Owens Corning Pink Insulation / Doug Compton / How can we recycle more film?

https://www.owenscorning.com/en-us

https://www.linkedin.com/in/doug-compton-cppl-fellow-29485219/

How can flexible film be even more sustainable? 
What are companies doing to make packaging easier to recycle? 
What are some good sources for information about technical packaging? 

Check out our sponsor Orora Packaging Solutions 
https://ororapackagingsolutions.com/

https://specright.com/ 
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1329820053/ref=as_sl_pc_qf_sp_asin_til?tag=corygat

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cory-connors/

I'm here to help you make your packaging more sustainable! Reach out today and I'll get back to you asap.

This podcast is an independent production and the podcast production is an original work of the author. All rights of ownership and reproduction are retained—copyright 2022.

Transcript

Cory Connors: 0:31

Welcome to Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors. Today's guest is my friend, Mr. Doug Compton, the Global Packaging Development leader at Owens Corning. How are you, Doug? I'm great, Corey. How are you doing today? Really well, I wanna, I wanna start off by telling the audience a funny story about the last time we talked. Yeah. Uh, You said you actually had a coworker assume that the, the picture that I gave you was you cuz our glasses are very similar and we have similar faces. Yeah. From, from the

Doug Compton: 1:00

nose up. We're pretty close. That's right.

Cory Connors: 1:03

So we, we could be if, if I ever need an extra you know, stand in or model I, I'll call you

Doug Compton: 1:09

Yeah, no, that was, that was too much. And I, I just, when I saw you at the event last, you were handing out patches and, and that one looks even more, it's even more a dead ringer for me. So some of my coworkers are like, wow, you're really into this packaging. Sustainability, pretty neat. Having those displayed in my cubic.

Cory Connors: 1:25

You're famous man. I love it and I really appreciate what, what you're doing there at, at Owens Corning. I'm excited to talk to you about it, but let's tell the, the audience a little bit about your background. Where, where'd you come from and, and what's your history?

Doug Compton: 1:37

Yeah, so I'm I would consider myself a packaging veteran at this point. I've been in the industry for over 25 years. Yeah, I'm a Michigan State Packaging grad, and my heart goes out to those affected from the tragedy that happened there earlier this week. That was terrible, terrible, and just very sad situation. I'm amongst the packaging ranks from Michigan State. I spent my first part of my career out in the Silicon Valley area of California, working in the electronics, computer electronics industry for ibm. Wow. That was a very interesting time to be out in that area for the.com boom. And their. Small startup companies like Google that were down the street, , start out seeing what they're gonna do, and just a very exciting time to be out there. So I was out there for about 10 years changed industries, which is one of the nice things about packaging. You can kind of float around in different industries and joined Scott's Miracle Growth for about seven and a half years. So I went from computer electronics to. Retail lawn and garden products. So that was a nice change, working with different materials and learning different things there. That was excellent. And now I'm going on eight and a half years at Owens Corning now on kinda a industrial building products fiberglass industry. So it's it's been great. A lot of good things going on. Yes.

Cory Connors: 2:54

I think most people know you from your, your pink yes. You know. Insulation. Yeah. And the, and the funny commercials and things like that. But let's talk about what does a global packaging development leader at Owens Corning do on a daily basis? I'm, I'm fascinated by this role. Sure. Because this is a big company.

Doug Compton: 3:16

It's, it's a big company with a remarkably small packaging presence. So , I went from my, my former careers of being a packaging engineer on large packaging teams with the packaging director to joining Owens Corning and basically being the packaging guy Yeah. Across the enterprise. So it's been A combination of different types of projects. Over the years I've done automation development projects. I've done a lot of material optimization and innovation. And in the last couple years I really kind of dove, dove in head first on sustainability. How can we move the needle on sustainability within No one's Corning and, and really in the industry, the construction industry, it's kinda a tough nut to crack.

