Kelly Green Products' new 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 building materials, expanding the U.S. market for recycled cartons.
Kelly Green Products manufactures Kelly Green Board, a 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.
"I am incredibly proud of the work that has gone into making this facility a reality," said Tom Kelly, president of Kelly Green Products. "Made mainly of paper with thin layers of aluminum and polyethylene, cartons provide the ideal combination of materials to create strong, hail- and moisture-resistant building supplies. Each truckload of Kelly Green Board diverts approximately 30,000 pounds of cartons from landfills, allowing them to live on as roofing or wallboard for years to come."
The Carton Council provided Kelly Green Products with an infrastructure grant to help establish this new end market for food and beverage cartons.
"Celebrating America Recycles Day by announcing the newest U.S. carton recycling end market becoming fully operational is an exciting milestone for carton recycling," said Jason Pelz, vice president of recycling projects for the Carton Council. "Providing infrastructure grants to further end market development is a critical part of the Carton Council's work to increasing food and beverage carton recycling across the country."
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 U.S. end market for cartons when sorted into Grade #52 bales, which can benefit all MRFs and communities.
"We are encouraged by the developments at Kelly Green Products," said Jimmy Lawler, vice president of commodities at Balcones Recycling. "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."
