Public Agency Gives Support to Local Economy

by Erv Sandlin

When the state of Washington decided to cease funding its recycling market development program some years ago, King County decided to step up to the plate with its own recycling program for expanding recycling-based manufacturing. The result was the launch in April 2000 of the LinkUp program, sponsored by the County’s Solid Waste Division of the Department of Natural Resources and Parks.

LinkUp provides customized technical and marketing assistance to manufacturers in the Puget Sound region to help them use more recycled materials in their products and to help expand markets for recycled materials. Unlike traditional loan and grant programs, LinkUp provides a broad range of customized services through teams of specialists under contract with the County. These services include developing business plans; evaluating technologies and markets for recycled products; material testing assistance; locating reliable suppliers of recycled materials; providing entree to government purchasing departments; creating marketing materials and developing media plans.

LinkUp is a new chapter in King County’s nationally recognized sustainability and recycling efforts. In the past, the County focused on getting consumers and businesses to recycle and to buy recycled products. LinkUp takes this concept one step further by partnering with manufacturers to use more recycled materials in the products they make.

Survey Provides Direction
Program objectives were developed based on substantial business community research. In 1998, King County surveyed nearly 700 local manufacturers. Of that number, 42 percent reported they already used some recycled content in their products, and many of those were interested in using more. Another 51 percent said they did not presently use recycled materials, but wanted to learn more about them or how to market products containing recycled materials. A separate assessment of markets for King County recyclable materials identified four priority materials in need of marketing support: mixed glass cullet, mixed residential waste paper, urban wood and food waste. The LinkUp program would target manufacturers, whenever possible, who had the potential use these priority materials.

That the program is truly regional in scope is one of the main reasons for its success. King County is the most populated county in the state of Washington, with 29 percent of the state’s residents, and has the largest concentration of manufacturing businesses in the five-state Pacific Northwest region.

Markets for our recycled materials extend beyond King County’s borders. If we were to concentrate on only one small geographic area, we would not reach our full potential. By involving manufacturers beyond the county, we can develop regional markets that have a much greater capacity for recycled materials.

When the program began, its first year goal was to attract 6-12 manufacturers. By the end of the first year, six businesses signed up along with a financial partner, the City of Seattle, which is located in the county but operates its own recycling and solid waste programs. Now, as LinkUp enters its fourth year, 18 manufacturers actively participate. They manufacture a wide variety of products, but they all use recycled material from King County.

Following are brief profiles of LinkUp partner companies:

L&S Tire Company
Last year L&S collected about 1.5 million scrap tires from waster transfer stations, landfills, tire retailers and wrecking yards in Washington, Idaho and parts of Oregon. The company, launched in 1999 and headquartered in Spokane with a south Puget Sound facility, is the state’s largest scrap tire recycler. As part of the LinkUp program, the company receives assistance in researching technology grant opportunities, updating the company’s business plan and evaluating the feasibility of entering two new, higher-value markets. One is manufacturing smaller tire chips better suited for civil engineering applications and tire-derived fuel. The other is producing “crumb rubber” for use in recycled rubber products. If data reveal that a viable crumb rubber market exists, it may lead to the establishment of the first crumb rubber manufacturing operation in the state.

Quarry Tile Company
One of Quarry Tile’s newest products is Eco-Tile, a ceramic tile made of about 70 percent recycled materials. Eco-Tile combines recycled glass, recycled grinding paste from the computer disk industry and recycled soil/rock waste from the premixed concrete industry. The product also contains reprocessed glaze waste from the company’s other manufacturing operations. Located in Spokane, the company uses mixed color glass cullet, designated a priority material by King County. Quarry Tile gets the glass cullet from the TriVitro Corp. in Kent, WA., another LinkUp partner. TriVito’s scrap makes up 25 percent of the recycled content used in Eco-Tile, and its use saves TriVitro about $20,000 a year in disposal costs. The LinkUp team will help Quarry Tile find new markets for Eco-Tile as well as material testing services.

Recycled Plastics Marketing, Inc. (RPM)
RPM takes recycled plastic items, such as milk jugs and soft drink containers, and creates products such as plastic lumber, outdoor furniture and landscape materials. In early 2000, the company opened the first plastic lumber manufacturing facility in Tacoma.

Renton Concrete Recyclers
This company, located on 13 acres south of Seattle, crushes some 1500 tons of construction debris each day, including concrete, ceramic, marble, brick, stone and asphalt. The recycled aggregate, available in three grades, is sold for roadbed material as well as fill for sidewalks, driveways and paths. Studies show that properly applied recycled aggregate fulfills construction or road-building requirements as well or better than virgin materials while it saves money. The use of recycled materials for large construction projects such as roads can significantly reduce the amount of virgin material extracted from local gravel pits.

