restaurant industry first."

Berry and LyondellBasell said in the 2021 announcement that they had entered into a long-term supply agreement for the advanced recycling resin, made with mass balance certification methods.

But in the interview at the ACC conference, Norman noted technical problems that are being worked out, 20 months later.

"They're just working through technical hurdles on the startup, as you might expect, with a very complex technology," Norman said. "It's the technology to convert it, to break it down and to be able to convert it back up. That's all startup technology."

In her presentation, Esposito said the move to PP clear plastic cups met several company goals, including redesigning its cold beverage cup lineup to streamline store operations and to more attractively package drinks compared with paper cups.

She said the plastic cups are part of a company strategy to source all of its consumer-facing packaging with sustainable materials by 2026.

Switching to plastic cups meant that 56 percent of its packaging met those sustainability goals last year, compared with 42 percent in 2021, she said.

But Esposito also said the company is aware of complaints that packaging like the plastic cups may be technically recyclable but not recycled as much in practice, and she said it's launched a small pilot at some stores in Chicago for in-store recycling options.

"We also know that we are making a cup that is technically recyclable but isn't always recycled," she said.

Wendy's is running a pilot program putting recycling bins at eight Chicago-area restaurants to capture more of the polypropylene cups, but Esposito also noted that 80 percent of its cups are given to customers in drive-through windows.

"I don't think in-restaurant recycling is going to be the most material way we can affect recycling because so much of our business and so much of our packaging leaves, but we're not going to ignore it," she said.

Berry said in the June 30 statement that chemical recycling was chosen because it offers “maximum” drink cup clarity.

Less than 3 percent of polypropylene packaging in the United States is recycled each year, according to data from the Environmental Protection Agency.

Polypropylene packaging has struggled with recyclability. Its status was downgraded in the U.S. by a certifying body in 2020 but later restored, after industry groups started awarding grants to local recycling programs to boost PP recycling access.

An audience member at the conference asked Esposito why the company chose to use recycled resin from advanced recycling processes, as opposed to more traditional mechanical recycling, and Esposito said she wasn't sure.

"I don't know," she said. "The cups as they were brought to us and the message around them and where we saw the partnership advancing, it made perfect sense for us to incorporate advanced recycled material in that."

While the materials that Berry put out for the 2021 announcement mentioned what they saw as advantages for chemical recycling processes for putting recycled content in the cups, Esposito told the audience her company did not see itself as advocating for any particular technology for recycling.

"I'm not here as an advocate for any particular platform or technology," she said. "We're in the business of selling drinks and we need our partners on the supply chain to help us."