Recycling bags is smart for business

My first business story!

Rawlins Daily Times, Jerrett Raffety

Plastic bags may be recycled at City Market in Rawlins. The bags are shipped to Denver and eventually to Idaho where they're used to manufacture new plastic shopping bags.


By Janice Kurbjun
Times staff writer

Plastic bags collected by City Market in Rawlins see much of the west before they find their way back into grocery stores.

Once most people drop the bags off at the store, they are out of sight and out of mind. But what happens from there?

According to Pat Greaser, director of retail operations at King Sooper’s Denver headquarters, the bags come in from various stores, including Rawlins, and get compacted into a tight brick. Each brick is put on a pallet and sits in the warehouse until there are enough pallets to fill a semi.

Since the debut of the bag recycling program in the fall of 2007, two trucks have been filled in Denver and a third is nearly full. So far, 6.6 million bags have been gathered in Denver for recycling.

The trucks travel to Idaho, directly to the bag manufacturer, to melt the bags into reusable pellets. Mixing the recycled pellets with new plastic pellets at a ratio of about 80 new to 20 old, new bags are made.

“(The bags) have to meet the specifications for rigidity,” Greaser said. “That’s why the mix so highly favors the new plastic.”

The recycling program was set up by the stores’ bag manufacturer, to ensure that 100 percent of the bags get reused and are not lost in a landfill. “We are in control from start to finish,” Greaser said. That way, the ad on the bag boasting recycled material is sure to be true.

The Rawlins store empties its bag barrel once a day, according to store Manager Otto Novota. The plastic gets stuffed into large, black garbage bags and loaded daily into a semi-trailer destined for Denver. Accompanying the bags are 12,000-pound bales of crushed cardboard, also meant for recycling.

To discourage the wasteful use of a resource, the grocery store chain pays customers five cents per bag if they bring their own, a cost that far exceeds the price of simply manufacturing more bags. It’s costly, but Greaser said it’s the right thing to do.

According to Novota, “more often, people bring (the bags) in and reuse them because we offer a nickel for each. It’s better than having them blow around in the wind.” He sees people reusing the plastic bags or bringing their own canvas ones.