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This is Fred Ball for Zions Bank, speaking on business.
Plastic is one of the most widely used materials ever invented. It is in just about everything. But plastic is also filling our landfills. Unfortunately, this is becoming a major problem for our local landfills as the material takes thousands of years to decompose. So, plastic materials we throw away today could still be around for many years to come. And we’re throwing away a lot of plastic—millions of pounds each year.
Besides the bottles and other plastic things we use as consumers, companies discard tons of plastic, too. But a Utah company has developed a successful business out of recycling that plastic discarded from the business sector and putting it to use again.
The company is called Reaction Polymers Incorporated, and since it was founded in 1996, it has worked to keep millions of pounds of plastic resin from going to the landfill each year. Founders Rodney Haun and Curtis Turner started from just a basement office in Curtis’ home. Curtis’ degree in engineering and Rodney’s experience with a plastics company in California gave them the knowledge they needed to start their business.
Reaction Polymers distributes regrind, reprocessed, custom compounded, wide-spec and virgin thermoplastic resins. At its modern facility located in South Salt Lake, the company uses grinding equipment to break down the plastics. The company will pick up plastic for recycling using its trucks for local jobs. Within the last year, Reaction Polymers has added equipment to its fleet of trucks to deliver material to customers along the West Coast. Reaction Polymers has also teamed with freight companies for additional jobs nationwide.
What began five years ago as a small operation with just a few customers has now grown into a business that serves both domestic and international clients. Annually, Reaction Polymers recycles 10 to 12 million pounds of post-industrial plastic and distributes 2 to 3 million pounds of virgin plastic. Such well-known companies as Kimberly-Clarke, Ballard Medical, Becton Dickinson, Abbott Labs and Icon Health and Fitness have teamed with Reaction Polymers to ensure that their used plastics are recycled rather than placed in the local landfills.
For Zions Bank, I’m Fred Ball. I’m speaking on business.
