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The following case studies focus on companies who manufacture products using recycled content. To learn more about manufacturing with recycled content, visit tips for your business.
Turning municipal recyclables into new products The Visy waste paper recycling mill on Staten Island consumes 380,000 tons of post-consumer waste paper each year and turns it into linerboard for corrugated cardboard boxes. The mill, run by Visy Paper, a subsidiary of Pratt Industries, currently receives 40 percent (150,000 tons per year) of the waste paper collected through New York City’s paper recycling program. The Visy mill is the only recipient of NYC-collected waste paper that actually re-manufactures the paper within the City. The $200 million wastepaper mill opened in 1997 and was the first facility built under New York State’s “brownfields” initiative for redevelopment of old industrial sites. Visy Paper is in the process of constructing a new 100,000 square-foot facility that will convert the linerboard it currently produces into corrugated sheets, boxes, and other value-added products. The new plant represents the second phase of the project envisioned in 1995 to establish wastepaper recycling facilities in New York City. Source: NYC Office of the Mayor press release, June 23, 2003 Armstrong World Industries set up a Ceilings Recycling Program for mineral-fiber ceiling tile and board collected from buildings using Armstrong ceiling systems in building renovation projects. Since its inception in 1999, the program has recycled more than 10 million square feet of ceiling. Armstrong estimates that their mineral fiber ceiling products (based on typical 2002 production statistics) contain 22 to 78 percent recycled content. Source: Armstrong Industries Making old car bumpers into new bumpers Ford Motor Company started its bumper take-back program in the United States in 1993 as a pilot project to recycle plastic bumper material into tail-light housings. This established program now recycles plastic bumper material to make new bumpers. Together with a plastics recycler in Michigan, Ford collects bumpers and other plastics from a network of 400 dismantlers across the country. The plastics recycler processes six to eight million pounds of material per year and sells it to Ford (who uses 1.5 million pounds per year) and other manufacturers. Making difficult-to-recycle plastic into new products Target recycles the steel from its damaged shopping carts but had difficulty finding a market for the thousands of pounds of plastic coming from the same carts. Target decided to create its own recycling program. In 1998 Target worked with a vendor to transform 30,000 pounds of plastic into pet food dishes that were then sold in its stores. Source: Working Together to Protect the Planet, Dayton Hudson Corporation’s 1998 Environmental Progress Report
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Manufacturing with Recycled Content Case Studies
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