When New York expanded its bottle bill in 1983 to include a 5-cent deposit on carbonated soft drinks, beer and other drinks, Scott Tenney”™s family, owners of a Pepsi franchise in the city of Newburgh, had a dilemma: What do to with all those cans and bottles?
The solution: The company complied by starting its own recycling company, specifically to collect the cans and bottles accumulated by its vendors. A quarter-century and many millions of containers later, Hudson Baylor not only recycles soft drink and beer cans for the Pepsi franchise, but handles much of the municipal recycling in Orange, Dutchess and Rockland counties.
“In the beginning, we were our only customer,” remembers Tenney, founder and CEO of Hudson Baylor. Now, it counts Walmart stores around the state among its clients. “In 1990, former County Executive Mary McPhillips put out an RFP for curbside collection in Orange; we put our bid in, and for 15 years, did most of the co-mingled recycling for the county,” said Tenney of the now multimillion-dollar enterprise.
From Orange, Hudson Baylor eventually landed Dutchess and Rockland counties”™ contracts to process their municipal recycling, building recovery facilities in Rockland”™s Hillburn and the city of Poughkeepsie.
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Tenney eventually bought out his siblings and expanded on Hudson Baylor”™s territory, going into Arizona, where the company has three large recycling plants ”¦ with one significant difference, says Tenney: “New York has dual-stream recycling, which means cans and bottles are separated from paper and cardboard; out West, it is a single stream, where all goes into one large container. The fact that residents can put all their recycling in one 95 or 60 gallon container has improved Arizona”™s state”™s recycling efforts. It”™s a lot easier for residents to use and because of that, its recycling rate is 30 percent higher than it was when on a dual system.”
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Tenney says the single stream recycling system also saves haulers from making two trips, saving time, gas and the wear and tear on trucks.
Optical sorting equipment is utilized in the single stream recycling facilities. “An optical sorter picks out plastics, glass and paper and separates it,” he says. “There are people on the job overseeing the equipment and the process, but the bulk of the work is automated.” While Hudson Baylor”™s Hudson Valley facilities do not have optical sorting, other regional plants are equipped with optical sorters. Eventually, says Tenney, it will become part of the Hudson Valley”™s recycling process. “It”™s already in use in places upstate. It”™s just a matter of time before it is here.”
Nothing is wasted. Glass is sorted by color and crushed, going back to bottlers for re-use. Ditto for plastics and paper, which are sorted by lighter papers and cardboard. And although the market for recycled materials dipped considerably in 2008, Tenney says Baylor”™s longstanding relationships kept it going over the last year. “Other markets fell off the cliff, but thanks to our loyal customer base, we survived the crash.”
Markets are coming back, albeit slowly, noted Tenney.
One example of 2008”™s effect on the recycling business: The price for printed material at the beginning of the year was $150 a ton. “Almost overnight, it went to less than $30 a ton. It was a phenomenal toll on the recycling business and the municipalities who benefited from the income,” said Tenney.
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To date, Hudson Baylor has received three grants from the state Economic Development Corp. to expand and upgrade facilities. A new paper sorter is the result of the grant money it received in the last round. “Right now, we are waiting for the last payment on the third grant,” said Tenney. “We all know the financial condition the state is in.”
While it waits for payment, the company has not waited to bring the latest technology to its customers. Its facilities have a special locked area where sensitive items are shredded into bits of paper that look like confetti. “You don”™t get in and out without a key, and every employee has a complete background check,” said Tenney. “These are highly sensitive materials, and nobody can access them without clearance.” The company is certified by the National Association for Information Destruction.
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Hudson Baylor also rolled out its first business-to-business recycling truck, going directly to the business entity to shred on location. “We”™ve been letting the community know we are out there by holding municipal shredding days,” said Tenney, indicating an increasing demand for shredding right on site.
Tenney noted the recession has changed spending habits. “Rather than spending, people are saving, at least 6 percent of their income by some accounts; two years ago, that number was in the negative column.
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We”™re not extravagant. We want to take care of our employees, which number about 400 nationwide, nearly half in the Hudson Valley, Connecticut and eastern Long Island. In this economy, you can”™t lose control of your business or you won”™t make it. At the same time, you must take some risk and learn the right equation between risk and control.”
Some things are out of the company”™s control, however: “Taxes,” said Tenney, “and the new MTA tax is going to impact us and our employees.” While he understands the state”™s need to make up for the revenue it has lost in Wall Street, “additional taxes are not exactly the way to encourage business here in New York.”
