Recycling for many Americans can be a bit of an anxiety-inducing practice. From loading up bins to place on the curb, to a weekly trip to the municipal recycling center, hoping you’re not turned away. Many well-intentioned people unknowingly contaminate the recycling stream with materials that aren’t recyclable in their area. This causes extra labor for workers and significantly slows down entire recycling processes.
The United States has a recycling problem. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates only 32% of our waste is recycled. With this current rate, the national goal of reaching 50% by 2030 doesn’t seem attainable. Why are U.S. rates so low compared to European countries where they have waste recycled at over 60%? One glaring reason is the different rules for what can be recycled, state by state, and even county by county. This has led to general, widespread confusion about what is and is not accepted at recycling centers.
There is also the added headache of cross contamination even in recyclable materials. Mixing plastics with paper or cardboard, glass with aluminum and tin, or any variation of these materials that have sticky, sugary liquids or food residue makes our recycling streams much less efficient. Not to mention most of the infrastructure for U.S. recycling is extremely outdated – still set to handle large quantities of items like newspapers.
Enter in CIRT
CIRT, an acronym for Can I Recycle This, is a program developed by University of Georgia graduate Katherine Shayne. After receiving her master’s degree in environmental engineering, Shayne worked in environmental sustainability with a focus on global materials management and marine plastic litter. Wanting to help consumers become more efficient recyclers, she assisted in developing the first CIRT software.
The application works similarly to a barcode at a supermarket. Using a phone or tablet, consumers scan a QR code on a piece of packaging and are shown information on how to recycle that material as well as the nearest recycling center that accepts it. It also works through image selection. Users can get on the app and search for items by image for recycling locations. All this data is constantly updated with new laws and regulations for individual recycling centers across the country. This way users don’t drop off items only to learn the center no longer takes them.
Key Features:
- The program seamlessly integrates with existing systems on the packaging material such as interactive ingredient or nutritional labels. This way you can piggyback the CIRT label on to them, eliminating the need for additional real estate on the packaging.
- Location-based accuracy or manual entry of a zip code allows users to find the nearest facility accepting their items with incredible precision. CIRT continuously combs data from these locations for the most up-to-date rules and regulations concerning accepted materials.
- With a customized brand feature, you can build unique digital profiles for all your products and packaging, complete with personalized images for your brand.
- Complete product data collection information gives you direct customer insights and updates on how successful recycling campaigns are running.
CIRT at Premier
Premier’s stock mailers come standard with a CIRT scannable code, and we can add it to our custom mailers as well. Through our collaboration with CIRT, our customers can opt to subscribe through Premier at a significantly reduced cost. This enables us to provide a comprehensive overview of consumer usage data. Customers also have the option to purchase their own subscription to get a unique QR code, branding options for their landing page, and direct access to their CIRT data reports.
For more information on how you can improve your product’s recyclability and elevate your brand contact us today about activating CIRT on your packaging!