Schuyler Rubber Company
Founded in 1950, this company is the country’s largest laminated rubber manufacturer, producing primarily custom marine fenders for docks, tugs, barges and workboats. The products, made from recycled truck tires, are cost-effective, durable and reliable. SRC recycleds about 500 truck tires daily, reusing 100 percent of the steel-belted tires and about 90 percent of the bias-ply tires. Unused tire scaps are sent to another local manufacturer where they are turned into crumb rubber. Unlike virgin rubber products, which are sold in standard sizes and cost extra to modify, SRC custom manufactures its products to fit the complex shapes and angles of marine vessels and docks.

Expanding the market for scrap tires in a priority for King County. Each year, 5-6 million scrap tires are generated in the state but the number of tires that are recycled has dropped by two-thirds from 1995-2001. The LinkUp team will help Schuyler Rubber Co. identify and target government agencies that might be potential customers and will provide product testing services.

Urban Hardwoods
This firm is owned and operated by master furniture craftsman Jim Newsom. This specialty wood-milling business provides woo
d to furniture makers, hobbyists, cabinetmakers and others. To do so, Newsom collects and mills urban hardwood trees, such as maple, chestnut, oak and beech, that are cut down by Puget Sound-area tree service companies, utility crews and building contractors. He removes those felled trees at no cost to the tree service or utility company and recycled the wood into quality products with very high resale value. Newsom transforms 90 percent of the reclaimed trees into fine cabinets, tabletops and desks; the remaining 10 percent is sold to hobbyists and other furniture makers.

Building new markets for wood waste is a priority for King County because a high volume of urban trees end up as low-value products, such as boiler fuel and landscape mulch.

American Plastic Manufacturing, Inc.
Last year, APM used more than 300,000 pounds of recycled plastic to make plastic bags for area retailers. That adds up to about 1.5 million plastic milk jugs taken out of the waste stream. Since 1995, the company has recycled over 10 million plastic milk jugs, collected through curbside programs in Washington, Oregon and British Columbia.
Allied Floors
This innovative 60-year-old company recently created a new product called Spectacular Floors, which mixes recycled glass in a custom-colored cement base to produce one-of-a-kind floor designs. It can be installed quickly and easily and dries in a few hours. A colored tint and recycled glass pieces can be added to the base to create a custom design. After it dries, the floor is ground with a diamond grinder to reveal the distinctive glass and cement pattern. Allied buys recycled glass pieces from TriVitro, another LinkUp partner. Allied has received marketing support, including assistance with logo design and brochure.

Brandrud Furniture
For the past six years, this company has reduced the amount of hardwood used in the interior framing of its chairs and sofas by substituting wheatboard, an agricultural by-product made from the straw portion of the wheat stalk. The company also uses Dakota Burl, made from sunflower seed shells, in its shelving and tabletops. LinkUp is helping Brandrud identify new ways to incorporate more recycled materials into its products.

MetaMorf, Inc.
This ecodesign firm creates durable and functional chairs, benches, tables and other products from common household items, such as milk jugs and shampoo bottles. Recently, the company adapted a plastic molding process that uses 100 percent recycled post-consumer plastic. LinkUp has helped MetaMorf create a business plan to expand its use of this molding process.

TriVitro Corporation
This company specializes in diverting postconsumer recycled glass to use as an alternative sandblasting medium. The result is a product that has numerous environmental, safety and health benefits. In spring 2000, King County organized a demonstration event that allowed construction project managers, engineers, procurement staff and others to see how a crushed glass-blasting medium performs under actual working conditions. The resulting word-of-mouth and media publicity, along with a second promotional campaign that focused on TriVitro’s recycled tumbled glass line, helped the company secure new customers.

Recovery One, Inc.
This construction, demolition and land-clearing recycling facility is one of the few in the country that can manage mixed debris shipments. In its multimillion dollar facility at the Port of Tacoma, the company recycles over 99 percent of incoming debris materials into marketable products, making its operation a more affordable alternative to trucking that same “waste” to the landfill. In early 2001, the LinkUp team helped Recovery One create a marketing campaign using a series of direct-mail postcards. The company added 25 new customers and increased its debris handling to 500 tons a day – a 30 percent increase from the previous year. LinkUp is helping the company develop a market for recycled scrap carpet – the first program of its kind in the Northwest for this problem waste.

Recycled Plastic Products
RPP collects trash carts and recycling bins that are broken or no longer in use and recycles them to make heavy-duty trash cart wheels. The company, based in Bluffdale, Utah, uses a thermo-kinetic manufacturing process, which allows it to use waste plastic with higher-than-usual levels of contamination. RPP is working to introduce its wheels to trash haulers, solid waste utilities and waste bin manufacturers in the Northwest. The LinkUp team is helping them identify potential government customers.

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