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Work is underway to transition Sonoco Recycling, Inc.'s Charlotte Recycling Center into a full-scale material recovery facility (MRF) by early summer 2010. The $2.6 million project will result in the Charlotte center, located at 3901 Barringer Drive, becoming the third MRF owned and operated by the Company in the Southeast. The others are located in Raleigh, N.C., and Columbia, S.C.

"We're adding high-tech equipment that will allow us to further grow our capacity and more effectively sort residential single-stream waste. Additions will include new sorting screens, separators, high-speed conveyors, steel disks and other state-of-the-art equipment," said Marcy Thompson, vice president and general manager, Sonoco Recycling, Inc. "While Mecklenburg County is already served by a materials recovery facility, the area needs a second MRF because of the tremendous growth throughout the region. These upgrades, along with the upgrades we completed last fall, better position us to meet the recycling needs of this growing market."

In November 2009, Sonoco Recycling completed a $2 million expansion project at the Charlotte center. The project expanded the facility's footprint by 23,500 square feet and included the installation of new commercial sorting and baling equipment. In addition, the facility's outside space was redesigned to improve traffic flow.

Sonoco Recycling's Charlotte center accepts and processes corrugated boxes and other grades of paper as well as plastic and other materials.The facility accepts curbside material delivered by the public and offers flatbed pick up of baled material, and van pick up for loose, palletized or baled material. Sonoco, which processes and uses many of these recycled materials to produce recycled paperboard at its paper mills in the Southeast, then uses that paperboard to produce new consumer and industrial packaging, making Sonoco one of the few closed loop suppliers of packaging in the industry.

Sonoco Recycling is a leading recycler in North Carolina with nine locations. Annually, Sonoco collects and processes about 3 million tons of recyclable materials globally through 41 locations, and has a team of recycling professionals, many of whom are experts in waste management and manufacturing process improvement.

PEFC has called on the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) to live up to its mission to truly 'transform the way buildings and communities are designed, built, and operated' by promoting the use of certified wood as one of the most environmentally-friendly building materials.

The USGBC has ended its 3^rd public comment period on the draft benchmarks to evaluate forest certification systems yesterday. The expressed intention of these benchmarks, according to USGBC, is to set high standards for forest certification systems and to incentivize 'their evolution towards more stringent requirements'.

"We have to bear in mind that after 20 years of activity, only eight percent of the world's forest are certified to the already strict requirements set out by the worlds two global forest certification systems, FSC and PEFC", said Ben Gunneberg, PEFC International Secretary General. "While wanting to raise the bar even higher is an admirable objective, it is rather unlikely that it will support efforts to increase the area of forests certified as sustainably managed."

PEFC is the world's largest forest certification system, and with about half a million certified forest owners the certification system of choice for small forest owners.

Mr Gunneberg added that the green buildings movement will lose its ability to promote changes if it settles at levels which are too demanding, elitist, and catering only for the boutique end of the market for wood. At the same time it is clear that the green buildings movement will lose its credibility if it is too undemanding, business-as-usual, and certifying the lowest common denominator.

He voiced his concern that if global certification systems have not been able to mainstream forest certification with the existing set of requirements, all that more stringent requirements will do is to continue to exclude forests from achieving certification for some time to come. "And if obtaining certification ceases to be a viable option for forest managers, there is a huge risk that they will re-focus their attention from implementing sustainable management methods to producing at low cost. And low-cost management methods are not necessarily sustainable."

Sustainable forest management is widely recognized as an essential component in tackling a number of societal issues, including climate change. Global forest leaders, gathered under the auspicious of The Forest Dialogue, an initiative hosted by Yale University's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, has identified the substitution of high-emissions materials and fuels with sustainably produced forest products as an important component of the most effective forest-based approaches dealing with climate change.

In the U.S., buildings are of fundamental importance in the climate change debate as they account for almost 40% of the total CO2 emissions. Studies estimate that CO2 emissions for wood-based buildings are 20-50% lower than emissions associated with comparable steel or concrete based buildings.

"Both global forest certification systems are based on widely accepted requirements, with PEFC basing its understanding of sustainable forest management on broad societal consensus expressed in international, intergovernmental, multi-stakeholder processes and guidelines involving thousands of interested parties," concluded Mr. Gunneberg.

"While we believe  that the USGBC is truly interested in 'enabling an environmentally and socially responsible, healthy, and prosperous environment', its efforts must be targeted towards increasing market demand for certified wood instead of potentially excluding one – or both – global forest certification systems from  their credit system."

Further information

• Letter to Steve Baer ( 203 kb), Chair, USGBC Materials & Resources Technical Advisory Group (14 March 2010)
• Press release: USGBC LEED Standard: Friend or Foe in Global Movement to Fight Climate Change? (8 October 2009)
• Letter to Richard Fedrizzi ( 37 kb),  USGBC President and CEO (8 October 2009)