Kansas City Business Journal: SES reuses tons of manufacturing waste bound for landfills

Roughly 140 million tons of trash end up in U.S. landfills each year, according to estimates. A Missouri company’s job is to help manufacturers subtract their waste from that total.

Simplified Environmental Solutions has six zero-waste processing facilities throughout the Midwest that divert manufacturing waste to composting, recycling or alternative fuels used to produce products like concrete. The Chesterfield-based company opened its second Kansas City-area facility in February; both are in Harrisonville.

“We’ve now done over 400,000 tons of waste that we’ve kept out of a landfill,” SES Chief Revenue Officer Jeff Hinds said.

Brandon McAlister, plant manager for both area SES facilities, said the company serves about 14 clients in the Kansas City market in the automotive, e-commerce and electronics manufacturing industries. It takes in a variety of manufacturing byproducts, including plastics, process scrap, corrugated packaging, rubber, foam and off-spec/damaged consumer goods.

“We have an outlet for pretty much everything,” he said.

When the waste arrives at an SES facility, it is graded, separated by material type and documented for landfill diversion to give customers measurable data as they track their sustainability goals.

The data is important because manufacturers look for certifications such as those from UL Solutions’ Zero Waste to Landfill program. 

Diverted food waste is captured and turned into nutrient-rich compost, though the new Harrisonville plant does not handle food waste. Things like paper, plastics, cardboard and metals get recycled into new materials. Non-recyclable materials are shredded and processed into alternative fuels for industrial uses to offset coal and natural gas use.

“We’ll go into a concrete kiln and burn it,” Hinds said. “It burns clean because of the profiles we’ve created. We’ve got the special blends we use. Then that goes into the ash for concrete.”

SES has about 70 employees companywide, with plans to grow to more than 100 in the next 12 to 18 months.

“I think the longer we do this and the more pressure we get from companies to have sustainability programs, to keep waste streams out of landfills, this industry is just going to grow,” McAlister said.

Simplified Environmental Solutions has kept more than 400,000 tons of waste out of landfills, Chief Revenue Officer Jeff Hinds says.

In the Kansas City market, SES processes more than 50,000 pounds of waste daily and is exploring options to ramp up its workforce by adding a second shift.

“We have capacity for more,” Hinds said. “We’ve got several good clients, and now we are ready to grow. Now, we are talking about what does a second shift look like. Just like any manufacturer, you are scaling up to capacity.”

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Source: https://bizj.us/1qq7ss

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