Two Massachusetts Companies Team Up To Provide Plastic Cutlery Made From Recycled Polypropylene To National Organic Grocery Chain

Leominster, MA /PRNewswire/ - Sustainable consumer goods company Preserve is teaming up with renewable plastics manufacturer UrthPact to provide a new line of environmentally-friendly single use cutlery for the in-store cafes of a major national organic grocery chain.

Paul Boudreau, CEO of UrthPact, LLC announced that his firm has been selected by Waltham, MA-based Preserve to manufacture a new line of single use cutlery made from recycled plastic, along with their dispensers. The new product line will be rolled out in a local six-store pilot program this January prior to the launch of a nationwide program March 1.

"We're excited to be working with Preserve to launch this new line of earth-friendly cutlery manufactured entirely from recycled #5 plastic," commented Paul Boudreau. "So much of this kind of plastic still ends up in landfills, so we're doing everything we can to get it out of the waste disposal chain and recycle it for good use."

The cutlery being manufactured by Boudreau and UrthPact starts with 100% recycled polypropylene resin that has less of an impact than virgin plastic and does not rely on non-renewable resources for its feedstocks, such as natural gas or oil. The cutlery is designed to be part of Preserve's Gimme 5 plastic recycling program. Introduced in 2007, Gimme 5 enables consumers to recycle their #5 plastic products, such as yogurt cups, at recycling bins located in the organic grocery chain stores and other select retailers. The reclaimed plastic is then recycled into new #5 plastic products such as the Preserve toothbrush, all made in the United States. Consumers who cannot take advantage of the Gimme 5 recycling bins are invited to mail their plastic products back to Preserve so they can be kept out of landfills and remanufactured into new recyclable products.

The partnership between UrthPact and Preserve began about two years ago when Paul Boudreau approached Preserve with a revolutionary new biodegradable, compostable plastic compound.

"As we learned more about UrthPact, we saw their integrity and that commitment to creating something environmentally-sustainable," said Eric Hudson, founder and CEO of Preserve. We also saw their capability from a manufacturing standpoint, so we teamed up for this major recycled plastic cutlery program as a place to start."

Boudreau sees the retail grocery chain cutlery program as an outstanding opportunity to get environmentally-friendly, sustainably-produced plastic products front-and-center in the public eye. Boudreau and Hudson also see the potential for new products and are actively looking for new ways to partner in 2017, including producing a new line of plastic cutlery that will be biodegradable and compostable in industrial composting facilities.