Pratt opens two recycling facilities in Midwest

Pratt Industries, Conyers, Georgia, officially has opened recycling facilities in Gary, Indiana, and in Wichita, Kanasas. Both facilities have been designed to support Pratt’s new paper mill in Valparaiso, Indiana, which the company says will come online in September 2015.

The 110,000-square-foot plant in Gary and the 38,000-square-foot plant in Wichita are the company's 16th and 17th recycling plants. Combined, they will be able to process more than 120,000 tons of recyclables, primarily recovered paper but also some metal and plastics, annually.

"The Midwest has long been a strong area for Pratt's converting operations with nearly a dozen corrugated box and display factories, including our Valparaiso box plant, which happens to be the largest box plant in the world," says Myles Cohen, president of Pratt Recycling.

"Now, with the upcoming addition of our fourth, 100-percent-recycled paper mill, adding recycling assets and infrastructure is the next logical expansion strategy for us,” he continues. “As an integrated paper and packaging company, the addition of recycling plants allows us to fully close the loop for our customers. Not only do we manufacture the paper required to make their packaging and then convert it into boxes and point of purchase displays, but now we can become their recycling provider as well."

Cohen says Pratt plans to expand staffing at both recycling centers within the next 12 months as volume increases. Currently, 30 people are employed across the two sites.

"These two facilities will enhance revenues for those businesses that want to recycle—and we should all care about that because anything that increases recycling rates is good for the community," Cohen says. "Not only does it reduce the amount of recyclables being sent to landfills, which are increasingly expensive to operate, but it's also good for the environment because every ton of paper we recycle is the equivalent of saving 17 trees."

The Gary facility, which will process more than 70,000 tons of recyclables annually, is the company's first in Indiana. Cohen says Pratt chose the city because of its proximity to the company’s new mill and the greater Chicago area and because of its excellent access to transportation.

Among other equipment, Pratt has installed dual shredders at the plant to process approximately 2,000 tons of used books monthly.

The Wichita plant replaces an older facility that the company outgrew.

“We've had a corrugated box factory in Wichita for many years providing recycling services to our box customers as well as other commercial and industrial companies in the area, so just made perfect sense for us to do this," Cohen says. “This plant is more than triple the size of the old facility, giving us plenty of room to grow and ensure that Wichita businesses can divert as many tons of valuable materials from landfills as possible,” he adds.

Both facilities will serve the recycling needs of businesses within a 100-mile radius of each plant.

These two new recycling facilities and the new mill in Indiana build on other investments Pratt has made recently in the Midwest. Late last year the company celebrated the grand opening of its Lewisburg, Ohio, box plant, and it recently broke ground on another box plant that will open later this year in Beloit, Wisconsin. 

Pratt says it is America’s fifth largest corrugated box producer and the only major one that uses only 100-percent-recycled paper. It has more than 100 facilities throughout the United States and Mexico employing some 5,000 people.