Cory Connors: 3:59

Very true. The construction industry is fairly notorious , for a high volume of waste. Yeah. And we understand it because the pressure is so high to perform and to build as fast as possible and, and use the least amount of materials as possible, but also to just. To move on. And so can you maybe give us an example of something that you've done to improve the sustainability of the packaging at Owens

Doug Compton: 4:26

Point? Yeah, absolutely. So there's certainly been projects around material optimization. Can we do the same, create a robust packaging with, with less material overall, , we've looked at making our packaging material recyclable, more recyclable, but really the challenge is you can, you can make it as recyclable . As can be. But if there's no infrastructure to back it up, to take that material that's where the challenge lies. So a lot of my attention now is working not only internally, we have a large sustainability presence in the company. It's really a pillar of the company, I would say. And packaging is a, a portion of that. I'm trying to understand how to leverage . Folks who are in circular circular economy roles and other sustainability roles to kind of understand how we can work together to help packaging sustainability efforts. Yeah. One of the things I mentioned was how do we, how do we recycle flexible films? It's kind of an industry challenge really. And that's probably a majority, or I know it's a majority. The packaging we we utilize within our company is flexible films. How do we get those back into a circular economy?

Cory Connors: 5:34

So those, for those listening that don't maybe understand how, how your product is packaged can you walk us through that and then, and then we'll talk about, I totally agree with you. We need to discuss this. What are the next steps here and how do we recycle

Doug Compton: 5:48

this material?

Cory Connors: 5:49

As a company, can you tell us , the main source of packaging, the main way that you package yeah., your insulation, because I think that's what you're most known for.

Doug Compton: 5:59

Yeah. So insulation is primarily packaged into. Polyfil polyethylene film and it's, it's quite a unique package because the amount of material that we actually fit in a bag is, is quite remarkable. we have, it's, if you've handled fiberglass, you kinda understand, but we'll, we'll take a stack that is maybe 15 feet tall, compress it into a bag that's a little over a foot tall, and then we'll take those bags and further compress those into units that. Compressed even further. And, and the product is meant to spring back the life after it's been packaged for quite a while and, and right before it's ready to be used. Right. So a flexible film is, is for sure the best solution for packaging on our material. And I would say the same for our roofing products. So we think a shingles poly is definitely the right material. The challenge lies with how do. How do you get that poly back into the circular con? How do you get it recycled? How do you collect it in the way that it's clean? Mm-hmm. and in a way that it's contaminant free. And how do you get it? How do you get it from where it is to where it needs to be?

Cory Connors: 7:07

And how do we encourage maybe someone working on a job site to. To segregate that material from other, other waste caused by the construction business, like you said, right? You have figured out for sure how to use the least amount of material possible. If you've ever put in insulation, which I have you understand that once you run that knife over that material, Blows up in the, in a huge way and expands, which is awesome, which you've, whoever figured that out is brilliant. But what do you what do you think needs to be done to make flexible film packaging easier to recycle or have that recycling more available?

Doug Compton: 7:53

Well, I think some of the challenges that I see are. From the construction side, I would say sorting and separation to what you mentioned. So if you think about a, a construction site, even, you know, from a residential side to a corporate large building size there's kind of universal dumpsters that take everything from wood and scraps and dirt and nails. And it's, it's pretty easy for them to. To toss anything into those large receptacles. So to ask them to sort is a challenge. They're also paid to go fast, so when they need to install, they're typically you know, trying to go as fast as possible. So to ask them slow down sort things out, it's another challenge. We're working on, you know, different parts of the network, so are. Partners in our distribution channel that have incentive to try and encourage their employees to bring packaging back to a centralized location where it can be bailed and then moved on. Certainly there's a end use for this material. If you can get it, if you can bail it, it will be recycled, it will be used. And the challenge and, and us is really on the transportation.

Cory Connors: 9:04

And, and the funny thing is it could be upcycled or downcycled depending on how you're looking at it, at it right back into construction materials like track stacking, Absolutely. You could almost partner with them and say, okay, how do we get tracks bin at every single construction site? You know, and how do we encourage, I think , there needs to be some kind of a financial. For the, you know, for maybe., those bins are so expensive to, to dump that. Mm-hmm., you wanna keep, keep the material out of there as much as possible. Maybe that's the case. I don't know. Something needs to happen.

