MLMC Florida is taking thousands of pounds of trash from retail, manufacturing, and industrial businesses and converts into cubes to be used as a fuel alternative for power plants, paper mills, and more. 鈥淲e’re not just taking the styrofoam, the bubble wrap that people have a difficult time recycling for many reasons. We’re taking things that nobody ever thought to recycle,鈥� said Jim LaDue, the chief operating officer for MLMC. 鈥淪o, our customer out here is in the cement manufacturing business, and they use it as a coal substitute to generate heat for their process.鈥�
LaDue said they work with retail stores like Rooms To Go and Williams-Sonoma to get rid of packaging. 鈥淭hey’ll deliver furniture, new, in boxes to their customers. They come in and actually set the furniture up and all that packaging, and it’s a tremendous amount, comes back through the William-Sonoma network. They recycle what they can and, what they can’t聽we take that from them,鈥� said LaDue.
Strawberry farmers Carl and Deedee Grooms sold the land the facility sits on, and they want more businesses to find sustainable options like this one. 鈥淚 would like to see more of that kind of thing happen where anybody that has a business could send their product here and have it recycled. I think that would be awesome,鈥� said Dee Dee Grooms.