The ReUse Corridor: Creating Wealth from Waste in Appalachia: Courage, Creativity and Community
By Neil Seldman
“We Recycle Everything”: Growing Regional Networks: Rural Action and the ReUse Corridor
Rural Action, started in the early 1990s by the Appalachian Public Interest Campaign as a member-based agency to focus on regional revitalization, may be the first self-conscious Zero Waste organization that initiated reuse and recycling infrastructure planning for rural development. The organization is centered on the eight counties surrounding Athens (Hopkins County) in southern Ohio, including communities in Kentucky and West Virginia. [1] AceNet, a non-profit kitchen, provides small caterers with the kitchen facilities they need to sustain small businesses. Rural Action[2] also assisted in getting ReUse Industries (now Upcycle Ohio Thrift) off the ground in the 1990s, helping to launch what has become Maker Space and Tool Library
The Zero Waste program is based on sharing facilities, transportation and market information for recyclable and compostable materials and repaired products.
Rural Action, a founding member of the ReUse Corridor, in turn formed a wider network with the Coalfield Development Corporation, located in West Huntington, WV, a network with members in Ohio and Kentucky comprised of non-profit organizations, anchor institutions and private businesses. The ReUse Corridor envisions a revitalization of the perennially economically distressed Appalachian Region through the re-skilling of its working population based on the potential resources that come with access to the waste stream. The latter provides the inventory for local opportunities to add value, through new jobs, small businesses and an expanded tax base. The membership of the new network is comprised of county and state economic development agencies, private companies and non-profit social enterprises. Each entity plays a specific role in a system that highlights neighbor helping neighbor.
The initial planning and implementation for the ReUse Corridor came from the Appalachian Regional Commission and the US Department of Agriculture.
The ReUse Corridor chose Mid Atlantic Solid Waste Management Consultants to assist in the planning and implementation of the project. The company represented by Steve Deasy, undertook a comprehensive assessment of the solid waste and recycling landscape covering markets, government resources, sites for staging areas, outreach to new companies; and how to react to new materials in the waste stream and processing needed to accommodate an ongoing supply chain of materials to these companies. “This is a unique opportunity to use untapped labor and materials resources to create a supply chain of materials to local markets and attract new companies,” Deasy points out. The outcome has been that the project has been able to put hard numbers on the vision changing the waste stream into a wealth stream.
Source: https://www.cannetwork.org/why-appalachia-is-ready-for-a-reuse-corridor/
The fundamentals of the network are collection, aggregation and education. All three aspects are served by ongoing events where materials and reusable items are dropped off. Regularly scheduled ReUse Corridor events are supplemented by piggybacking on events planned by other likeminded organizations such as fairs and school events. Each event can collect as much as 5 tons of materials. It takes two workers and seven volunteers per event. In 2020, the ReUse Corridor participants aggregated 43,000 tons of materials and products.
Once aggregated, truck trailer loads are shipped to processing and/or end-use manufacturers within the region. Mattresses, electronic scrap, compost, textiles, wicker baskets, corrugated cardboard create a supply chain for industry. Each member enterprise also acts as a drop-off site for materials needed by other ReUse Corridor member facilities. Thus each enterprise has both a demand for materials it requires, plus it acts to aggregate the supply of targeted materials for other members. The logistics using dead head loads reduces the cost of transportation within the network. The network is always looking for new additions to the system. The ReUse Corridor expands organically and deepens its programs within its area. It also is able to expand geographically as new Appalachian communities join. Thus, when PureTech located in Ohio it opened up the market for polypropylene (plastic # 5), allowing another material to be added to the collection and aggregation system. Network members will send one thousand pound loads to the plant. Similarly, investment in film plastic recycling in South Carolina will soon add another industrial outlet for agricultural and commercial materials.[3]
Trade journals strive to track the scores of new companies focused on 3-7 plastics recovery and remanufacturing. Other private companies serve as end use markets for mattresses, electronic scrap and textiles. Goodwill Industries serves the network as the processing and marketing agent for cardboard and paper. Goodwill Industries also provides warehouse space until the ReUse Corridor’s own Black Diamond warehouse is completed in Huntington, W.V.
Local schools play a big role as drop off points for students and their families. Ambitious schools gather materials from outside the school network as well. With time the amount of materials collected increases dramatically. By the end of 2020 the network delivered over 100,000 pounds of textiles, over 40,000 pounds of books and an estimated total of 2 million pounds of all materials and products, delivered through the ReUse Corridor’s logistical system using trailers, box trucks and vans. Schools are also recruitment grounds for youth trainees as future workers. Ed Newman, Zero Waste Director for Rural Action and an active member of the ReUse Corridor, explains, “We look for places where materials can go and where young people can find good jobs and start careers.”
Recycled materials are combined with city and county recycling programs to get better market prices. Information is shared through bi-weekly membership meetings via the Internet. Veteran community development and recycling activists interact with equally enthusiastic younger staff members. In December the ReUse Corridor conducted the virtual Circular Economy Conference co-sponsored by the University of West Virginia with over 50 participants. The network is constantly auditing the region for new sources of materials and products as well as new end users in the region.
The ReUse Corridor has expert technical resources from MSW Consultants, a small but highly competent consulting firm.
The end result is that clean recyclables and compostable materials and high quality repairable products are delivered to strategic partners and then on to regional markets, with increased value added to the materials and more good jobs for regional workers at each step along the way.