Doug Compton: 9:42

Yeah. Certainly diverting from landfill is a, is a huge. Target goal for a lot of corporations that have had meetings with Waco, who's a large company here in central Ohio, which is, operates a landfill and they have targets of reducing the amount of materials going to their landfill by 75%. So they, they're actively trying to divert things that can be recycled. They've been a good resource for me. It's a huge number I've leveraged. Institute of Packaging Professionals, which is an organization I'm very involved with and have been over the years. They have a sustainable packaging technical committee that I'm part of. So a lot of what I'm trying to accomplish is by networking, collaboration with others. Certainly it's gonna be a team effort across many different companies to make things work. Yeah. The November. Packaging world featured a flexible recycling kind of regional wind. If you recall up in Minnesota a group called embold that was kind of a collaboration of end users and recyclers and film manufacturers. And they're having a, a small success story there. So I see regional winds as a good building block of how you can build off of that and expand. You

Cory Connors: 10:53

have to prove that the concept is possible, I think. And it sounds like you've, you've done that and you've, you've shown that, Hey, look, we, we did it in this state, or we did it in this county. We can do it in 10 more and then a hundred more, and then a thousand more. And before you know it, it's the, it's one of the most recyclable items in the country. And I think. I think that's possible. A flexible film. I'm, I'm very positive about the future of it. I think what you're doing is, is, is really important, so thank you for that. Yeah. I, I did want to talk to you about the I O P P a little bit. Sure. Can, can you explain to us what, what the I O P P is and, and what, what they do?

Doug Compton: 11:35

Yeah, absolutely. So the, the Institute of Packaging Professionals is a very widely recognized industry group within packaging, the packaging industry. They offer credentials and support and networking opportunities to further your career. I myself have been actively involved really since, since I graduated, so probably 25 years. Oh, wow. I've served on the board of the Central Ohio chapter of the Institute of Action Professionals for about 15 years. I've served as president for about 10 Oh wow. Gone from that role. But it's, it really offers education opportunities. It offers networking opportunities, and it, it has kept up with the times to try and offer members Benefits that far away the, the cost of membership and the you know, the time it takes to be involved. So it's been great. The certified Packaging Professional accreditation I, I feel I've, I got that early on in my career and I've felt that that has helped me do some of these industry jumps. So from when I was at IBM to start my career for nearly a decade. It allowed me that having that credential, I think allowed me to not be pigeonholed into one type of packaging and make a jump from like a electronics packaging to consumer retail, lawn and garden. So that was interesting and I think beneficial there. So if you're, if you don't know about it iop.org there's chapters all over the nation and it's really easy to get involved and. I now serve on the national board as the regional VP for the central region. So I, I am now overseeing other chapters to ensure their success to kinda make sure that because it is all volunteer, it's, it's right packaging professionals from all different walks of life all trying to just kind of come together to. To help the industry the whole, we offer scholarships for students and there's just a lot of great things going on. So if you don't know about it, check it out.

Cory Connors: 13:36

And that's great advice to start young and start, if you're listening, if you're a student, a lot of students listen to this program. Join the I O P P now even before college. As a, as a young person in high school, maybe there's a chance for you to get a scholarship.

Doug Compton: 13:52

They do have student membership fees that's really low and reasonable. There are there's a, a mentoring. Beta test of a kind of mentor bar match going on. So as a young person in the industry, you could You could select different types of folks who could help you out in your career and guide you. So really, a lot of great resources. Another one I'll mention is called Pack Chat, which is basically a packaging specific blog for, for folks to kind of ask questions. Amongst other packaging professionals it's a, it's a useful tool that if you, if you get stuck and don't really know the answer to a question there's hundreds of other packaging engineers out on, on this system that would be willing to, to help you answer it.

Cory Connors: 14:35

That sounds like a, like a Discord chat or something like that. That's really cool.

Doug Compton: 14:38

Little bit, yeah.

Cory Connors: 14:40

This industry is. Very well known for being helpful to each other. I'm, I'm the more Yeah. People I talk to. Is that what you're finding as well, Doug?

Doug Compton: 14:51

Absolutely. For example In my efforts to find solutions in Pack Chat, you know, I was, I was looking at the time studying different types of flexible film, like hood type material that sheds water or is like has anti fog properties or moisture resistance and kind of putting feelers out through this. I receive responses from packaging engineers who work for the Army from different industries food and. It was just very helpful and, and, and it's it's a niche market, but everyone's really just very friendly to one another.

