The ReWall Company is opening a new facility in Colorado that will “expand end markets for recycled cartons” in the western US, the company says. ReWall, which turns recycled food and beverage cartons into environmentally friendly building materials, expects the facility to open in April, 2019, and will process about 20 million pounds a year of aseptic and gable top cartons into roof cover board, exterior sheathing, wallboard, floor underlayment and other building materials.
The new plant in Colorado will mean local material recovery facilities (MRFs) have another place to sell their materials after collecting and sorting food and beverage cartons. “In order to create a sustainable infrastructure for cartons, residents need to recycle them, then MRFs collect them and ship them to end markets such as ReWall,” the company says. By opening a new facility in Colorado, the company increases demand for such materials from MRFs.
In other cases, food and beverage cartons go to paper mills where they are turned into paper towels, tissues and other paper products. Expansions like ReWall’s new facility reinforce the value in food and beverage carton recycling, says Jason Pelz, VP of recycling projects for the Carton Council of North America and circular economy director for Tetra Pak. Ideally, moves like this encourage even more communities - and their residents - to recycle food and beverage cartons, Pelz adds.
ReWall makes sustainable building and construction materials out of recycled food and beverage cartons through a proprietary process that uses no chemicals or water. It takes about 400 cartons to produce one sheet of ReWall’s hail-resistant roof cover board. Every truckload of finished products prevents nearly 600,000 cartons from going into landfills, according to the company.
