Wendling’s Food Service has become a major part of the Rotary Club of Buckhannon-Upshur’s plastic recycling drive, adding about 5,000 pounds of shrink wrap a month to the program.
The Buckhannon food distributor demonstrated the baler at its plant during a press event Wednesday. Wendlings currently produces about six bales of plastic, each weighing 900 to 1,000 pounds, every month. Those are then collected, combined with other plastic items from the community, and sold to recycled-plastics maker Trex.
The Rotary club plans to use the resulting revenue to buy inclusive playground equipment for Upshur County.
Chris Wendling, third-generation owner of the company, said Wendling’s has been recycling for years but recently joined the Rotary effort.
“We started out with cardboard, probably twelve years ago, and then shortly after that we started doing the plastics,” Wendling said. “Rotary had asked us what we do with all of our scrap plastics, and we explained to them that we already bale them and recycle. They told us about the program they were working on, and we said it’d be a good idea to partner and let them have the plastic, so they could use it for playground equipment and benches here in Upshur County.”
Every pallet of food the company receives comes wrapped in plastic. So does every shipment that goes back out.
“Everything we receive has plastic on it. Everything we ship out does too, for the same reason — we want to keep the integrity of the product. So we have the plastic both ways,” Wendling said.
Day-shift workers strip plastic from incoming pallets, while the night crew wraps outgoing orders. The baler runs as the excess plastic builds up.
“This time of year, we’ll do about six bales a month, which are about 900 to 1,000 pounds,” Wendling said.
The company had been calling for trash pickup three or four times a week before it expanded its recycling.
“We wanted to think out of the box here,” Wendling said.
Rotary Club member Keith Buchanan said the program has grown by combining household donations with the heavier volume that local businesses can put behind it.
“We’ve got businesses like Wendling’s, Weyerhaeuser and others saying, ‘Hey, let’s get in this thing, because we’ve got some heavy volume to contribute to get to that goal faster,’” Buchanan said.
Trex, which makes decking, benches and playground equipment from recycled plastic, pays the Rotary about 13 cents a pound. The company has given the club a metal trailer that stores the bales until pickup.
The Rotary’s goal is 40,000 pounds — 20 tons — a year.
“They will come pick it up when we reach 20,000 pounds, and we want to do that at least twice a year,” Buchanan said. “If we get there, we’re going to get something like $8,000 or $9,000 in revenue, and that’s just for the first year.”
The money will go toward inclusive playground equipment designed for children of all abilities.
The recycling program began when Rotary member Tina Cunningham brought the idea to the club. Cunningham, Buchanan and about six other members make up the club’s Rotary Recycle Team.
“Every single household in Upshur County has soft plastic — at least five or six different types,” Buchanan said.
Households can drop off their soft plastics — shopping bags, bread bags, produce bags, bubble wrap, dry-cleaning bags and other items — at sites including Coldwell Banker, Kelley Tierney State Farm, the Upshur County Parish House, Chapel Hill Church, Mountain CAP and St. Joseph’s Hospital.
The playground surfaces themselves will be made from recycled plastic.
“It’s soft, but you don’t have to keep replacing it like mulch,” Buchanan said. “This stuff lasts. The life cycle is longer, which is even more efficient. That’s why we think this is a good, sustainable idea for many years to come.”
Wendling said the business is always happy to support community projects.
“We’ve been part of the community for years, and they’ve helped us,” Wendling said. “Anytime that we can go out and help them, we want to do that, too.”
