Holli Alexander
Strategic Initiatives Manager, Global Sustainability
Recycled Content is Harder than You Think:
A Multi-Faceted Approach to Solving the Plastic Waste Crisis
Presentation Description:
So many brands now have goals for recycled content that there’s literally not enough to go around – under our current system, most brands won’t be able to hit their goals. But how can that be? Our ocean is awash in plastic waste. How can we not capture it and turn it into new materials? The simple fact is: Our current recycling infrastructure isn’t equipped to tackle our current crisis. Enter: advanced circular recycling. Eastman’s advanced circular recycling technologies that allow brands to incorporate certified recycling content in packaging in ways the industry hasn’t been able to before. To solve the plastic waste crisis,
we need a multi-faceted approach that looks ahead, not behind. Essentially, when you can used mechanical recycled content – use it! When you can’t, turn to advanced circular recycling.
In a fast-moving presentation, Holli will tell the audience how we actually recycle materials today (mechanically), what the limitations are (downgrading, multi-layers that can’t be recycled, stream contamination), and how we could augment the current system with new advanced circular recycling technologies. After, she will conclude with a pathway for how we can breakthrough, make our waste management system work, help brands hit their recycled content goals, and put a major dent in the plastic waste problem – together.
Speaker Biography:
As Strategic Initiatives Manager in Eastman’s Global Sustainability Organization, Holli Alexander helps translate the complexity of sustainability into tangible and actionable efforts.
For the last 10 years, she has focused on plastics, recycling and sustainability. In 2012, Holli launched and led the Full-Wrap Label Consortium, a group founded by Eastman to address the challenges recycling PET bottles that use shrink labels. She represents Eastman in a variety of external organizations including the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s CE100. She serves on the Sustainability Advisory Board for PLASTICS and is leading an emerging work group there exploring chemical recycling technologies.
Holli was born and raised in Indiana and received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Indiana University.