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[/ezcol_1third] [ezcol_2third_end]By Stinson W. Ferguson, attorney, Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd[/ezcol_2third_end]
Many of us learned as early as first grade that recycling is the right thing to do. The more we recycle, the less waste we create. Less waste means a healthier environment. “Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.”
What most of us did not cover in elementary school, however, are the positive impacts recycling can have on business revenue and the economy. Sure, recycling makes us feel better about ourselves. But recycling can also provide real, tangible benefits in the form of lowered costs, increased revenue and better bottom lines for business owners and investors. Through reuse, recycling transforms would-be waste into energy for business activities or product components. Reuse reduces the amount of new energy and material needed, which directly translates into cost savings. Reduce. Reuse. Revenue.
South Carolina businesses are already taking the effects of recycling on their bottom lines seriously. A 2014 study by the SC Department of Commerce, DHEC, New Carolina and RecyclonomicsSC found that there are over 520 recycling-related companies in South Carolina. This study also found that in the past eight years alone, the recycling industry has “doubled its annual total economic impact: from $6.5 billion in 2006 to $14 billion in 2014.”
South Carolina entrepreneurs and businesses are innovating and recycling waste into revenue. Midlands Biofuels in Winnsboro is a family-owned and operated business which converts used cooking and agricultural oils from restaurants, businesses, schools and recycling facilities into biodiesel fuel, a renewable energy source which can be used without modification for things like transportation or heating. Recycling, therefore, is their bottom line. The revenue-producing materials recycled by Midlands Biofuels would traditionally be discarded as trash, which negatively affects wildlife, plant life and landfills.
Joe Renwick, or “BioJoe,” founder and process engineer of Midlands Biofuels, is a business graduate from The Citadel and a Clemson University Certified Master Gardener. High fuel prices motivated him to merge his passions and business wisdom by building his own processing facility. Midlands Biofuels recently earned its second Diesel Emissions Reductions Act Grant from DHEC, which allows the company to conduct business at a discounted price, and encourages biodiesel use.
Greenville-Spartanburg’s BMW saves an average of $7 million annually in energy costs through its Gas-to-Energy project. For more than a decade, BMW has piped methane gas from Palmetto Landfill in Wellford to create energy for its business activities. This enormous recycling project supplies the BMW plant with about 50 percent of the total energy it consumes and has earned BMW the No. 4 spot on the EPA’s Top 30 On-site Generation list for green power production and use for the past several years, ranking below only Wal-Mart, Apple and the U.S. Department of Energy. BMW’s aggressive approach to recycling has also earned it the title of the top automobile manufacturer for sustainability and corporate responsibility by the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index for the past seven consecutive years.
Many South Carolina businesses have integrated recycling practices into their pre-existing business activities. Greenville’s Bausch & Lomb recycles over half of the waste generated at its facility (cardboard, paper, plastic, metal, wood and fiber), which reduces its disposal costs and yields a net profit of $75,000. Sonoco, a global packaging company headquartered in Hartsville, has been in business for more than a century.
Sonoco Recycling, a subdivision of Sonoco, dates back to the 1920s. Sonoco Recycling was born from the company’s growing need for packaging components and blossomed into a lucrative business opportunity. Sonoco has not only integrated recycling practices into its own operations, it also assists more than 15,000 other companies worldwide with cutting costs through energy conservation and production. Sonoco’s transformative approach to recycling has earned it a spot on the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index for the past six consecutive years – a streak longer than any other packaging company currently on the index.
South Carolina businesses both large and small are stepping outside of their comfort zones and connecting the dots between recycling and revenue. Regardless of a business’ size, corporate conscientiousness and progressivism related to recycling can be a win-win situation. Business and the economy are boosted while the goodwill associated with helping the environment is realized. The bottom line: Recycling improves the bottom line.
