Hot Green Companies that Use Recycled Materials

Hot Logs
Hot Logs, located in Oroville, California, has been in business only two years but is growing rapidly. The company makes fire logs from old waxed corrugated boxes. Much of the feedstock comes from local manufacturers like Holiday Markets and Raleys or from packing plants that receive fruits and vegetables in waxed boxes.

The logs are quick and easy to light, are nontoxic and burn cleaner than most firewoods. They generate 40 percent more heat than other manufactured firelogs. Best of all, there is now a “realistic way to reuse waxed boxes” – material that is difficult to recycle, and often ends up in landfills.

Mike Decker, VP Operations explains that wax is paraffin, safe for fireplaces and wood stoves. “We cut the boxes and chip the wax. Then it goes into a dryer. What comes out are pieces of cardboard and wax” that can be molded into fire logs or sold loose as fire starter.

The company uses a trailer tractor load of old boxes a day – 8000 logs – and is looking to substantially expand over the next year. Decker hopes to open a plant in Georgia and is scouting locations in the San Francisco Bay area as well.

Last year, Hot Logs found a ready market for its product in Yosemite Park after officials banned wood collection or bringing firewood into the park.

Timbron International
Timbron takes polystyrene blocks used by large industrial companies for transport packaging and converts them into mouldings sold by Home Depot and other retailers.

Steve Lacy, CEO, of the Stockton, California-based company notes that “Expanded polystyrene (EPS) becomes a value, not an expense” for the companies that provide Timbron with source material. “We take a densifier to the manufacturer’s site and ship full truckloads back to our plant. The densifier squeezes out 95 percent of the air from the foam making it cost effective to transport. When it reaches Timbron’s plant, it is shredded and reconverted to polystyrene and then extruded as a millwork product. Currently, there are seven patterns of moulding, with more coming.

The company’s current manufacturing capacity is 25 million pounds of EPS. The resulting product can be sanded, cut, nailed, painted and glued. Unlike wood, polystyrene mouldings can be used in wet areas where wood doesn’t hold up well. The product is mold and termite proof. The manufacturing process allows a “defect-free finished surface” which doesn’t have to be painted.

Timbron sold 20 million feet at Home Depot alone last year and is looking to substantially increase sales this year.

Baltix Furniture
Headquartered in Minnesota, Baltix makes green office furniture. It makes panels from sunflower seed hulls, wheat straw, recycled newspaper and plastics recovered from milk cartons.

The panels are powder coated to provide attractive components for desks, workstations, file cabinets and other office furniture. No harmful glues, volatile organic compounds or formaldehydes are used. At the end of their useful life, the company pledges to reclaim all materials.

Baltix can customize solutions for almost any office situation and recently came out with a line of products for home offices its SOHO (Single Office/Home Office) line.

All of these companies showcased their products at the Annual Environmental & Recycled Product Trade Show, organized by the California Integrated Waste Management Board. This year’s show is April 6-7, 2005. [sorry this link is no longer available]++++

Excerpted FROM In Business, a SustainableBusiness.com Content Partner