Kelly Green Products’ Connecticut recycling facility now fully operational

Waterbury, Connecticut-based Kelly Green Products' new manufacturing facility in Waterbury is now fully operational, recycling food and beverage cartons 24 hours per day and seven days per week. The plant transforms cartons into durable, sustainable building materials with the aim of expanding the domestic market for recycled cartons.

The company manufactures Kelly Green Board, a sustainable, high-performance roof and wall cover board made primarily from recycled aseptic and gable top cartons. It claims to use a zero-waste process with a minimal carbon footprint, adding that Kelly Green Board uses every part of the carton, including caps and straws, and is made without water or chemicals.

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Kelly Green Products tells Recycling Today the facility is able to recycle approximately 56 tons of cartons per week. In its remanufacturing process, the company first shreds the cartons, then sends them through a machine that resembles a giant panini press. Heat is then applied, and the materials are compressed back together into large sheets to produce building materials.

“I am incredibly proud of the work that has gone into making this facility a reality,” Kelly Green Products President Tom Kelly says. “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 Denton, Texas-based Carton Council provided Kelly Green Products with an infrastructure grant to help establish the facility, but the road to startup proved to be a winding one. The grant agreement was signed, and the plant’s first machine was installed in late-2020, but delays related to COVID-19, supply chain issues and a property fire meant that it would ultimately take the company two-and-a-half years to become fully operational, it says.

The facility announcement comes in time for America Recycles Day, and Carton Council Vice President of Recycling Projects Jason Pelz says it is an exciting milestone for carton recycling.

“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," Pelz says.

Kelly Green Products says it is actively sourcing bales of Grade No. 52 cartons from material recovery facilities (MRFs) in the New England and Mid-Atlantic region and is exploring parts of eastern Canada. The company adds that this provides another domestic end market for cartons when sorted by themselves into Grade No. 52 bales, which can benefit MRFs and communities:

• if a MRF/community already accepts cartons into the recycling stream but doesn’t sort them into Grade No. 52 bales, Kelly Green Board creates an opportunity for MRFs to maximize the value of those cartons and utilize a new source of revenue; and
• and if a MRF/community doesn’t 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.

“We are encouraged by the developments at Kelly Green Products,” says Jimmy Lawler, vice president of commodities at Austin, Texas-based Balcones Recycling, which operates MRFs in New York and New Jersey. “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.”

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The Carton Council says it 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.