The world’s largest plastics recycler is in Troy, Alabama.
Every time you buy a gallon of paint, a bottle of shampoo or bleach, or even a new car, there’s a pretty good chance that not only are you buying recycled material, you’re buying material that was recycled in Alabama.
Unfortunately, industries in Alabama have to bring in discarded plastics from all over the world because Alabama doesn’t recycle enough of its own. Alabama still buries much of its recyclable material despite having a thriving industry that excels at making reusable products out of used containers.
KW Plastics in Troy takes in millions of pounds of used plastic containers every year and turns them into resin. These tiny plastic pellets can be heated and molded into just about anything from toothbrushes and make-up applicators to heavy duty storage tubs and car parts.
“I don't think it’s too dramatic to say that KW’s resin is in virtually every home in America,” said Stephanie Baker, KW Plastics’ Director of Market Development. “It's in the laundry room. It's in the kitchen, under the sink, out in the garage, under the hood of your car.
“Just taking a walk through a retail store, I could easily pull a hundred things off the shelf that have our resin in it.”
The Alabama recycler supplies resin for some of the world’s largest brands, including Unilever, Kimberly Clark, Proctor and Gamble, L’Oreal, Estee Lauder, Sherwin Williams, Valspar, Toyota, Ford, ExxonMobil, GM, Scotts, and Xerox.
But to provide the resin for that many products, KW needs used plastics and a lot of them. KW Plastics pays to have recyclable plastics shipped in from all over North America and the world, truckloads full of them every day.
Last year, KW shipped used plastic bottles from Europe to Alabama to help meet demand.
“Our largest challenge is supply of raw material,” Baker said. “We know what to do with it. We're able to process that material into a really high quality product that has value.
“We just have to get people to get it into a recycling bin.”
Baker said she’d love to bring in more material from within Alabama, but the company needs more than the whole Southeast can give. The amount of plastic the entire state of Alabama recycles in a year would keep KW’s plant running for just two days, she said.
Plastic pellets pour out of the extruders as the final product ready for shipping. KW Plastics, one of the largest plastics recyclers in the world located in Troy, Alabama. (Joe Songer | jsonger@al.com).Joe Songer | jsonger@al.com
How it works
Every day at KW, thousands of pounds of used plastic arrive by the truckload, which are supposed to be sorted into the types of plastic (Number 1-7) before baling. Workers use forklifts to carry the bales from the trucks to one of four lines for processing.
The ties around the bale are cut and removed, the material is spread across a conveyor belt to move down the wash line, a series of machines designed to clean, sort, and shred the material, while removing contaminants.
Contaminants, from KW Plastics’ point of view, are the wrong materials being included in the bale. That doesn’t mean the last bits of peanut butter inside the plastic tub. The shredding and high-temperature water and chemical washing process will take care of labels, lids, or residues left inside the bottle.
What comes out the other end is a clean, pure confetti-like flakes that can be stored in massive silos on the facility, capable of holding 100 million pounds.
From there, the flakes can be stored indefinitely, but eventually they are heated and molded into tiny pellets called resin. That resin is the end product that KW ships to manufacturers all over North America.
KW Container
In addition to shipping it all over the country, in 1998, KW Plastics began using its own product to manufacture plastic, one-gallon paint cans. KW Plastics is now the largest manufacturer of one-gallon plastic paint containers in the world.
The company makes two versions of its paint cans in multiple sizes. The “hybrid” version containers have a plastic body, but a metal lid and handle, which feel more like a traditional paint can. The company also offers its own trademarked “TruSnap” containers, made from 100 percent recycled and recyclable plastic, including the lid and handle.
While most recycling facilities won’t accept used paint cans for recycling, KW is working on programs to get their used paint cans back to be recycled again.
KW Container has facilities in Illinois, Pennsylvania and California to avoid having to ship empty paint cans cross-country, but the resin that’s molded into paint cans at all four facilities comes from Troy.
A separate facility in Troy makes paint cans from the tiny plastic pellets. These are photos of the paint cans being made. (Joe Songer | jsonger@al.com).Joe Songer | jsonger@al.com
The economic case for recycling in Alabama
Companies like KW Plastics and Constellium USA in Muscle Shoals -- which is among the world’s largest recyclers of aluminum cans -- make recycling a serious job creator and source of industry in Alabama.
KW Plastics, and sister company KW Container, employ more than 400 people in Alabama, and has other facilities in other parts of the country. Constellium USA (formerly Wise Alloys) employs 1,200 in Muscle Shoals.
And those are just two of the industrial operations in Alabama that depend on recycled material.
Custom Polymers in Athens is another major plastics recycler, and numerous steel and paper mills throughout the state depend on recycled material to fuel their operations.
A 2016 study performed by the Southeast Recycling Development Council estimated that recycling in Alabama directly creates 32,400 jobs. The direct and indirect impact of recycling in Alabama was estimated at 84,412 and $19.4 billion, with room to grow.
But there is much room to improve.
The study showed that Alabama buried 711,436 tons of usable materials in 2015, and paid an estimated $31.6 million in landfill tipping fees to do so. The value of that material on its own was about $85 million, and capturing it could fuel another 1,200 jobs.
It could also prevent companies like KW Plastics from having to import waste material from Europe, or California.
“Honestly, it’s frustrating,” Baker said. “We cut checks every Friday to communities and [sorting facilities] all across the country to buy this material and to bring it into our facility.
“I would love nothing more than to see our own state be able to reap some of the economic rewards from recycling.”
Have questions about recycling?
Is there something you’re curious about when it comes to recycling in your community or in Alabama?
If so, submit them in the form below, and we may write a story answering your question, or see our first set of answers here.
