WestRock Nominated as the Prestigious Winner of SPC Innovator Award

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): Charlottesville, Virginia-headquartered the Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC) has honored WestRock Co. with its Innovator Award under the ‘Innovation in Design Optimization’ category in recognition of its innovative attempts to improve recyclability of food service packaging. The award is in recognition of WestRock’s notable advancements in foodservice package recycling.

The company had recently developed circular cup- a recyclable and compostable paperboard solution for hot or cold beverage cup. The cup is designed to consistently hold hot and cold beverages under a variety of conditions. Moreover, it could be easily recycled to new paper cups. The circular cup demonstrates WestRock’s commitment to developing innovative solutions to improve sustainability of its products. The cup was recently named one of 12 winners of the NextGen Cup Challenge, sponsored by the NextGen Consortium.

WestRock’s 100% recycled paperboard mills across the U.S. currently accept mixed paper bales that contain food service packaging. It had partnered with the Foodservice Packaging Institute (FPI) where foodservice packaging from residential collections in Chattanooga, Tenn., and Louisville, Ky. were sent to WestRock mills for processing. WestRock had conducted similar trial at a Saint Paul, Minn., paper mill using sheets of cup stock.

The SPC Innovator Awards celebrate and showcase the outstanding people and organizations behind extraordinary advancements in packaging sustainability every year.