Issue link: http://www.insightdigital.biz/i/577447
28 | I NSIGH T • O c t o b e r 2 0 15 w w w . i n s i g h t o n b u s i n e s s . c o m E CO Blend film resin may not come to mind as quickly as Viagra, Post-it Notes or the chocolate chip cookie — all profitable products developed from mistakes. But it's a triple-bottom-line win for the Shawano-based plastics company: It's profitable, the growing workforce benefits the community and the new product is good for the environment. On sustainability alone, the company has reduced the volume of plastic film going into landfills and the energy and pollutants associated with creating virgin materials. In 2015, Wisconsin Film & Bag won an Insight Innovation award for ECO Blend and the process the company developed to recycle used plastic films. "I get to be the good dad," says Bob Kulesa, vice president of operations, who conducted the research resulting in the process behind ECO Blend. "It feels good to work at a company that not only makes a profit, but does it doing something right." The mistake I t all started with a supposed write-off. As the company closed out 2008, it discovered a supply of post-consumer, recycled film material had been mistakenly purchased and was sitting in the company's warehouse taking up space. e finance team suggested taking the loss and writing the material off at year's end. Now, the plastic film industry has always incorporated recycling into its operations. It's common for pre-consumer Trash to Treasure c o n t i n u e d materials — such as scrap cuttings or runs that failed to meet specifications — to be used as a raw material for new products. Post-consumer films — pallet wrap or pouches used to protect furniture or other items during storage and shipping — have always posed a problem for the industry. Naturally tacky by nature, the films pick up dust and grime from everything they touch and are oen covered by labels and adhesives from each step of the product's journey. While post-consumer films are recycled into new resins, they have always been considered low-grade and used for things such as drum liners. If you look at a sample of most post-consumer films, they lack the clarity of virgin resins and you can oen spot specs of debris on the film. is is where the fortuitous mistake occurs. Since Wisconsin Film & Bag was going to write off post-consumer film in its warehouse, it was decided to run the material through the recycling process used for pre- consumer scrap to try and produce a higher quality resin. "It worked," Feeney says. "We thought 'we can make a business out of this.'" Buoyed by the first test, and the realization of its potential, Film scrap to recycle: Bundles of post-consumer film await cleaning and recycling in Wisconsin Film & Bag's warehouse in Shawano. At the end of the process, the recycled films look and feel the same as virgin resin pellets, ready to be manufactured into new products. COURTESY OF WISCONSIN FILM & BAG