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GreenCycle Incorporated, Northfield,
Illinois, was formed early in 1992 for thepurpose of providing recycling
services for yard waste Á grass, brush, clean wood and leaves Á to municipalities,
landscape contractors, homeowners, and trash haulers. Composting is an
environmentally sound alternative to landfill disposal of organic waste,
and more than half the states in the United States have recognized the
necessity for using "final disposal" space sparingly by banning
yard waste from landfills and establishing recycling goals for their communities.
Like landfills, GreenCycle charges
a fee for accepting material at its sites.
While the amount of yard waste produced varies by geographical location,
it constitutes approximately 20% of all solid waste produced in the United
States. As governmental bodies contemplate controls to assure that what
can be recycled is recycled, it should be kept in mind that a larger,
quicker environmental contribution can be made by first recycling those
materials which represent the largest portion of total volume. Plastic,
for example, represents less than 5% of the total solid waste stream,
and it presents many more recycling difficulties than does yard waste.
Compost is a nutrient-rich material used for restoring the lost organic
and microbial content of over-worked soil. Since material must be put
to useful applications if it is to be truly recycled, GreenCycle
has, in parallel with the development of its composting techniques, developed
programs for marketing the finished products to home gardeners, landscape
contractors, golf courses, professional growers, and parks and highway
departments.
Brief History
Recycling Laws Á Approximately 1990, because of the increasing difficulty
of finding and permitting sites for landfills, states began taking steps
to relieve the pressure on landfills to accept materials that could be
diverted by recycling. Because approximately 20% of the solid waste stream
consists of yard waste, composting these materials was, correctly, perceived
as the quickest way to contribute to the reduction in landfill disposal
volume, and by 1995 25 states had passed laws limiting or banning yard
waste from landfills. GreenCycle's
First Project -- In 1992 the City of Indianapolis requested bids from
companies interested in composting the fall leaves picked up by City trucks.
The principals of GreenCycle had been
researching composting as a business for about six months, and they felt
prepared to bid on and perform the required work. The Company was then
incorporated, and it submitted the winning bid to Indianapolis. The City
of Indianapolis delivered 12,000 tons of leaves to GreenCycle's
south Indianapolis site that fall, and the material was composted. Most
finished compost was sold, but some was donated to the City for beautification
projects. Beginning in 1993 the City of Indianapolis insisted on delivering
yard waste to the selected composting contractor in plastic bags. Because
of the inevitable contamination of finished product this would cause,
and because of the litter problems associated with coping with large amounts
of plastic film, GreenCycle
elected not to accept the material in plastic bags, and it
began to seek other sources of organic material. The winning bidder on
the City of Indianapolis contract in 1993 proceeded to lose a great deal
of money because of the necessity to deal with the plastic contamination,
and he abandoned the composting business when his five-year contract was
up. Partnerships Á The formula which seemed to work in Indianapolis was
to find a local partner capable of operating such an activity, and to
split ownership 50-50. Soon after opening in Indianapolis, GreenCycle
identified potential partners in Boston, Hartford, Connecticut,
Atlanta and St. Louis, and it commenced business in those locations. While
GreenCycle was closely involved in
the operations in these cities, it was found that the lack of control
afforded by the partnership agreement resulted, in some cases, in poor
operations and, in others, disputes about how the business was to be operated.
GreenCycle's charter includes its
intent to operate only clean, neat, limited-odor sites, and it became
obvious that the partnership model did not allow the Company sufficient
control to assure that this was universally the case. By 1997 the company
had withdrawn from all partnerships, and it retains full ownership of
all sites in Connecticut and Indiana. Millburn Peat Company Á Early in
the development of the Company, it became apparent that marketing finished
product is as important a part of the business as acquiring tipping fees
from waste disposal. Not only is the additional revenue necessary for
viability, but a compost site which does not move as much material out
as it takes in develops into, as the Company principals describe it, an
above-ground landfill. Among the many thoughts the Company pursued to
develop marketing techniques was that of bagging compost for sale through
retail outlets. In 1993, the owners of GreenCycle
acquired 25% of Millburn Peat Company of LaPorte, Indiana. The purpose
was for GreenCycle to learn about
the economics of selling bagged organic products and, eventually, to add
compost to Millburn's product line. What management of GreenCycle
learned over the next seven years was that compost can be sold in bulk
for several times the price that an organics bagging company can afford
to pay for raw material. In the year 2000, GreenCycle's
25% of Millburn was sold to the remaining management group for a
substantial profit. Marketing -- Some municipalities have been successful
in operating composting facilities, while many have not. With a very few
notable exceptions, municipal composting projects have run into difficulty
when they have attempted to dispose of finished product for applications
which truly constitute recycling. Empirical evidence suggests that municipal
personnel have neither the time nor the inclination to acquaint themselves
with the needs of horticultural markets and to actively solicit business
from those markets. GreenCycle has
personnel dedicated to developing markets for enriched soil products and
mulches to professional growers and home gardeners. The limit on GreenCycle's
finished product sales volume became, in about 2000, the volume of incoming
material At that time GreenCycle's
operation in Indianapolis began selling more material than it was taking
in, and it was forced to buy material for resale. Connecticut reached
that point in 2001. In order to have sufficient product to sell, and to
avoid having to buy material for resale, site personnel must constantly
search for additional sources of organic material which can be recycled.
