Recycled content is something we see on products all over the market place today. It’s not uncommon to see the percentage of the recycled content on a product printed somewhere on the label. The question is where does that recycled content come from?
While we are all familiar with post-consumer, there is a lot of opportunity for post-industrial recycled material.
In every manufacturing facility there is waste. While we all want to operate as efficiently as possible, the reality is that not everything produced turns into a finished product. Any waste material from a manufacturer has two different opportunities: landfill or recycle. Any time you can keep material from going into a landfill that is a win. In the plastics industry recycled material has the opportunity to go into a wide variety of parts that can go on to have a long service life in whatever industry it serves. Many plastics are highly recyclable materials that only need to be ground back up to go through the conversion process and come out as high quality parts.
A tremendous advantage that post-industrial recycle has is ease of access to a distribution network. Scrap material is easily collected and sorted in the facility that it comes out of and quickly sent to be re-processed into a raw material form. In fact, post-industrial PVC material has an enormous market dedicated to keeping this material out of landfills and getting it to plastics processors efficiently. Engineered Profiles participates in this market keeping millions of pounds of plastic out of landfills every year. This post-industrial recycled content helps to keep costs down for both Engineered Profiles and our customers.
Post-industrial recycled material is popping up anywhere. It is often used for wood and metal replacement in a wide variety of markets. Taking advantage of this material stream is good for business and good for the environment.
