The Carton Council and Kelly Green Products announced today that the Kelly Green Products manufacturing facility in Connecticut is now fully operational, recycling food and beverage cartons 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The plant transforms cartons into durable, sustainable building materials, expanding the domestic market for recycled cartons.
Kelly Green Products manufactures Kelly Green Board, a sustainable, high-performance roof and wall cover board made primarily from recycled aseptic and gable top cartons. Using a zero-waste process with a minimal carbon footprint, Kelly Green Board uses every part of the carton, including caps and straws, and is made without water, formaldehyde glues or hazardous chemicals.
Tom Kelly, president of Kelly Green Products, stated, “Our facility is a testament to the ideal combination of materials within cartons, allowing us to create strong, hail- and moisture-resistant building supplies. By diverting approximately 30,000 pounds of cartons from landfills with each truckload of Kelly Green Board, we are contributing to the circular economy.”
The Carton Council provided Kelly Green Products with an infrastructure grant to help establish this new domestic end market for food and beverage cartons.
Jason Pelz, vice president of recycling projects for the Carton Council, commented, “Celebrating America Recycles Day by announcing the newest U.S. carton recycling end market becoming fully operational is an exciting milestone for carton recycling. Providing infrastructure grants to further end market development is a critical part of the Catron Council’s work to increasing food and beverage carton recycling across the country.”
Who Can Benefit?
Kelly Green Products is actively sourcing bales of Grade #52 cartons from materials recovery facilities (MRFs) in the New England and Mid-Atlantic region and is exploring parts of eastern Canada.
This provides another domestic end market for cartons when sorted by themselves into Grade #52 bales, which can benefit all MRFs and communities:
- If your MRF/community already accepts cartons into the recycling stream but does not sort them into Grade #52 bales, Kelly Green Board creates an opportunity for MRFs to maximize the value of those cartons and utilize a new source of revenue.
- If your MRF/community does not already accept cartons as part of the recycling stream, this provides an opportunity to start, therefore taking another package out of landfills and contributing to the circular economy.
Jimmy Lawler, vice president of commodities at Balcones Recycling, expressed optimism, stating, “The more options we have for our bales of food and beverage cartons, the better. This regional end market is great motivation – for us and for other MRFs here in the Northeast – to increase the number of cartons we capture and sort.”
The Carton Council can help community recycling programs and MRFs leverage this end market, whether they already accept food and beverage cartons but don’t sort them; already accept and sort cartons; or don’t yet accept cartons. This includes sharing expertise and best practices on sorting cartons, providing equipment grants to MRFs to facilitate sorting, offering resources for educating residents that cartons should be recycled, and assistance to start or enhance school recycling programs to maximize the number of cartons collected within a community.
To learn more, visit RecycleCartons.com
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