In addition to yard waste, GreenCycle
currently composts vegetable waste from companies which make packaged
salads, soiled horse bedding from racetracks, and organic leftovers from
food processing and from the manufacture of industrial products. Current
Operations At the present time, the company has two operating companies
which process, blend and market organic materials throughout the east
and Midwest. The following pages include a description of each. Also included
are brief resumes of key GreenCycle
personnel in order to demonstrate the depth of experience
the company can bring to bear on most organic waste recycling problems.
GreenCycle of the Northeast operates
composting facilities for recycling yard waste and clean wood waste in
the Connecticut cities of Wallingford, Milford, Ellington, and West Hartford.
The company also processes material on municipal sites under contract
with Bradford, Bristol and Windsor Locks. Its products include compost,
enriched topsoil, specialized growing mixes for greenhouses and nurseries,
and earth-tone-dyed mulches that hold their color for a season or more.
The company expects to recycle well over 100,000 cubic yards of organic
material during 2002. GreenCycle of
Indiana Currently, in addition to composting yard waste from the Indiana
cities of Speedway and Zionsville, GreenCycle
of Indiana sites in Indianapolis and Whitestown (a northwestern suburb
of Indianapolis), accept soiled horse bedding from racetracks and fairgrounds,
pre-consumer food waste, and clean wood from land clearing operations.
Nevertheless, the Company's broad customer base consists of independent
landscape contractors, lawn services, tree services, and land clearing
operations. The Indianapolis sites also accept pallets from large companies
seeking to get rid of them and pallet scraps from companies whose business
is the repair and resale of pallets. These pallets, along with tree trimmings,
brush and clean wood, are ground up and made into several types of mulch
including a playground mulch which has been certified by an independent
laboratory as being of value in reducing playground injuries. Some mulches
are colored with organic dyes to keep their attractive appearance for
a season or more. This mulch business has become a major source of GreenCycle
revenue.
In 1996 the company received approval from the Indiana Department of Environmental
Management (IDEM) to conduct a test the object of which was to determine
if it was safe to recycle the plant material used by Dow AgroSciences,
a major agricultural chemical company, to test new chemical products for
the control of plant diseases and insects. Because of the possible toxicity
of the test material, a completely isolated and covered windrow was devised
for the test. After a year of operation, it was proven that the heat and
microbial activity generated by the composting process completely eliminated
all traces of the potentially-toxic chemicals, and the company was authorized
to continue without isolating the material. This project has saved Dow
AgroSciences significant disposal cost in addition to saving significant
landfill space. In 1998, part of the Indianapolis site was operating under
an experimental permit from IDEM. This permit allowed GreenCycle
to compostthe corn sludge left after 65,000 bushels of corn per day are
processed into starches and sweeteners. Recycling this material keeps
thousands of tons of recyclable material per year from taking up room
in landfills, and saves the A. E Staley Manufacturing Company a significant
amount of money as compared to the cost of landfill disposal. A permanent
permit was granted after the test period.
GreenCycle of Indiana's two sites
diverted approximately 140,000 cubic yards of material from landfills
in 2001. Except for about 2% "overs" all of this material was
processed and sold. in 2001 and 2002.
GreenCycle Locations
GreenCycle of Indiana Sites:
2351 Kentucky Avenue, Indianapolis, Indiana
4227 South Perry Worth Road, Whitestown, Indiana
GreenCycle of the Northeast Sites:
25 Brixton Street, West Hartford, Connecticut
235 Sadds Mill Road, Ellington, Connecticut
John Street, Wallingford, Connecticut
1183 Oronoque Road, Milford, Connecticut
Key GreenCycle Personnel
Caroline R. Repenning, President, GreenCycle
Incorporated. For several years Mrs. Repenning was with the General Electric
Company in Phoenix and Chicago. During that time she was responsible for
writing complex system software for
process control computers and application software for general-purpose
computers to perform highly sophisticated financial functions. She later
received a Master of Business Administration degree in Finance from the
Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
David A. Wagner, Vice President, GreenCycle
Incorporated. Mr. Wagner, a Certified Public Accountant, received a degree
in accounting from the University of Illinois and a Juris Doctor from
Loyola University where, for several years,
he taught a course in intellectual property law. He was, for ten years
the Chief Financial Officer and General Counsel of a large computer software
company in the Chicago area. Prior to joining GreenCycle,
Mr. Wagner was President of
The Rubicon Group, Ltd., a computer software company. Mr. Wager's duties
include the implementation of uniform, computerized accounting in all
of the GreenCycle companies, performing
legal services for the operating companies, and financial management of
the entire organization.
