The origins of ADFPI began in November 2017 when Executive Director Jack Cooper was sitting in a restaurant when he noticed all the uneaten food, food containers, wrappers and service ware being bagged and placed in a dumpster destined for landfill disposal. He asked himself why is that waste not used for animal feed? He reasoned that if the plastic in the waste could be replaced by animal digestible food packaging, much of the waste generated by consumers at quick service restaurants and by grocery stores could become a resource by being manufactured into animal feed, keeping it out of landfills and the environment.
Upon investigation, he discovered no unified research effort for the discovery of plastic food packaging replacements that would be digestible by animals. He put his many years of food industry experience to work by establishing and personally funding the nonprofit, ADFPI.
In November 2019, in an effort to call attention to the need for animal digestible replacements for plastic food packaging and to secure funding for the continuation of the ADFP Initiative, Jack established Plastic Food Packaging Waste News www.pfpw.news as a Maryland LLC with Matt Tarka, the Initiative webmaster and social media director, as a partner – The mission of the news service was to address and call attention to the scientific, regulatory and public affairs issues associated with the improper discard of plastic food packaging waste – Improperly discarded refers to plastic food packaging that finds its way to land and waterways, where it is left to naturally degrade. The news service shut down on July 1, 2022 ; however, news updates will continue to be written and distributed through www.adfpi.org To have your email address added to the complimentary ADFPI news service distribution list, send an email to Jack at JLC@pfpw.news or sign up here.
On December 31, 2023, Jack Cooper, at 82, retired from professional activities to pursue personal interests – ADFPI management, effective January 1, 2024, is in the hands of Angela Anandappa as noted here: https://adfpi.org/2023/12/15/introducing-angela-anandappa-as-executive-director/
Vision
Our vision is that the food industry trade associations will establish a public private partnership for the discovery of new food packaging materials digestible by animals, that such food packaging will be discovered, that such packaging will be widely used, and that food waste accompanied by its packaging will be recoverable for manufacture into animal feed.
Mission
Our mission is to advance the national and international conversation about ADFP by bringing together key stakeholders. Stakeholders include representatives of grocers, restaurants, food manufacturers, food packaging manufacturers, renderers, animal feed manufacturers, trade associations, academics, non-profits, and government agencies.
Specifically, we encourage the establishment of a public-private partnership for ADFP. Once the partnership is established, the next step would be for participants to seek funding for the partnership.
The partnership would research new food packaging materials that are digestible by animals. Once such materials are developed, partnership members would promote their widespread adoption throughout the food industry.
Support ADFPI
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