Recycling Waste Materials Business Plan

Mid Atlantic Recycling

Executive Summary

Opportunity

Solution

Mid-Atlantic Recycling, LLC’s area of business will be to collect, recycle/compost, and market waste from municipality waste processing plants for use use as a consumer good. This recycled product will meet two critical needs:

It will give municipalities a feasible and cost effective alternative to landfilling the waste, and
It will help meet the growing demand for organic soil enhancers and fertilizers. The material that will be recycled is human waste sludge.

Market

There are customers at both ends of our supply chain that will benefit from our services and products. Municipalities will benefit from our service by having an alternative means of waste disposal. Other potential customers who will benefit from our compost product include turf farms, fertilizer manufacturers, nurseries, landscapers, golf courses, homeowners, and even the federal government for use in highway construction reseeding. Therefore, we have two basic market segments; those waste treatment facilities which will benefit from our services and consumers who will benefit from our product.

The Worldwatch Institute reports that landfills are overflowing and the costs of disposing of sewage and garbage is rising. City leaders can relieve over extended municipal budgets, prevent the contamination of drinking water, and help farmers build healthier soils by recycling garbage and human waste back to farms. At least 13 U.S. states have 6 years or less before all of their landfills are completely full. (Paper 135: Recycling Organic Waste: From Urban Pollutant to Farm Resource.) We offer a service by which municipalities can dispose of their waste without it having to be land filled anywhere. This is of great value to this customer.

At the other end of our process are the users of our compost. According to Cornell University (www.cals.cornell.edu/dept/compost.feas.study.html) composting is experiencing a resurgence of activity which is driven by increased understanding of the agronomic benefits of compost utilization, and rising disposal costs for municipal wastes. Also, according to Purdue University (www.ctic.purdue.edu/Core4/Nutrient/ManureMgt/Paper35.html) consumption of compost in the commercial market is growing due to people looking for a more organic or natural substitute for traditional chemical fertilizers. Recycling is at the forefront of responding to this growth trend in the Mid-Atlantic USA. We will initially focus on selling compost to fertilizer manufacturers, nurseries, and landscapers. We already have commitments from a fertilizer manufacturer and a landscaper to purchase 600 tons per year or more of our compost material.

Five major market segments for compost have been identified:

Agriculture (for food and nonfood crops and sod farms).
Landscapers (for industrial and commercial properties; golf courses, cemeteries, and athletic fields; landfill covers; and damaged soils).
Nurseries (for plant and forest seedling crops and reforestation projects).
Public agencies (for highway median strips, parks, recreational areas, and other public property).
Residents (for home landscaping and gardening).

Competition

Our service offers a feasible, even desirable, alternative to traditional means of disposing of human waste. Our product is a value added, soil enhancer that appeals to the growing environmental conscientiousness among consumers. Direct competition is almost nonexistent. We intend to position ourselves as the logical, economical choice for human waste disposal and compost production in West Virginia and the Mid-Atlantic region.

Expectations

Forecast

The start-up funding will be provided as follows: Owner equity investment of in the form of a loan from the Regional Council of Governments Revolving Loan Fund; this loan is secured by the owner’s real estate assets. The Regional Revolving Loan Fund is an economic development fund sponsored by three West Virginia counties: Mercer, Greenbrier, and Monroe.