Die-Cutting Boards Can Be Recycled Instead of Landfilled

Many packagers recycle their corrugated and paperboard waste. But can package converters that make corrugated shipping boxes and paperboard folding cartons recycle their hardwood cutting die boards? One packaging converter has done so, which streamlined its operation and improved its sustainability efforts with an item often considered “unrecyclable.” 

Custom carton/corrugated packaging converter and designer Batavia Container Inc., Batavia, IL, recently worked on a project with Chicago-based recycler Mid America Paper Recycling to divert several tons of solid waste from landfills, channeling the hardwood boards instead to a recycler for reprocessing and reuse. 

According to The Packaging Association of Canada, more packaging manufacturers are implementing practices such as lightweighting, downsizing, recovering materials and recycled content, composting or recycling in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, save energy, and waste and improve their companies’ economics and work environments. This is being driven by an understanding that most recovered materials can replace virgin materials, resulting in landfill avoidance and potentially huge energy savings.

An essential component required by the die-cutting industry, die-cutting boards form the basis of a flat or rotary cutting-die into which the contours of packaging are inserted. Then, the cutting and creasing rules are positioned and finally the appropriate rubber coating is applied. 

Family owned Batavia Container relies on dieboards daily. The company converts folding paperboard cartons and corrugated shipping cases at three manufacturing facilities – one in Batavia, IL another in Bedford Park, IL, and a third in Itasca, IL. The plants print and die-cut consumer and value-added specialty packaging, point-of-purchase displays, slotted corrugated shipping cases and offer custom packaging design and corrugated manufacturing. 

Running out of room

Batavia Container’s production facilities were storing wooden dieboards for so many customers, they were running out of storage space. “We have purchased, utilized and disposed of thousands of cutting dies over the 60-plus-year history of the company,” points out Paul Mansour, Director of Account Development at Batavia Container.

“As it is, the life of a cutting die can range from a one-time use for a custom point-of-purchase display to regular use hundreds of times. They can last for 10 to 20 years.” The question is, how to dispose of obsolete dieboards, which is an industry-wide issue, Mansour affirms. “Our industry typically puts obsolete and old cutting dies in a dumpster, and the contents ends up in the landfill.”

Mid America Paper Recycling team members often visit manufacturing facilities and are asked if they recycle die-cutting boards or know how to recycle them on a large-scale basis. “We have been investigating recycling dieboards for some time. We are often asked if we can recycle the wood,” notes Paul Pirkle, President of Mid America Paper Recycling. “Batavia Container asked if we could possibly recycle their dieboards. We knew there had to be a market for the obsolete boards. They are a substantial amount of waste. We began asking reprocessing vendors if they would accept obsolete dieboards and found a recycler that can repurpose them.”

In late 2021, Batavia Container decided the time was right to initiate the dieboard project. With assistance from Mid America Paper Recycling, Batavia Container was able to recycle tons of the obsolete dieboards, repurposing the waste into lawn and garden mulch and other wood-based products. 

“We worked with Mid America to have the old tooling recovered and to reuse both the dieboard wood and the metal,” Mansour remembers. 

The project took place in November, 2021. Mid America arranged to pick up the tooling from Batavia Container using in its own trailer, and hauled them to a processor. “The processor used a familiar recycling process but it’s new for this kind of application,” Pirkle explains. “The boards were sent through a high-tech wood chipper that can separate the metal tool from the wood. The resulting wood chips can be reused as mulch and other wood-based products.”

Recycling the dieboards also allowed Batavia Container to free up valuable floor space at its converting plants and reduce labor. Most importantly, “preventing old cutting dies from ending up in a landfill will help all of us,” Mansour summarizes. 

“Tons of the material were recycled in one trip, versus disposing it in a dumpster week in, week out, through the year,” Pirkle points out. “The savings can be potentially significant, just in indirect costs alone. Dieboard wood is hard. It stays in the ground for years and take a very long time to decompose.”

Pirkle says the manufacturing operations of a typical paperboard converter or containerboard plant can generate thousands of tons of pre-consumer, high-grade recyclable corrugated, fiberboard, production trim waste and paperboard waste annually. If recycled, this waste can generate significant savings and perhaps revenues for a company. 

“There are several challenges and shortcomings in dealing with recycling, labor and waste transportation,” he continues. “Dieboards are recyclable materials. Landfilling them doesn’t meet anyone’s environmental goals or boost revenue. Repurposing the boards instead provides a significant value-added contribution to sustainability.” 

Note: This article first appeared in the July 2022 issue of Cutting Edge

Magazine: https://www.webcuttingedge.org/

Mid America Paper Recycling, a fourth-generation leader in the recycling industry, provides robust environmental solutions and value for partners ranging from small businesses to large multinational corporations. Its program features a benchmarking waste audit, consultation services, documentation, quantification and presentation of the specific and overall values that can be realized from customer waste streams. To learn more about Mid America Paper recycling, visit www.midamericapaper.com.