Public agency gives support to local economy

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 regional program for expanding recycling-based manufacturing. The resuit 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. The assistance provided by the Linkup team helps companies attain a more sustainable manufacturing process, while helping to develop new markets for recyclable materials.

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 that 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 to 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. With so much of the region's social, cultural, educational and commercial activity centered in King County, it is both natural and necessary that the County assumes a regional leadership role, reaching beyond its borders to forge partnerships throughout the Pacific Northwest. The LinkUp program, with its focus on resource conservation and developing regional recycling markets, is an excellent example of that kind of vision and leadership.

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 King County, we can develop markets that are truly regional with a much greater capacity for recycled materials.

When the program was begun three years ago, its first-year goal was to attract six to 12 manufacturers. By the end of that year, the program had welcomed six business partners as well as a financial partner, the city of Seattle, which is located in the county but operates its own solid waste and recycling programs. Now, as LinkUp enters its fourth year, there are 18 manufacturers actively participating in the program, located throughout the Puget Sound area and beyond. They manufacture a great variety of recycled products but they all share at least one thing in common: they make their products from King County's recycled materials.

Following are brief profiles of the companies that are partners in the LinkUp program:

L & S Tire Company

Last year, L & S Tire Company collected about 1.5 million scrap tires from waste 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 in Lakewood, Washington, is the state's largest scrap tire recycler. As part of the LinkUp program, L & S Tire Company will receive 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 Washington state.

Quarry Tile Company

One of Quarry Tile's newest products is Eco-Tile, a ceramic tile made of approximately 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 Quarry Tile's other manufacturing operations. Located in Spokane, Washington, the company uses mixed-- color glass cullet, designated a priority material for increased recycling by King County. Quarry Tile gets the glass cutler from the TriVitro Corporation in Kent, Washington, another LinkUp partner. This partnership is a win-win-win situation for both companies and King County. The scrap material from TriVitro makes up about 25 percent of the recycled content used in Eco-Tile, and its use saves TriVitro about $20,000 a year in disposal costs. The County benefits from the expanded market for recycled glass generated and collected locally. The LinkUp team will help Quarry Tile find new markets for Eco-Tile by providing marketing support as well as material testing services.

Recycled Plastics Marketing, Inc.

A leader in the field of innovative plastic recycling, Recycled Plastics Marketing, Inc. (RPM), headquartered in Redmond, takes recycled plastic items, such as milk jugs and soft drink containers, and creates new products from them, primarily plastic lumber, outdoor furnishings and landscape materials. In early 2000, RPM opened a plastic lumber manufacturing facility in Tacoma - the only one of its kind in Washington State.

Renton Concrete Recyclers

This company, located on 13 acres south of Seattle, crushes some 1,500 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. Renton Concrete Recyclers, founded in 1988, offers a cost-effective and environmentally friendly means of recycling demolition rubble while providing businesses and government agencies a way to increase their use of recycled materials. Studies have shown that properly applied recycled aggregate fulfills construction or roadbuilding job requirements as well as or better than virgin materials and saves money. The use of recycled materials for large construction projects such as roads can also significantly reduce the amount of virgin material extracted from local gravel pits.

Schuyler Rubber Company

Schuyler Rubber Company, founded in 1950, 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. At its Woodinville, Washington facility, Schuyler recycles up to 500 truck tires per day, reusing 100 percent of the steel-belted tires and about 90 percent of the biasply tires. Unused tire scraps are sent to another local manufacturer where they are turned into crumb rubber. Unlike virgin rubber products, which are sold in certain sizes and cost extra to modify, Schuyler custom manufactures its products to fit the complex shapes and angles of marine vessels and docks. Expanding the market for scrap tires is a priority for King County. Each year, five to six million scrap tires are generated in Washington State but the number of tires recycled in King County has dropped by two-thirds from 1995 to 2001. The LinkUp team will help Schuyler Rubber Company identify and target government agencies that might be potential customers. The team will also provide some product testing services.

Urban Hardwoods

This firm is owned and operated by master furniture craftsman Jim Newsom. This specialty wood-milling business provides wood 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 these felled trees at no cost to the tree service or utility company and recycles the wood into quality products with very high resale value. Newsom transforms about 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 urban 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.