Cory Connors: 15:25

Yeah, really well said.. We've certainly identified a small community , and that community seems to grow all the time. People that actually are supportive of each other. But I want to talk about spec right? A little bit. That's where the, that's where we saw each other last. And we were, we were gonna try to do this event or this podcast live at spec, right? Summit. Mm-hmm.. But just schedules are tough cuz the, all the moments there, all the speakers there are so valuable. You want to hear 'em all? Absolutely. So can tell me about your experience there? What'd you think of the event?

Doug Compton: 15:58

I thought it was an excellent event. I think you know, I was there to learn as much as I can about their tool and their software. I think we, we have an opportunity potentially at Owens Corn. To do a better job of how we keep packing, but specifications. So their tool has certainly becoming industry leader. So it's kind of made its way under our, our horizon. But yeah, I think the event was great. It did offer a lot of time to network. It was nice for us to kind of just sit and chat right. And get to know each other kind of you know, how it used to. Pre pandemic type of way. And that was excellent. So yeah, I thought it was, it was well done. And looking forward to other packaging events as the year progresses, if I recall you were about to. Head out to Paris to to, yeah. Guests speaking Right after that event.

Cory Connors: 16:47

How did that go? Yeah, that, oh, it was really, really great. Paris Packaging Week, put on by Easy Fairs and just an amazing event. Thank you for asking. Yeah, really enjoyed it. Spent some time with the team from Unilever and Dermalogica and Tom Zacky from TerraCycle and, and oh yeah, to, to speak on the stage. It was really amazing. But whoa, if you ever get a chance, go, go to that event. It's very, very worth the time and the effort to get over there because it's, it's a little bit different than the, the American events I've been to. It seemed a little bit more spread. And just a little calmer, like, but, and there was 14,000 people there, there was a lot of people, but it just, it had a weird and I mean that in the best way. Kind of calm vibe to it. So. Nice. It was and I, I recorded six podcasts live from that event, . So I was excellent. I was busy. But yeah. Great, great question. Thank you for, for remembering.

Doug Compton: 17:43

There's certainly a lot to learn from our European counterparts. Yep. I know Owens Corning has a global presence and we do have operations overseas and in Europe. And you know, part of what I'm, part of my learning process is to understand where they're at, what challenges are they facing. I feel like it's almost an opportunity to look into the future a little bit to see what's coming our way here in the States. So I'm gonna try and. Get a handle on that as best I can is one of my objectives.

Cory Connors: 18:12

Yeah, absolutely true. And they're dealing with things in advance of us because they're pushing the limits to what's feasible and what's possible. Have you, have you tried to, to put a higher post-consumer recycled percentage into your, your materials? Is that one of the steps you've. We,

Doug Compton: 18:30

we do have some test and learns going on. So we are trying to really evaluate what percentages we can safely introduce and it's still run efficiently on our equipment. So that's kind of the hurdle that we want to prove our PCR content, mm-hmm. levels at versus just kind of arbitrarily picking a number.. So that's for, that's. Where we're at right now, we have some tests and learns in that area. We're also trying to, to re grind some of our packaging into pellets to see kind of what that, what that yields us. And so lot, lots going on from a test and learn kind of r d side. And we're hoping. Really move the needle forward a little bit in the coming years.

Cory Connors: 19:15

It's an exciting time in, in packaging spec. Specifically in sustainable packaging. Yeah, certainly. We'll, we'll have to have you on again in six months or a year and tell us your, your, your progress. Sounds good. So how do people get in touch with

Doug Compton: 19:29

you, Doug? Well, they can reach out to me. My email is doug dot compton owens corning.com. That'd probably be the easiest. And I'm on LinkedIn. You can find me there and reach out and connect on LinkedIn and happy to connect maybe at A I O P P event.

Cory Connors: 19:48

I'll see you, right? Yeah. Or the next spec right. Summit. Yeah. Right. Yeah, right. We'll be there. Alright sir. Thanks again. Really appreciate

Doug Compton: 19:55

this, Doug. Anytime. Thank you.