Leading companies in the automotive industry have set ambitious sustainability goals, striving to achieve positive environmental, economic, and community impacts while working towards carbon neutrality. In line with these goals, the industry is actively working to address sustainability impacts and opportunities in automotive packaging materials.

Recycling Challenges and Opportunities

Automotive manufacturers make use of a wide range of packaging materials to ensure the safe

transportation of parts throughout the supply chain. While returnable containers are widely used for domestic shipments and generally recycled at the end of a program, challenges can arise in recycling the internal plastic dunnage due to mixed material compositions and limited economical collection and transportation options. Despite these challenges, there is significant

potential for sustainability and economic benefits if plastic dunnage materials can be effectively recovered and recycled.

Designing for Recycling

To tackle the recycling challenges in automotive packaging, industry stakeholders have been collaborating under the umbrella of the automotive industry organization Suppliers Partnership

for the Environment (SP). Through a collaborative sustainable packaging initiative, automakers, component suppliers, packaging suppliers, and recyclers have come together to identify barriers and work together to explore new opportunities to improve the recovery of dunnage materials.

The recent development of sustainable packaging guidelines for automotive manufacturing operations is one key step in this direction. These guidelines were specifically designed for and by the automotive industry, aiming to minimize packaging waste by addressing barriers to recyclability during the design phase. By promoting the use of more readily recyclable

alternative designs and encouraging mono-material designs, such as recyclable polyethylene and polypropylene, the guidelines aim to improve the recyclability of automotive packaging into the future.

Attachment methods for securing the internal dunnage to the returnable container have also been investigated and we found that some containers and dunnage end up in the landfill because the labor to disassemble the packaging is cost prohibitive. Packaging engineers design the containers to deter the user from removing the dunnage so the fleet stays in place.

The rivets, screws, continuous Velcro or glue that is currently used needs to be adjusted to make it easier for the recycler to remove the dunnage for better recyclability overall. Intermittent glue or Velcro will secure the dunnage during its useful life and allows the recycler to easily remove the dunnage at the end of life for the container.

Another highlight of the guidelines was to reduce the amount of single use packaging materials. Protection for A surface parts such as bags, foams or bubble wrap can usually be eliminated with the introduction of A surface friendly returnable materials. The automotive packaging suppliers provided updates on returnable materials that can protect the parts during transit and are less expensive than the single use materials, a win/win for the industry.

The topic of wood that is held together by glue like plywood or oriented strand board (OSB) is an obstacle for recycling due to the glue gumming up the recycling equipment and the recycling community typically charges a fee to dispose of them. These materials are sometimes used for

international shipments to comply with the ISPM 15 requirements and reduce the risk of environmental hazards. While discussing the options available to eliminate these glued products it became apparent that using corrugated board would satisfy the ISPM 15 requirements and increase the probability that the material will not end up in the landfill. The water-based glue that is used to manufacture the corrugated board does not adversely affect the recycling process so recycling the fiber can create a positive revenue stream for the end user.

Transporting lower-weight and lower-value scrap materials can be the costly side of recycling dunnage, potentially limiting the recovery of certain key packaging materials. If effective processes were in place to collect and densify plastic dunnage, we believe the industry would have potential to shift these materials from a cost liability to a valued commodity, with potential economic benefits for transporters, processors, and others along the value chain.

Developing and Testing New Models

To address challenges associated with transporting low-weight scrap materials, we have recently launched a pilot project in the State of Michigan with the support of the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and the Energy (EGLE). The project aims to design and test a practical and cost-effective model for collecting, aggregating, and pre-processing automotive dunnage materials that would otherwise be sent to landfill.

The pilot project will assess the feasibility of different methods to collect and aggregate plastic dunnage materials from various automaker and tiered supplier sites across Michigan.

Additionally, the strategic positioning of densification equipment within individual facilities to efficiently compact low-weight plastic materials for shipment to recycling facilities will be

evaluated. The pilot aims to ensure that the collected materials meet end market specifications so that they could be effectively used as recycled content in new automotive packaging products in the future. Successful validation of the concept in key automotive counties within Michigan through this pilot will pave the way for scaling the model to other key automotive states and regions.

By promoting sustainable design guidance, understanding the business model driving the supply chain, and identifying crucial infrastructure and capital investments, we are working

towards enabling the cost-effective collection and recycling of automotive packaging materials. These initiatives not only contribute to reducing landfill waste but can also support a range of sustainability impacts by increasing the supply of recycled material feedstocks and fostering carbon reduction efforts.

We hope that the collaborative model embraced by the automotive industry to advance this sustainable packaging initiative presents an opportunity for other industries to learn from and adopt similar approaches to address their own sustainability challenges.