ConAgra Foods (NYSE:CAG), one of North America’s largest packaged food companies, announced today that it will begin using about 8 million pounds of recycled plastic each year in its frozen meal trays.
ConAgra Foods has begun to use 30-40% post-consumer recycled plastic in nearly all of its frozen meal trays for Healthy Choice(R), Banquet(R), Kid Cuisine(R) and Marie Callender’s(R) products.
Most other frozen meals trays used by other companies are made of crystallized PET plastic, a material that uses only newly produced plastics and that requires more energy and resources to produce.
ConAgra said it is the only company in North America using post-consumer recycled plastic in frozen meal trays.
ConAgra Foods partnered with Associated Packaging Technologies to utilize a new technology that cleans recycled plastic for use as a component in frozen meal trays. Older plastics technologies limited food companies to using only new plastic to comply with regulations for direct food contact materials. The new ultra-clean processing technology makes it safe for consumers to eat the prepared food directly from the frozen meal trays. The new trays are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as direct food contact materials.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, only about 30% of plastic soda bottles are recycled each year.
Loading...