Finding takers for plants' rejects

Al Thompson would love to find a good use for the tons of burned sand that get tossed weekly from the Federal-Mogul Corp. foundry he manages in Lake City.

The company recycles its coolants and re-melts every speck of waste metal locally. But it can't find a local firm to take its biggest source of waste: sand. The sand, which Federal-Mogul reuses again and again to make car-piston molds, eventually ends up in a landfill.

"That is really an important aspect for us to eliminate the waste stream," Thompson said.

Like Thompson, dozens of plant managers across the state continue to grudgingly dump waste in landfills. Unlike large manufacturers such as 3M Co., Donaldson Co. Inc. and Andersen Windows, smaller firms often don't have sophisticated recycling programs, or they have one or two waste byproducts for which they don't know what else to do.

Enter Wayne Gjerde, a matchmaker whose job is to find new, profitable uses for all kinds of Minnesota waste. As one of three recycling market development coordinators for the Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance, Gjerde is on a mission to bring new economic value to the toughest waste. His latest challenges include finding homes for discarded roof shingles, wood shavings, old shoes and carpet, shoemakers' leather scraps and foundry sand.

"If you can start cranking these off into smaller waste streams and adding some value to them," that creates jobs, helps the economy and saves the environment at the same time, Gjerde said. Recycling has created 9,003 jobs and $65 million in taxes for Minnesota. Still, more could be done.

In 2002, Minnesota factories and homes tossed out 3 million tons of waste that was burned or buried at a cost of $146 million. More than a third of that waste could have been recovered, recycled and turned into paper, steel and other raw materials worth an estimated $85 million, according to a recent state study, Gjerde said.

Take Al Thompson's sand.

"Some states are using it in road construction instead of putting it in the landfill. We would very much encourage Minnesota to do that. But I know they don't currently allow that. But Iowa does, so we are looking to ship this spent sand to Iowa," Thompson said.

In a few cases, the Office of Environmental Assistance helped route Minnesota's foundry sand to the few companies that use it to make cement.

"But mostly it ends up in landfills at this point," Gjerde admitted.

While it's a long shot, Gjerde is hoping to get the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to approve foundry sand to fill potholes.

Similarly, a state grant helped Bituminous Roadways Inc. get the right equipment to grind shingles into an asphalt additive. The Minnesota Department of Transportation uses the shingle-asphalt mix to pave parking lots and roads, freeing up 200,000 yards of landfill space and saving up to $2.8 million a year.

Other trash is tougher to place.

At the Red Wing Shoe Co. plant in Red Wing, carts of fresh leather scraps go to the dumpster.

"Nobody wants them," plant manager Chris Zylka said. "We've tried to find another use for them. But it hasn't worked out. If we found someone to take them, they could have them."

Hearing of the problem, Gjerde started making phone calls.

"I am working on a project right now that turns leather into an oil absorbent," Gjerde said. "It's pretty neat. Right now they are grinding up shoes."

He might have a customer waiting at Wipers Recycling.

Working in the cold next to the railroad tracks, Patty Gearin presides over Wipers, a perfectly organized junkyard of sorts in St. Paul Park. Stacked and labeled boxes of terry-cloth rags and old clothing scrape the rafters in her cramped shop where workers categorize, slice and package cloth by type.

Outside, in the mud near a chained Rottweiler is her brainchild - a sea of tall, white canvas bags filled with sorted old shoes waiting for the grinder. Nearby a forklift and three workers wrestle massive crates of shoes from a truck.

"Some people look down on what we do. But it employs people, and saves the environment," said Gearin, who employs eight workers but dreams of having 30.

With a customized shoe-grinder recently installed, Gearin is shredding leather shoes into fibers that are sold to gas stations and machine shops. "The fibers soak up three times their weight in oil" from shop floors, she said. Wiper Recycling is selling 15,000 pounds of shoe fiber each month.

Give her a month and she might be able to take some of those leather scraps off Red Wing's hands. She has ordered a second grinder and expects to grind 7 million pounds of leather shoes a year for two prospective customers in Minnesota and Los Angeles.

"There is a market for this," she said. "I love recycling. I have done it for 22 years. If you do it right, you can make money and save the environment."

To encourage recycling, the Office of Environmental Assistance gives grants and regularly holds "meet and greet" sessions for corporate waste producers and firms looking for unusual raw materials.

As a result, the Minnesota Technical Assistance Program successfully encouraged landfill operators to separate construction lumber to give to area businesses. The effort recycled 89 tons of lumber in 2003 alone. Other efforts by the state transformed milk jugs into benches and old tires into rubber roofing shingles.

Gjerde believes Red Wing's leather scraps will also find a new use. Thanks to him, Gary Nafstad of Integrated Molecular Composite Corp. in Delano is eyeing them now.

Nafstad, a former doormaker, recently got help from the Office of Environmental Assistance and won state approval to collect sawdust and wood scraps from certified Minnesota waste haulers. After 30 years of research, Nafstad is converting organic scraps into nonflammable boards that can be made into doors, countertops, cubicles and a host of other products that can resist flames from 30 minutes to three hours. Nafstad expects to begin production next month.

While munching on pie in a Perkins Restaurant in St. Louis Park, he rustled through a box of samples and proudly pulled out three boards made from sawdust. Each sported a single burn mark and a number, indicating the time it spent on top of a Bunsen burner. A fourth board was made from feathers and another from old carpet.

"It's a shame to waste anything," Nafstad said. "We can use other products. It's not inconceivable that we could also use leather. I'd like to look into that."

.

Dee DePass is at ddepass@startribune.com.