Dart is the National Sponsor of a new “plogging” program from Keep America Beautiful. Plogging is a trend from Scandinavia that encourages people to pick up litter as they walk or run. Dart’s sponsorship introduces plogging at community running events across the US and provides free trash grabbers. Participants can continue to use trash grabbers to collect litter long after an event.

In 2019 we kicked off the first annual “Trash Dash” event on September 15 in Norwalk, CT. Participants picked up nearly 750 pounds of waste during the event.

We also sponsored eight KAB plogging events in Norwalk; Las Vegas, NV; Houston, San Antonio and Dallas, TX; Tupelo, MS; Knoxville, TN; and Oklahoma City, OK. We provided 2,300 plogging kits, complete with reusable gloves, bags and trash grabbers, to KAB affiliates, volunteers and participants.

Our partnership with KAB continues in 2021, with more plogging activities planned, including the third annual Trash Dash.

In 2019 Dart’s affiliate, Omni Recycling, opened the first-of-its-kind facility dedicated to recycling mixed bales of foam and rigid polystyrene from residential curbside recycling programs in the US and Canada. This $18+ million facility is located in Indianapolis, IN, which will help reduce North American dependency on overseas reclamation facilities.
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We opened our $32 million technical and innovation center on our Mason, MI, campus in early 2019. Known as The Vertical, the center enables us to develop new and improved products with a focus on sustainability and improved speed to market.

The Vertical’s mix of technical and creative spaces is a ripe proving ground for continued innovation in the food and beverage packaging industry.

Dart’s Community Action Team is a group of Dart employees throughout North America who volunteer to improve their local communities. Dart has committed that each of our locations will participate in one or more clean-up events in the communities where we live and work, with a goal of contributing at least 7,500 hours of community service annually by 2021. Then, we’re going to continue to push ourselves until we average one hour for each of our 13,000 employees.

In 2019 we piloted our new DCAT program in Lodi, CA, and Mason, MI. In single-day events centered around local waterways, Lodi volunteers picked up more than 600 pounds of trash and Mason volunteers collected more than 900 pounds. After each cleanup, volunteers sorted trash to separate recyclables from items that needed to be landfilled.

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Dart, and our SOLO brand, is committed through SOLO Supports to helping provide 1.5 million meals through Feeding America. We’re making it possible for the entire SOLO community to join forces for something even bigger: Making a positive impact on our communities and the world around us. And as we deal with an international health and economic crisis, coming together to care for others is more important than ever.

From June 1, 2020 to May 30, 2022, SOLO will donate 20% of each SOLO Supports sale to Feeding America, with a guaranteed minimum donation of $75,000 per year equating to at least $150,000 by the end of our two-year commitment. Learn more about SOLO Supports at solosupports.com/.

We are inspiring others to invest in secondary material recovery facilities (MRFs) and committed significant dollars to advance the concept of secondary MRFs in the US. We also pushed for secondary MRF adoption with industry associations and through public policy.

Secondary MRFs help solve the challenge primary MRFs face regarding materials that lack critical mass. Primary MRFs can recycle the materials they choose to sort, then send materials they don’t want to sort to a secondary MRF. Since a secondary MRF receives material from several primary MRFs, it reaches the volume necessary for profitable recycling of items such as aseptic cartons, non-clear PET, polypropylene and polystyrene. Titus, the company in which Dart has invested since 2014, has diverted 210,000 pounds of aluminum cans, 3.3 million pounds of PET bottles and 35 million pounds of paper from landfills.

Read more about our thoughts on secondary MRFs in this Plastics News op-ed.

In 2019, Dart committed to compliance by 2020 with Operation Clean Sweep (OCS) standards at all our US manufacturing locations. We’re proud to announce our remaining US manufacturing facilities achieved OCS recognition in 2020 and OCS Blue recognition in 2021.

OCS Blue is a program with more rigorous standards for zero plastic resin, pellet, flake and powder loss in the manufacturing process.

Dart has always prioritized zero plastic loss and OCS Blue recognition ensures we’re meeting the gold standard in our industry and increasing the accountability and transparency for loss of plastic resin to the environment.

Dart is committed to addressing marine debris through prevention, education and mitigation. One way we’re doing so is by providing up to $100,000 in grants for the purchase and installation of UltraTech’s patented Ultra-Drain Guard stormwater management products, which prevent litter, oil and sediment from entering waterways via storm drains. Marinas and local municipalities in the US and Canada that want to learn more about the program or submit applications for grants of up to $4,000 per organization should visit UltraTech at www.keepmarinasclean.com or call (904) 292-1611.

Dart will play an active role in industry associations to advance sustainable solutions for the products we manufacture. In 2021, Dart served on the following boards of directors to ensure foodservice packaging has a voice and becomes more sustainable:

• Association of Plastic Recyclers
• Biodegradable Products Institute
• Foodservice Packaging Institute
• Keep America Beautiful
• National Association of PET Container Resources.

In Europe, we served on the board of directors for the following organizations:

• Paper Cup Alliance
• Recoup
• 360° Foodservice
• Packaging Federation
• Foodservice Packaging Association.

We were also active with many other organizations including The Recycling Partnership and the US Compost Council’s Corporate Compost Leadership Council.