Plastic Tree Information

Plastic Tree is a climate positive waste management company based in Washington, D.C. whose core mission is to reduce the production of new virgin plastic through reuse. We are establishing “REUSE!” as a fourth waste stream to complement municipal landfill, recycling, and compost collections beginning with Washington D.C. as our pilot city. Our solution is simple in concept: classifying reusable packaging as a separate waste collection so that packaging can be collected intact and reused for its original intended purpose. We want to encourage more businesses to design with reusability in mind and to take the convenience of our throwaway culture and apply it to a circular culture structure. We are tackling our global plastic problem by meeting supply chain needs of major plastic producers through a more thoughtful and strategic waste management collection. Plastic packaging is reused multiple times for its original engineered purpose until it has reached the end of its life-cycle at which point it is recycled and reused, closing the loop. With our team’s experience in supply chain management, sustainability, project management, system dynamics modeling, qualitative research, legal and regulatory research, waste management, and plastics engineering, Plastic Tree is leveraging both technical and humanistic approaches to change society’s attitude toward REUSE! and thoughtfully disrupt waste collection systems.