KANSAS
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & ENVIRONMENT
BILL GRAVES, GOVERNOR
Gary R. Mitchell, Secretary
For Immediate Release
Contact: Mike Heideman, 785-296-1529
Kansas Firm Closes Loop in Wood Recycling
WICHITA -- Wood scraps from cabinet makers, trees chopped out of yards, boards and sheets of plywood left over from construction -- Dean Frankenbery takes them all.Where others look and see a pile of wood debris, Frankenbery sees a stockpile of raw materials. Usable pieces are sorted, sawed and re-sized for use at Kansas Pallet and Transfer, the Wichita pallet-making business Frankenbery owns with partner, Don Hayes.
Leftovers from pallet-making are fed to the tub grinder to make landscape mulches or combined with grass, leaves and other yard waste to make compost at a second business owned by the two: Wood Recycle and Compost Center.
Frankenbery and Hayes close the recycling loop by providing those businesses to which they sell pallets a trailer to deposit used ones.
"We've got probably as much of a wood recycling program as any that exists," Frankenbery said.
Frankenbery had spent most of his working years in banking. When a company realignment cost him his job, he and Hayes bought the pallet company, hired good people and learned as they went.
The tub grinder was purchased out of practicality, to grind wood waste rather than burn it or take it to a landfill. Kansas Pallet had started selling the wood chips on a small scale when the company landed a contract to provide wood chips for a new highway project in August '94. Less than a year later, as the volume needed to fulfill the contract proved to be greater than what the pallet operation could provide, Wood Recycle and Compost Center opened.
There, they accept pallets and construction materials, attracting the cooperation of private waste haulers by offering lower tipping fees than local landfills for wood materials. The results mean an increased wood supply for the pallet operation and a better price on his product to his customers.
"I really don't make any pallets out of all new lumber, although some parts of it may be from new lumber," Frankenbery said. "It's frightening what new wood costs and a lot of it is not the same quality as older wood."
Frankenbery believes Wood Recycle and Compost Center to be the only private operation of its kind in Kansas. Although the wood recycling company hauls the grinder to various Kansas and Missouri municipalities to grind waste wood, including Kansas City and Springfield, Mo., dozens of other cities in Kansas are operating their own wood recycling programs.
Frankenbery sees private, centralized operations as a more economical alternative than every city owning and operating its own equipment, but his business has not suffered greatly. He and Hayes recently purchased 70 acres of land and are building a 15,000 square foot facility for pallet construction, and also with more space for the composting operation. The team hopes to offer more variety in the type and color of wood mulches offered.