Food & Beverage

Recycle that pizza box? Domino's will show you the way

September 28, 2020

Domino's — which said it is the planet's biggest pizza company — is hoping to prod customers to recycle some of their pizza boxes by launching a zip code look-up feature online. Customers may use recycling.dominos.com to see where and if their neighborhoods recycle the packaging, according to a company press release.

The information is being made available through a partnership with packaging provider, WestRock. It seeks to clear up of confusion around whether such boxes can be remade into other usable products through recycling, whichhas been a longstanding source of misinformation.

Corrugated pizza boxes are recyclable, and 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.

"We have heard a lot of excitement from customers about pizza boxes being recyclable. However, sometimes they were confused about their local regulations," Jenny Fouracre, Domino's director of public relations, said in the release. "This new tool on our recycling site should help to clarify the local regulations. We are also really happy to see communities nationwide communicating more clearly to residents that they do want pizza boxes in their recycling bins, instead of the garbage cans."

Suzanna Caldwell, recycling coordinator for municipality of Anchorage Department of Solid Waste Services, learned of the corrugated pizza box recycling study in late July. Caldwell reviewed the facts and decided Anchorage residents should be able to recycle their corrugated pizza boxes. She worked with her local recycling processor and waste hauler so that everyone in the Anchorage recycling stream was on board. She communicated the news that pizza boxes would be accepted to residents in August.

"We're always looking to accept more recycled material in Anchorage, and Anchorage also happens to be a bit of a pizza town," Caldwell said in the release. "Immediately after announcing the pizza box recycling update to the Anchorage community, people reached out to express their excitement — some called it the best news of 2020."

If the recycling guidelines in a customer's area do not explicitly state the acceptance of corrugated pizza boxes, Domino's hopes they will be updated to clearly state that empty, corrugated pizza boxes can be recycled like any other corrugated box.

Domino's and WestRock are both members of The Recycling Partnership — a nonprofit dedicated to improving accessibility to and quality of recycling. Domino's, WestRock and a second box supplier, Pratt, partnered to fund The Recycling Partnership's development of materials for municipalities to update their recycling programs to include pizza boxes. The team in Anchorage used these free resources to help convert their programs to accept pizza boxes and communicate the change to their communities.