Millions of plastic gloves end up in the trash聽every year, which has a聽serious聽impact on the environment. 聽At fast-casual dining chain聽Chipotle,聽workers are required to swap gloves hourly, plus any time聽they switch tasks. That piles up quickly:聽Each location goes through around 150,000 gloves聽per year,聽95 percent of which end up in landfills.
Traditional recycling facilities can’t process聽polyethylene gloves, so they’re usually thrown out and end up in landfills. For Chipotle, that comes out to a staggering聽375聽million gloves per year across all its locations.
Under the pilot program, which has rolled out at eateries聽in Portland, Oregon and Sacramento, California, employees drop their used gloves into a cardboard box.聽Once the box聽fills up, it’s sealed and shipped聽to Revolution’s plant in Salinas, California. The gloves聽then are cleaned, shredded, and turned into tiny pellets that are melted down to form the bags.