News

Domino's throws substantial pizza muscle behind box-recycling effort

Image: Provided

July 20, 2020

After the American Forest & Paper Association released industry guidance last week letting consumers know that despite what they've heard, pizza boxes are recyclable, the world's largest pizza company — Domino's — is working to further this sustainability cause, by pushing its customers to recycle their pie containers, a news release said.

The brand's and its primary box supplier, WestRock, are launching a website brimming with pizza box recycling info at recycling.dominos.com that tells anyone interested exactly how to recycle pizza boxes and what to do if their community doesn't accept pizza boxes for recycling.

Just as the AF&PA did last week, Domino's and West Rock this week are letting the public know that even with some grease, pizza boxes can be recycled. WestRock conducted a research study evaluating the impact of typical amounts of grease and residual cheese on pizza boxes and found that they typically don't affect the quality of finished corrugated product containing expected levels of recovered fibers.

"Because nearly everything that leaves a Domino's store leaves in a corrugated box, we know we have an opportunity to make a difference when it comes to packaging and recycling," Tim McIntyre, Domino's executive vice president of communications, said in the release. "Our goal is that our customers will set aside any misconceptions they have around the recyclability of pizza boxes, read the facts and put their empty box in the recycling bin — or call their municipality and ask them to add pizza boxes to their collection."

A total of 73% of the U.S. population is estimated to have recycling programs available for pizza boxes, according to a Resource Recycling Systems access study commissioned by WestRock in fall 2019. While 27% of the population is served by programs with explicit acceptance of pizza boxes, 46% of the population has access to programs that imply, but don't say specifically, that they accept pizza boxes. The remainder is either unclear or said they cannot take pizza boxes.

Domino's and WestRock are both members of The Recycling Partnership — a nonprofit dedicated to improving access to recycling. Domino's, WestRock and a second box supplier partnered to fund The Recycling Partnership's development of materials for municipalities to update their recycling programs to include pizza boxes.

Consumers can find a link to The Recycling Partnership's toolkit on recycling.dominos.com, which they can send to their local recycling programs to encourage them to accept pizza boxes into their system.
Together with WestRock earlier in 2020, Domino's increased the recycled content in its pizza boxes from 40% to 72%. Domino's is also partnering with One Tree Planted to plant 50,000 trees across North America. Customers are invited to vote on social media for the region(s) where trees will be planted.

With more than 17,100 stores in over 90 markets, Domino's efforts to get customers to recycle their boxes and municipalities to accept such refuse could potentially be substantial.