Mid America Paper Recycling recently welcomed a new national supplier, Bunzl Distribution USA, LLC, which needed product destruction services at more than two dozen of its facilities. Based in St. Louis, Bunzl Distribution supplies products including outsourced food packaging, disposable supplies, and cleaning and safety products to food processors, supermarkets, non-food retailers, convenience stores, and others. A leading supplier in North America, with worldwide sales above $12 billion and more than 190 warehouses in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Canada, the Caribbean, and parts of Mexico, Bunzl Distribution, focuses on finding ways to protect the environment and make better use of natural resources.

Bunzl Distribution needed help with disposing of kraft paper padding and OCC base inserts made at 14 of its facilities across the country. Used for e-commerce shipments by a well-known e-commerce customer, the materials were stacked on more than 1,000 skids and stored in Bunzl Distribution’s warehouses. Bunzl Distribution, needed help and fast.

When custom-made kraft paper padding (above) used for e-commerce shipments

had to find a new home, Mid America Paper Recycling found

a way to divert them to paper mills instead of landfills.

“We first started talking with Jake Meszaros at Mid America Paper Recycling in early December 2023 to review the scope of the project and determine if they could work with all 14 of our branches,” recalls one Bunzl Manager. “After finding them online, I contacted them and within minutes, they began working out all the details.”

Like Mid America Paper Recycling, Bunzl continuously searches for ways to enhance and upgrade its sustainable business practices and procedures to make a positive environmental impact. “We worked with Bunzl to develop an inventive strategy to significantly reduce their waste and keep the material out of landfills,” remembers Jake Meszaros, National Sales Manager at Mid America Paper Recycling, who took the call. “We shipped the inserts to recyclers that baled the material and then shipped the waste to various paper mills across the country for pulping and reuse. We got great feedback from Bunzl, which was a first-time customer.”

Overstock overhaul

Launched at the end of January 2024, the project involved one of Bunzl Distribution’s major customers, which was left with over $1 million in seasonal overstock inventory. The customer had to either dispose of the overstock or continue paying storage fees. “They chose to recycle the large amount of kraft padding and inserts, which were custom-made for them. But we couldn’t find a way to reuse for them within our customer base.”

The corrugated inserts and padding stacked on pallets were produced at several of Bunzl

Distribution’s facilities across the U.S. Easily reusable, they were shipped to paper mills

that pulped them for reuse.

“Meszaros then met with Bunzl Distribution’s operations team to review the scope of the project. When obtaining approvals, the large Bunzl Distribution customer required that a certificate of destruction be produced for each shipment. Bunzl Distribution and the Mid America Paper Recycling team coordinated with the individual Bunzl Distribution branches and recycling facilities that could accept the waste, produced the certificates and Mid America Paper Recycling then provided the delivery details.

“Mid America Paper Recycling confirmed it would produce the certificates and ship all of the paper waste bales to paper mills where it could be pulped and reused,” the Bunzl Manager remembrers. “They were amazing. This was a large project with so many locations and people involved. Mid America Paper Recycling and I coordinated with the teams at each location, determining where the waste at each branch would go. The project went smoothly, considering the many branches and recycling centers we were dealing with. Some branches had several truckloads of the kraft and corrugated waste.”

All total, 1,769 pallet loads were transported. “This was a huge win for our company overall and especially for our branches, which are already tight on space,” the Bunzl Manager adds. “We would absolutely work with Mid America Paper Recycling again. They handled the material safely and we had no negative feedback from our drivers who delivered the product to their sites. They were top-notch and wonderful to work with. I loved the clear, concise information and attention to detail they provided. They went above and beyond for the scope of this project, and it turned out to be a huge success. They were a pleasure to work with and took care of all the details from start to finish.”

From sourcing products ethically and responsibly to consolidating them in an environmentally efficient way, this is just one of Mid America Paper Recycling’s many “green” sustainable partnership programs that make a difference in the environment. “It was great to get such positive feedback from a first-time customer,” Meszaros summarizes. “Our ultimate aim is to promote partnerships like this and keep recyclable waste materials out of landfills.”