Bedrock Industries

Bedrock gets its glass from bottles recycled through curbside collection programs, the company's own bottle drive efforts and scrap glass salvaged from commercial enterprises, such as window manufacturers. When bottles come into Bedrock, they are colorsorted and then crushed into tiny pieces. The crushed glass is then put into molds and heated in kilns to make tiles, wind chimes and other products. (See accompanying article on Maria Ruano and Bedrock Industries.)

American Plastic Manufacturing, Inc.

Last year, American Plastic Manufacturing (APM) used more than 300,000 pounds of recycled plastic to make plastic bags for area retailers. That adds up to approximately 1.5 million plastic milk jugs taken out of the waste stream. In fact, since 1995, the company has recycled more than 10 million plastic milk containers, collected through curbside recycling programs in Washington, Oregon and British Columbia. Once the plastic is collected, it is made into beads of recycled resin. APM heats and extrudes the resin into a large hollow plastic tube, which is then converted into plastic bags.

Allied Floors

This innovative 60-year-old company recently created a new product it calls Spectocular Floors, which mixes recycled glass in a custom-colored cement base to produce one-of-a-kind floor designs. A Spectocular Floor uses a concrete-based floor leveling material that can be installed quickly and easily and dries within a few hours. A color tint and recycled glass pieces can be added to the base to create a customized design. After it dries, the floor is ground with a diamond grinder to reveal the distinctive glass and cement pattern. Currently, Allied is buying recycled glass pieces from another LinkUp partner - TriVitro Corporation. As a LinkUp partner, Allied has received marketing support, including assistance with a logo design and product brochure, to help the company launch this new environmentally friendly product.

Brandrud Furniture

For the past six years, Brandrud, based in Auburn, Washington, has reduced the amount of hardwood used in the interior framing of its chairs and sofas by substituting wheatboard, a renewable 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. Link Up is also helping the company identify new ways to incorporate more recycled materials into its products.

MetaMorf, Inc.

This ecodesign firm, with studios in Seattle and Bellingham, creates stylized, 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 consumer-waste plastic with a minimum of preprocessing. LinkUp has worked with MetaMorf to create a business plan that will help the firm expand into use of this new molding process.

TrIVitro Corporation

This Kent, Washington 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 secand 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 debris 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, Recovery One recycles more than 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 during the initial mailing and increased its handling of debris to 500 tons a day - a 30 percent increase over the previous year. LinkUp is also helping Recovery One develop a market for recycled scrap carpet - the first program of its kind in the Northwest for this "problem" waste.

Recycled Plastic Products (RPP)

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. The wheels manufactured by RPP are heavier and more durable than most original trash cart wheels which are produced using a blow molding process. Currently RPP is working to introduce its recycled plastic wheels to trash haulers, solid waste utilities and waste bin manufacturers in the Northwest. Eventually, the company would like to open a processing plant in the Puget Sound region, using locally generated plastics. RPP estimates that a local facility would be able to process up to three tons of plastics a day. The LinkUp team will help RPP identify and approach local solid waste agencies that might be potential customers for recycled wheels and other RPP products.

Y.K. Products

This company produces U.S. Cold Patch, a dry, odorless compound that uses up to 70-percent recycled asphalt for patching potholes and making other concrete repairs. U.S. Cold Patch hardens through compaction, not evaporation, so that releases of petroleumbased solvents used in most other coldpatch asphalt materials are greatly minimized or eliminated. The LinkUp team helped introduce U.S. Cold Patch to the Puget Sound region by sponsoring a series of meetings with local government purchasing agents and road maintenance officials. The team also helped the company update its business plan to pursue expansion funding. In the first year after production began in mid-2000, the product was used by more than 60 area municipalities and public works facilities. It is also available at several home improvement centers and the company is expanding its sales territory to other states.

Custom Handweaving

This Seattle-based business uses scrap textiles from clothing and furniture manufacturers as well as discarded fabric items from hotels and restaurants, businesses and individuals to create colorful, durable, handcrafted rag rugs. Owner/weaver Susan Snover spends a large part of her time searching for sources of quality discarded textiles. The LinkUp team helped Snover find additional sources of surplus textiles and launched a media campaign to raise visibility.