Sustainable Packaging Podcast with Cory Connors Episode 50 Zach Lauer TREX

I'm doing good. Thanks for having me.

We're excited to share too and get more people excited about recycling.

Yeah, well, I call Virginia home and that's where Trex is headquartered. Actually grew up in a military family, moved around a lot, but call Virginia my home. I've been with manufacturing for over 20 years. I've been very fortunate. Each company that I've worked with has had a huge passion for sustainability, not only getting people to recycle, but offering recycling solutions and utilizing high content of recycled materials in their products. And the majority of that time has been in the plastics industry. So companies that have been very conscientious about the use of that material. And also getting people to think about recycling. I mean, obviously here at Trex, 95% of the material that goes into our decking products is post-industrial or post-consumer recycled content. So we're trying to divert as much materials from the waste streams as possible and make a valuable product.

Yeah, it's a rich history. And one that is just part of our DNA now here at Trex. The company started in the early 1990s and one of our original founders was Roger Whitenberg. And he developed a process to convert plastic bags and wood into decking and railing products. And he was entrepreneurial at heart and his business was actually in the bread business and he wanted to figure out a way he was inspired to find a way to repurpose these large quantities of discarded plastic bags from his bread company. So it didn't make him happy that there wasn't a solution for this. So ultimately Roger sold his composite idea and business to Mobil Chemical and he was part of the team that repurchased the company back from Mobil when they spun it off. And that's when we officially became Trex. And now look what we've come over those last 25 years.

Roger Wittenberg.

Yeah, so we play a pretty major role in that circular economy of recycling. We worked very hard to set up supply chains where we can capture film from retail stores, distribution and manufacturing. The genius of Trex is in our process and we've found a way to actually combine this discarded plastic bag and wraps and reclaimed wood to produce our product. And to produce a product that can withstand harsh outdoor conditions and can be warrantied for 25 years. So on the back end, we're not creating something that should be filling up landfills. We can take that back and recycle it in our process as well. But a key part to this at Trex has always been educating and encouraging and rewarding recycling. We try to partner with bigger companies than us with our NexTrex program, meaning make this bag or make this film the next Trex deck. And in partnering with bigger companies to co-brand with NexTrex on their films to let people know that these things can go back into a valuable product. But we also work very hard to establish those supply chains. So we encourage people to return their bags to the stores because we are the ones that go pick up those bags from those stores. And we have a massive team that works with distribution and manufacturing to capture their films, their stretch wraps, and we actually provide them with the materials that they need to capture those streams and get them back to us. But we also spend a lot of time educating and encouraging communities and school systems. We have a large school recycling competition program that we host out there and all that information is on our website. But we also encourage communities. And what I mean by encourage is we educate people on the recycling process, but we reward them for recycling so they can win Trex products for their communities and schools, whether it's picnic benches or benches or bird houses that are made from that. They can reap the reward of their efforts in doing this. And at the same time, especially with the school competition, we're training that next generation. We're encouraging that next generation of individuals to recycle. And then on the business side, that's a little more B2B with large distributors in order to capture their stretch films and bring those back. So I think one of the unique things about Trex's story is not only did we try to find something that people want and make a valuable product, but we've had to create these supply chains to draw all this material into our manufacturing opportunities.

Yeah. It's a big part of what, typically when people think of supply chains, you know it's not one thing that you think about as this massive, huge reverse logistics operation to capture that. Actually go convince people to save it for you.

It's actually a branded item that we work in. Because there's many things out there, films that we can use that maybe people aren't familiar with, like cereal bags, the bags that are inside the carton. And so getting companies that make food products and that make these films, or the bubble wraps that come in your packaging curbside, to actually work with us with an emblem so people know that they can recycle that. And with the wording that encourages them on where the collection points are.

And even mailers as well, mailers are becoming a big popular that bubble wrap material as well as an opportunity. And as we see more things getting delivered to houses, having options for those people that not only get the corrugate, but the inside of that box, the bubble wraps and the pillow packs that are in there, and informing them that those are materials that can also be recycled.

Over the last five years, we've diverted more than a billion pounds of plastic that has been recycled by us. And in 2020 alone, we upcycled more than 360 million pounds of plastic film from landfills. And each year, Trex uses more than 1.5 billion plastic bags in our eco-friendly outdoor living products. And when you think of an outdoor deck that's 500 square feet, it can contain as many as 140,000 recycled plastic bags. So our collection and bringing that material in is enormous. And it's a great story of keeping those items and putting them back into use.

Oh, the future has been so bright. It's so bright and exciting for Trex. I mean, we're not only expanding recycling through the NexTrex program, but we manufacture today in Virginia and in Nevada, and we most recently announced that we're growing and we're moving to the Midwest to Little Rock, Arkansas for our next facility for all sorts of reasons. Access to more materials, more recycling material, but also to get closer to our customer for our overall footprint. So we're growing and we're continuously looking to develop the future of recycled materials. So stay tuned to see what we use in our facility. As you know, awareness, the good thing about our education and like you mentioned Dow and what they're doing on that front, is that films are, there is more awareness around films and people are recycling films and more and more people are finding use for films, which is fantastic. And so we're always looking for that next opportunity to divert something from the waste stream that we can use in order to build our products. So there's more exciting stuff. So maybe you can have me back in a year for the next best thing that we've been working on. But from a recycling standpoint, our expansions means that in the short term, taking in the opportunity to take in more film and divert it from the waste streams.

So we prefer obviously clean films. Our process can take a certain amount of contamination as they call it. Obviously most of the stuff that comes back through the consumer at the store is pretty clean material. We have the ability to take a certain amount of contamination in our processes. But most of the film that we do receive, especially from distribution and the consumer, is pretty plain. Other films become more challenging, like agricultural films and things like that. But those are all things that we've used in the past and have the ability to do. It requires more processing. So at some point you've got to balance the energy that you're putting into it as well, if you're concerned about the overall sustainability.

Yeah. And you mentioned water. Most of the ways films are cleaned is through water solutions. But the one good thing about Trex is we recycle our water. It's 100% captive in our process. So it's all completely restored and isolated in our manufacturing processes. So we look at it not only, we're not only excited about what we keep from the landfill. It's a bigger story for Trex and how we look at our whole business and how we look at the modernization of our facilities. It's not only what we're using, but how we use it and how we produce it as well is important to us.

We take a whole lot of wood too from being from the landfill as well, or fibers and dust that comes off the manufacturing floors of facilities, cabinet manufacturing. People that would normally may get thrown away, we capture that as well. But we also use woods that don't have other purposes. So for example orchard woods, fruit bearing trees, nut bearing trees. They tend to not have a lot of purpose in building or other applications. And some can't be used even in mulch, like walnut trees because they have natural herbicides. So you can't put that down in your garden. So we look at capturing, even on the wood side, we're concerned about things that would normally have to be thrown away and used in our materials. So we're not only capturing post-industrial but we're trying to capture a wood stream that don't have another purpose whether that's almond wood or walnut wood, or to your point broken down pallets and things like that that might otherwise get burned or destroyed in another way.

And you can go to recycle.trex.com. Or email NexTrex at trex.com. If you're interested in learning more about community recycling, industrial recycling. So people that are listening out there from manufacturing or distribution or stores, those are ways to get with us. And also if listeners have ideas, have new ideas for us to consider, they can contact me directly via LinkedIn or here at Trex at ZLauer at trex.com.

And also if you ever want to come visit, I can show you.

Thank you.