Partial List: ReUse Corridor Participating Organizations, Enterprises and Institutions
WEST VIRGINIA
Organization: Marshall University
Location: Huntington, WV
Materials Demand: compostables
Organization: Coalfield Development
Location: Huntington, WV
Materials Demand: reclaimed wood
Organization: Taylor Iron & Metal Recycling
Location: Huntington, WV
Materials Demand: metals, appliances, electronics (annual tons: unknown)
Organization: Goodwill Industries
Location: Huntington, WV
Materials Demand: textiles, cardboard, paper, electronics, wicker baskets
Organization: Cabell County Solid Waste Authority
Location: Huntington, WV
Materials Demand: textiles, cardboard, paper, electronics, plastics
Organization: Atlas Recycling
Location: Huntington, WV
Materials Demand: metals
Organization: The Metal Center
Location: Milton, WV
Materials Demand: metals
KENTUCKY
Organization: The Neighborhood Association
Location: Ashland, KY
Materials Demand: textiles, pallets
OHIO
Organization: Athens Hocking Recycling Center
Location: Athens, OH
Materials Demand: plastics, cardboard
Organization: Rural Action
Location: Athens, OH
Materials Demand: plastics, cardboard, textiles, medical equipment
Organization: Zero Waste Industries
Location: Athens, OH
Materials Demand: textiles, reclaimed wood, pelletized plastics
Organization: PureCycle
Location: Ironton, OH
Materials Demand: #5 plastics
ReUse Corridor members focus on a wide variety materials and products including batteries, textiles, wood and sawdust, pelletized plastic and medical equipment. The network is planning to build a Center for Hard to Recycle Materials, CHARM, based on the work of EcoCycle, Boulder, CO.
List of Materials Products and Materials Handled by ReUse Corridor Members
- Appliances
- Batteries
- Bricks
- Cardboard
- Compost
- Electronic Scrap
- Glass
- Mattresses
- Medical Equipment
- Metals
- Pallets
- Paper
- Plastic
- Sawdust
- Textiles
- Wicker Baskets
- Wood
The ReUse Corridor’s 10-Year Track Record
- 300 new jobs
- 50 new businesses
- 1,200 workers trained in new economic sectors
- $25 million attracted in new investment
- 200,000 square feet of abandoned property revitalized.
Source: https://coalfield-development.org/
Summary and Context
The role of the ReUse Corridor has been to reverse the traditional linear investment in solid waste management that drains the potential resources of the Appalachian Region. Hobbled by the predominance of ‘burn and bury’ disposal mentality, the group started the enterprises and programs that are now the building blocks of a new paradigm. ‘Building it right’ means maximizing the potential of new resources, re-trained labor and capital.
The ReUse Corridor is growing. The Black Diamond warehouse on a converted brown field site in Huntington, WV will be online in 2021. New investment form local, regional and federal sources are anticipated.
The exploitation of Appalachian resources, including its people, can be altered. Institutions, county and state development agencies, universities and businesses and federal dollars earmarked for the region can bring in a new paradigm. In Nelsonville, OH, a local company won the waste and recycling service contract formerly held by a large regional monopoly. The Anchor-Hocking Recycling Center can expand into the counties. County Zero Waste events can be turned into permanent Zero Waste Fairs and embarkation points that lead to transformation of the conventional wisdom, practices, habits and culture. Rail lines can be revived through new commerce. Brownfield, which dot the region, can be developed into highly productive assets. The Black Diamond warehouse will add storage capacity while the ReUse Corridors affiliation with the Central Appalachian Network Brownfield development Project informs communities throughout the Appalachian Region.
The ReUse Corridor’s record of accomplishment is impressive. Its future may be even more so as a model for other rural and small town parts of the US. ILSR has pointed to the advantages of the ‘small economy of scale” to describe the insufficiently recognized advantages of independent local growth based on the cooperating enterprises, using local resources that help re-skill the work force. The ReUse Corridor is proving that small business recycling, reuse and composting can actually outperform vertically integrated companies by using the most productive and effective parts of the local and regional economies; resources, re-skilling the work force, reducing municipal costs and adding to community well being.
The strength of the ReUse Corridor concept and practice is to restore access to and control over the resources that are now filling up local landfills and incinerators at great cost. The ReUse Corridor has tapped the Appalachian instinct for cooperation as it plants the institutional seeds of a new recycling paradigm.
Peer-to-Peer Sharing of Planning Documents
- Community ordinances (related to zoning, litter control, health and safety)
- Solid waste and recycling ordinances
- Example: in dense communities, require any waste hauler operating in the service area to also provide recyclables collection for specified recyclables from every customer that has trash service
- Community Event Registrations and Ordinances
- Require event organizers to register events above a certain size (e.g. 300 persons) and to provide a recycling or zero waste plan, which would include contractual arrangement to divert targeted materials, list where they will be recycled, and even report the recycling data.
- Shared cost agreements
- For drop-off program operation where multiple communities use the facility or multiple communities or organizations have costs.
- For regional compost facilities
- For shared equipment programs like mobile grinders or recyclable sortation systems
- Bids, Solicitations, requests for proposals for trash and recycling services and the resulting contracts
- A standard element in recycling contracts is to use a CONSUMER PRICE INDEX (CPI) that reflects fluctuating recyclables commodities pricing which can reduce risk, share credits/rebates when recyclable value increase.
- County and Local Jurisdiction and Commercial Plans – Sustainability Plans, Recycling Plans, Green Purchasing Plans
- POLICY – Ultimately this has to be tied to state level policy. For example, it is impossible to maximize the diversion of toxic and valuable electronics, unless you ban their disposal from the landfills (which many states do).
