While at Boutique Design New York (BDNY) earlier this week, I spoke with many suppliers about their sustainability initiatives. One company that really caught my attention was Poly-Wood, LLC because of its impressive trash to treasure story—all in one manufacturing facility. POLYWOOD is the name of the wood first made more than 30 years ago utilizing recycled plastic—high-density polyethylene, an extremely durable type of plastic you’ll find all around your home: milk jugs, detergent containers, shampoo bottles, lotion bottles, cleaner spray bottles, etc. The best part of high-density polyethylene (HDPE for short) is that it can be infinitely recycled.
Poly-Wood’s mission of stewardship is at the heart of everything it does. The company has expanded its recycling process to incorporate local, regional, and globally-sourced post-consumer plastic. That plastic comes into the plant by the truckload. Along with any scrap plastic lumber from the production process that’s ready to be reused, everything is sent up a conveyor to a giant shredder to be pre-shredded. Next, the shredded flakes are pre-washed and any heavy materials that might have gotten mixed in (glass, rocks, etc.) are removed. The color sorter then removes any pigmented plastics unwanted in the final product. Once sorted, the resulting material travels up another conveyor to be pelletized. The final product is loads of clear pellets that are ready to be made into genuine POLYWOOD lumber.
The recycled pellets are transported next door to the Extrusion Department by an efficiently designed series of tubes from one building to the next. All pellets are stored in silos outside the building and then sucked in through more tubes that run right to the extrusion lines.
“We take our recycled pellets, add colorant, along with other additives (to ensure beautiful, long-lasting color), and then extrude the mixture to the size and shape of the lumber we need (similar to when you “extruded” Play-Doh as a kid). On the last leg of its journey, our recycled lumber makes its way to our production cells where builders construct POLYWOOD furniture,” Poly-Wood explains.
Scrap is Recycled Again & Again
After the furniture is constructed, 99 percent of all scrap from manufacturing goes right back to the recycling plant to be reground, sent to extrusion, and made back into lumber. Poly-Wood has introduced custom cardboard box machines that make all its cardboard shipping boxes to the exact size needed to reduce cardboard waste.
Poly-Wood, which produces a wide variety of furniture types, is an excellent example of an enterprise diverting waste from the landfill and waterways that otherwise would sit unused for generations, breaking down into harmful microplastics.
“We take these single-use plastics that once had the potential to reach our oceans and give them a second chance as beautiful outdoor furniture that’s designed to last a lifetime,” the company says.
Poly-Wood’s zero-waste approach to manufacturing is an environmental success story worth highlighting.
