Creating economic value from plastic waste

When economic self-interests are aligned with public policy and social consciousness, the world changes.

By now, the statistics are well known yet as alarming as ever. A garbage truck worth of plastic trash dumps into the ocean every minute – 18 billion pounds per year and growing. Current plastic production will double in the next 15 years. If this is left unchecked, our oceans will be filled with more plastic than fish in 30 years.

Meanwhile, 17 million wooden rail ties and over 500 million wooden pallets are replaced in North America alone each year. These replacement costs exceed $15 billion annually. And these costs are projected to increase by over 25% in the next five years.

The entire supply chain has an interest in solving these problems. Unfortunately, no domestic policy or public awareness campaign, no matter how noble and well planned, will slow the rising tide of plastics or alter the status quo of the make and replace cycle for wood. The solution must be rooted in the economic self-interest of the chemical and plastics manufacturer, logistics provider, retailer, consumer, waste company, and recycler.

Granite Peak Plastics seeks to align these self-interests through a world that ships on recycled plastic. We recycle post-consumer plastic into composite rail ties and pallets with our partners. Both products replace wood by putting plastic to work again. These simple and ubiquitous products touch every player in the value chain, providing an opportunity to align interests on a global scale.

Leveraging the positive properties of recycled plastic to create superior rail ties and pallets vastly improves the life-cycle of these products and will save billions of dollars each year. Furthermore, replacing wood with recycled plastic creates realistic demand for massive quantities of waste containers, bags, and pouches, keeping them in play and out of our landfills, waterways and oceans.

Forward-thinking companies compel the use of plastic pallets in their logistics chain, and advocate that their goods move over composite railroad ties. These companies can rightfully claim tangible action in the battle against waste plastic – actions that consumers are increasingly demanding from the brands they use.

A world that ships on recycled plastic envisions flipping plastic waste from a problem to a resource. Replacing wood with plastic provides a rare opportunity to impact the bottom line and the planet positively. Let’s not let this opportunity go to waste.

About Us

Granite Peak Plastics transforms challenging streams of waste plastic into quality and cost-effective PCR regrind that powers the manufacturing of superior products. We focus on applications where the positive properties of recycled plastic replace inferior materials such as wood, concrete, and metal. Learn more at granitepeakplastics.com.