Growth Spurt

A move doesn’t always have to be big to make a big difference, as Sonoco Recycling recently discovered when it became aware of a better opportunity less than a few miles away.

When global packaging company Sonoco and its recycling division, Sonoco Recycling, was examining growth potential in 2007, the company focused on its operations in South Carolina.

"Recycling is a hot area right now," says Myles Cohen, vice president and general manager of Sonoco Recycling. "We were looking at plants that we might have outgrown, looking at geographies that were growing."

South Carolina has enjoyed a period of population growth, Cohen says, and a look at the company operations in the area showed it was limited in its ability to grow with the state’s climbing number of residents.

The company didn’t have to look far for its chance to grow—it moved its Charleston, S.C., recycling plant 1.5 miles away to a new facility in North Charleston.

The new material recovery facility (MRF), which celebrated its grand opening in January 2008, is larger than the old Charleston facility, a 30,000-square-foot building on a 5-acre site, according to Cohen. The

The new location provides more than just extra room, Cohen says. The North Charleston MRF is closer to South Carolina’s ports, which has allowed Sonoco to keep up with the booming export market for recovered paper. "Recovered paper is the No.1 export from North America," Cohen says. "It’s a strategic location for us. We wanted to make sure we could take advantage of what’s going on in Asia in terms of the export market."

The company has vastly ramped up its export activities in the last year, Cohen adds. "We are shipping containers to the port every day—that’s a huge change from a year ago," he says.

Sonoco’s new facility accepts most grades of paper, as well as plastics and metals. The facility has an annual recycling capacity of approximately 125,000 tons per year.

The North Charleston MRF processes material from commercial and residential sources. "The vast majority is commercial and the minority is residential," Cohen says. Sonoco’s customers include a wide variety of businesses, including large manufacturers and retail operations, as well as several municipalities.

The equipment from the old Charleston plant—including the company’s recently upgraded baler—weathered the mile-and-a-half move and re-installation with relative ease, according to Cohen. "The move went smoothly—we had a whole timetable in place," he says.

While most of the equipment itself wasn’t in need of an upgrade at the time of the move, the new facility has brought a number of changes to the operation, which has led to increased efficiency from the tipping floor to the loading docks.

To better serve its existing clients, expand its customer base and take full advantage of export opportunities, Sonoco needed to improve overall efficiency at its new North Charleston plant, Cohen says.

The larger space allowed for the construction of a 70-foot in-ground scale with a larger area for trucks to be weighed and an overall improved traffic pattern, Cohen says.

In addition, the MRF’s door is high enough to allow trucks to dump material in the plant itself, instead of outside, which has increased efficiency.

The building is essentially divided in two, Cohen says. One area is devoted to baling and preparing material for loading. The second area is a 12,000-square-foot space for holding inventory. A large concrete pad has been added to the outside for additional inventory storage, as well. These improvements have allowed Sonoco to better manage its inventory at Charleston and to take better advantage of worldwide market conditions.

Cohen says improving material handling at the plant was of paramount importance. "It’s more than buying and selling the commodities," he says. "By focusing on material handling, we’ve got a quicker turnaround time—we don’t have to wait as long between processing and getting the material out."

The facility also has increased dock space, which has allowed Sonoco to load trucks more quickly. Cohen says he estimates the new facility is seeing twice the throughput as the old.

The increased efficiency has allowed Sonoco to concentrate on improving its service to clients through an initiative aimed at helping its customers achieve zero waste goals, Cohen says.

Recycling is enjoying a popularity boom, and companies are focusing more and more energy and resources into sustainable operations. Sonoco is in a position to help them achieve environmental goals, Cohen says.

Sonoco has launched Sonoco Sustainability Solutions (S3), a consulting service of sorts to its customers that addresses sustainable operations goals on several fronts. "We’re working with consumer and industrial customers to get them toward zero landfill," Cohen describes.

The program was piloted at 12 of Sonoco’s own plants to improve the packaging company’s sustainability, and the results encouraged Sonoco to share its success. "We were able to reduce the pilot facilities’ material going to landfill by 80 percent," says Cohen. "We think we’re well prepared to take what we’ve been doing and bring it to our entire customer base."

Through S3, Sonoco representatives audit a customer’s location to review its existing program for handling waste material. Tailored programs are developed that offer savings by reducing waste hauling charges and landfill fees. Sonoco’s audits also help customers develop revenue streams from former waste material, Cohen says. The company also provides measurable statistics to help clients gauge their progress.

Cohen says Sonoco is in a unique position to offer such a service to its clients. "We have an ability to leverage our footprint—no matter where a company we’re talking to has a plant, we have a recycling plant or a paper mill very close to there," he says. Sonoco recycling collects and processes recyclables at 46 locations in North America and Europe, while Sonoco itself has a total of more than 325 operations in 35 countries. "We have the ability to accept recycled products at so many places around the country," he adds.

With its eye on growth areas like South Carolina, Sonoco hopes to further expand this service, Cohen says. "The position of this is cradle-to-cradle," he says. "We’ve been doing this for a long time—using recycled products since the founding of Sonoco. We see the increase of attention to sustainability, and that’s important to us as a packaging company."

The author is associate editor of Recycling Today and can be contacted at jgubeno@gie.net.