Sappi North America Joins The Recycling Partnership to Improve Recycling Efforts in Communities Across the Country

BOSTON, Feb. 27, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- On February 27, 2018, Sappi North America and The Recycling Partnership issued a joint press release, which contained two inaccurate figures on recycling in single family homes. Although not material, they have been corrected below in interest of transparency.

Sappi North America, a leading producer and supplier of diversified paper and packaging products, has joined on as a new funding partner of The Recycling Partnership, a national nonprofit that applies corporate funding to improve recycling efforts in communities across the country. In doing so, the company will be working to help transform recycling nationwide, increase materials recovery, and reduce the creation of greenhouse gases that add to climate change.

Currently, still less than half of recyclables in U.S. homes are getting captured; just 14 million tons out of an available 36 million tons are recycled every year from single-family homes. While the funding and management of recycling systems has fallen on the shoulders of cities and towns across the country, now, through The Recycling Partnership, nearly 40 companies, including Sappi are committing financial resources to work with the nonprofit and local governments to improve recycling systems.

Since 2015, The Recycling Partnership has invested more than $27 million of corporate funding in recycling infrastructure. Each new funder expands The Partnership's reach to improve recycling through local and national work.

"Sappi North America has been part of The Recycling Partnership through the Recycling Works in Publishing," says Keefe Harrison, CEO of The Recycling Partnership. "We are grateful to have them now on board as a direct partner. The work Sappi has done throughout Maine and beyond with co-funding pedestrian recycling bins has been very successful. We look forward to working with their team on generating new ideas and partnerships to improve recycling in cities and towns across the United States."

Sappi has always been committed to sustainability, particularly waste reduction and the best use of materials, according to Laura Thompson PhD, Director of Sustainable Development and Global Policy Initiatives, Sappi North America. "We're excited to further this work by supporting The Recycling Partnership in its mission to transform recycling for good in the U.S. We are proud of the work that we have already completed with the Partnership over the years, and we are ready to make an even larger impact on recycling in our country moving forward," she says.

For the last two years, Thompson has served as the chair of Recycling Works in Publishing (RWIP), a member of The Recycling Partnership. Last fall, Sappi worked with The Partnership to launch a recycling cart program in the city of Portland, Maine, increasing access to recycling for the city's residents. The Portland project is helping to inform a greater collaboration with the Ocean Conservancy and its Trash Free Seas initiative, a public awareness program that educates consumers and reduces pollution in the world's oceans. Sappi is also a member of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC), and a supporter of ASTRX, a joint initiative between SPC and The Recycling Partnership, which aims to increase recycling by strengthening each element of the materials supply chain to create reliable and valuable manufacturing feedstock.

"The paper industry has very high recycling rates compared to other materials," says Thompson. "Recent statistics show we are recovering over two-thirds of paper in circulation – but that means there are still nearly 20 million tons of paper-based materials that are not being recovered each year. Through efforts such as designing for recyclability to improving infrastructure, access, and education, we can further improve our industry's recycling efforts. We see The Recycling Partnership as a key player in making this goal a reality, and we're proud to help further its mission."

About The Recycling Partnership
The Recycling Partnership (www.recyclingpartnership.org) is a national nonprofit organization that leverages corporate partner funding to transform recycling for good in towns and cities all across America. As the only organization in the country that engages the full recycling supply chain; from the corporations that manufacture products and packaging to local governments charged with recycling to industry end markets, haulers, material recovery facilities, and converters; the Recycling Partnership positively impacts recycling at every step in the process. By the end of this year, The Recycling Partnership expects to have served 750 communities with tools, resources and technical support, provided 500,000 recycling carts, reached 40 million households, and helped companies and cities invest more than $33 million in recycling infrastructure. 

About Sappi North America
Sappi North America, headquartered in Boston, is a market leader in converting wood fiber into superior products that customers demand worldwide. The success of our four diversified businesses – high quality Coated Printing Papers, Specialised Cellulose, Release Papers and Specialty Packaging – is driven by strong customer relationships, best-in-class people and advantaged assets, products and services. Our high quality Coated Printing Papers, including McCoy, Opus, Somerset and Flo, are the key platform for premium magazines, catalogs, books and high-end print advertising. We are a leading manufacturer of Specialised Cellulose used in a wide range of products, including textile fibers and household goods, and one of the world's leading suppliers of Release Papers with our Ultracast, PolyEX, Classics and Neoterix lines for the automotive, fashion and engineered films industries. Our Specialty Packaging products, such as LusterPrint and LusterCote, represent an important asset in the food packaging and labeling industries. Customers rely on Sappi for high technical, operational and market expertise; products and services delivered with consistently high quality and reliability; and, state-of-the-art and cost-competitive assets and innovative spirit.

Sappi North America is a subsidiary of Sappi Limited (JSE), a global company headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, with more than 12,000 employees and manufacturing operations on three continents in seven countries and customers in over 150 countries around the world. Learn more about Sappi at: www.sappi.com.

SOURCE Sappi North America

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