Abt opens new on-site recycling center that processes Styrofoam

A new on-site recycling center is helping Abt keep old appliances and packaging material from new product deliveries out of landfills.

Though light in weight, Styrofoam - which helps keep new appliances safe from damage in transit - is often bulky, and disposal can be challenging. The bottom line is to avoid the cost of trash removal, so the Styrofoam, and about 95% of everything else, is being recycled.

"That has a big cost to it," said Mike Abt, who is co-president of the Glenview retailer alongside his three brothers. "You're much better off to recycle and get paid for something than to pay to have your garbage removed."

Abt's new 30,000-square-foot recycling center includes the Green Max, a machine that combines a mechanical process and heat to create 70-pound, rectangular bricks that are then sold for reuse, primarily for the manufacture of foam insulation board, Abt said.

"The Styrofoam is worth a lot of money; it's 25 cents per pound," Abt said. "It's being recycled."

Abt said different methods have been tried for Styrofoam recycling, including cutting the material or dissolving it. Neither seemed practical, and so far the Green Max process is working as intended.

After making deliveries over the course of a workday, a delivery team backs up their truck to one of the dozens of bays at the recycling center and materials, including the old appliances, cardboard and Styrofoam, are separated. Appliances are stripped of reusable material, cardboard boxes are bundled and loaded into a truck and taken to a paper mill, and the Styrofoam is fed through the Green Max.

Hung from the roof's interior, infrared heaters are spread throughout the facility for use during colder months, and a large HVAC unit occupies a space in the building's interior, not far from the Green Max. While any buildings of this size being constructed use roof-mounted HVAC units that require the costly use of helicopters for installation, the decision was made by the company to place the HVAC unit inside instead.

A 430,000 square foot, tip-up style concrete warehouse is being constructed just across the property from the recycling center, and when it is completed in October, it will more than double inventory space and make room for an expanded fleet of delivery and service trucks, the company said in a news release.

Abt's business has been continually growing, even during the pandemic, resulting in the need for additional warehouse space. Off-site space is being leased until the new Glenview warehouse is completed.

The new warehouse occupies land once owned by the Zenith corporation, a manufacturer of electronics including radios and televisions. Mike said he used to attend meetings at Zenith with his dad, and in retrospect, he never envisioned that Abt would be building a warehouse on that property.

After the completion of the warehouse, Abt will be landlocked and have no more room for expansion.

"Our next move would be to a second location, which we've avoided for 85 years," Abt said.