Hickman’s Family Farms introduces egg cartons made from 100% recycled PET

February 14, 2017

Egg cartons have evolved over the years from paperboard to EPS foam. Now comes the next—sustainable—link in the evolutionary chain: Egg cartons made from 100% recycled PET from water and soda bottles. Hickman’s Family Farms, an egg producer near Phoenix, AZ, just introduced the newly designed 18-count RPET egg carton to stores in Arizona such as Costco.

Global Plastics Inc., a vertically integrated recycler located in Perris, CA, takes in the baled recycled PET bottles from buy-back centers through the California Redemption Value program, which pays consumers a nickel for every PET bottle they redeem, and they bring in a lot: California’s recycling rate is around 90%. Global Plastics recycles approximately four million bottles a day, which are sorted by color and ground and washed to FDA standards to ensure clean recyclate. The company then pelletizes the material and extrudes the sheets for use in thermoforming. [read more]