ISRI seeks nominations for 2017 Design for Recycling Award

The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), the Voice of the Recycling Industry, today released a call for entries for the 2017 Design for Recycling (DFR) Award. The DFR Award is ISRI’s highest award given annually to the most outstanding contribution to products designed with recycling in mind. It recognizes proactive steps made by manufacturers who have actively incorporated DFR principles into products and processes.

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“When designing a product, manufacturers should be giving just as much of a priority to the product’s ability to be recycled as manufacturers do cost, appearance, and other factors,” said Robin Wiener, president of ISRI. “Effective recycling begins at the drawing board. Through the Design for Recycling Award, ISRI is looking to reward companies, designers, and manufacturers with the mindset of producing products that can be recycled safely and with ease, thus benefiting both the environment and the economy.”

ISRI inaugurated the award more than 10 years ago. Previous winners include Cascades Fine Papers Group, Coca-Cola Recycling Company, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Dell Inc., LG Electronics, and this year’s winner Samsung Electronics America.

To be eligible for ISRI’s Design for Recycling Award ®, a product must be designed/redesigned and manufactured to:

• Contain the maximum amount of materials that are recyclable.
• Be easily recycled through current or newly designed recycling processes and procedures.
• Be cost effective to recycle whereby the cost to recycle does not exceed the value of its recycled materials.
• Be free of hazardous materials that are not recyclable or impede the recycling process.
• Minimize the time and cost involved to recycle the product.
• Reduce the use of raw materials by including recycled materials and/or components.
• Have a net gain in the overall recyclability of the product while reducing the overall negative impact on the environment.

Interested parties can register before the January 20, 2017 deadline. The winner will be recognized at the ISRI 2017 Convention and Exposition to be held April 22-27 in New Orleans.

American consumers say that recyclability matters when making purchasing decisions. According to a survey conducted in November 2014 by Harris Poll, two-thirds (66 per cent) of Americans say they look for information on whether or not the product is made from recycled materials when making a purchase. Furthermore, Americans would be willing to spend 13 per cent more, on average, on a product if it was fully recyclable, and an average of 10 per cent more for a product if they knew it was made of recycled materials.