Peter A. Repenning, Vice President, GreenCycle
Incorporated. Mr. Repenning holds a degree in Physics and Mathematics
and a < Master of Business Administration degree from the University of
Michigan. During twelve years with the General Electric Company he held
increasingly responsible marketing management positions with that company's
computer manufacturing division. He continued to be involved in the marketing
of computers, software and allied products until the formation of GreenCycle
in 1992.
Mr. Repenning oversees the operations of all GreenCycle
composting facilities in addition to managing the corporate identity,
marketing and public relations activities of the GreenCycle
companies.
Winthrop B. Repenning, Vice President-Operations, GreenCycle
of Indiana, Incorporated. Mr. Repenning holds a degree in Economics from
The College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio. His responsibilities include directing
the composting and mulch manufacturing operations on both the Whitestown
and south Indianapolis sites. He is also responsible for the maintenance
of all of the equipment used on both sites. Because of his experience
with heavy equipment, GreenCycle of
Indiana does most of its maintenance in-house, and, as a result, the company
enjoys lower equipment operating costs than any competitor management
is familiar with.
John E. Repenning, Vice President-Marketing and Administration, GreenCycle
of Indiana, Incorporated. Mr. Repenning holds a degree in Sociology
from Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio. His duties include marketing
all of the finished product produced on the two sites in and near Indianapolis,
obtaining additional tipping both to increase revenues and to
provide more finished product for sale. Mr. Repenning also works with
the Vice President-Operations to determine and optimum mix of products
to manufacture taking into consideration markets and raw materials. All
clerical personnel and
scale-house operations report to Mr. Repenning.
James V. Repenning, Director of Operations, GreenCycle
Incorporated. Mr. Repenning holds a BA in Economics from Colorado College,
Colorado Springs, Colorado. After graduating, he began working at GreenCycle
of the Northeast, Incorporated, West Hartford, Connecticut. GreenCycle
of the Northeast had shown considerably slower growth than its sister
company in Indiana. Soon after he arrived in Connecticut, he took over
operation of the company's four sites. In the following two years the
management team took the company from substantial losses to comfortable
profits by producing the proper products in the necessary volumes and
by selling these products to the Company's targeted markets.
Mr. Repenning took a two-year sabbatical to obtain a Master of Science
degree in Operations Management from the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Upon graduation in
June of 2002, he moved to Rockford, Illinois to manage the reclamation
of a compost site that had been neglected for several years. He is presently
working through the resolution of the many Illinois EPA violations that
were recently delivered to the owners of the site, violations which were
the result of the lack of activity by the former operators.
Nelson P. Repenning, Ph.D., Operations Management Consultant to GreenCycle,
Incorporated. Mr. Repenning has an undergraduate degree in Economics from
The Colorado College, Colorado Springs, Colorado, and a Ph.D. from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is currently a professor of
Operations Management at the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Mr. Repenning has conducted
group meetings for the management of GreenCycle
which assisted in determining the direction in which the Company should
grow.
J. Christopher Field, Vice President and General Manager, GreenCycle
of the Northeast. Mr. Field, a graduate of Harvard
University, was for eight years an officer Á most recently Vice President
of Composting Operations Á of EarthGro Corporation, a large, East Coast
composter and marketer of bagged organic material now owned by Hyponex
division of the Scotts Company.
Mr. Field is responsible for all of the GreenCycle
facilities in the eastern United States. He has been with the GreenCycle
companies for nine years.
Banking Relationship
Susan Cook
Vice President
Bank One, NA
400 Central Avenue
Northfield, Illinois 60093
847-441-4000
Legal Representation
Sidley, Austin, Brown & Wood
Chicago, Illinois 60603
312/853-7000
Certified Public Accountant
Steven R. Glover, CPA
Africk Chez, P.C.
770 Lake Cook Road, Suite 350
Deerfield, Illinois 60015
847-236-9800
GreenCycle Municipal Customers
The Civil Town of Speedway
Ms. Antonia Sekula
317-293-5553
The Town of Zionsville, Indiana
Don Dudkowski, Street Superintendent
317-873-4544
Town of West Hartford, Connecticut
Dana Hallenbeck, Director of Public Works
860-570-3713
Town of Wallingford, Connecticut
Phil Hamel, Program Planning
203-261-2061
Major Private-Industry Customers
Dow AgroSciences
Norman Smiley
317-337-3654
A. E. Staley Manufacturing Company
William D. Coats
765-448-7123
Hoosier Park at Anderson
A Churchill Downs Company
Ron Fairholm, Manager, Back Lot Operations
765-642-7223 Ext. 1010
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