reRubber Gaining traction

By LAUREN McSHERRY - Contributing Writer The BizPress

J.D. Wang is a young entrepreneur who has launched a new company, reRubber, with a lofty mission.

He's trying to reform the negative image of the tire recycling industry, which has taken a drubbing over the years for underhanded practices, ranging from illegal dumping to tire stockpiling and landfill fires.

"We're changing the game," Wang said. "reRubber is changing the face of the industry."

The 32-year-old's ambition to clean up his industry's image is evident not only in his company's ethos to keep tires out of landfills but through reRubber's streamlined, green logo, the modern interior design of his office headquarters and the top-secret, advanced technology of the tire shredding machines used in his tire recycling facility in Ontario.

"It's a very clean, environmentally friendly recycling process," he said. "Our waste system is getting overloaded. Our process doesn't generate any waste."

The Silicon Valley culture of technological innovation and entrepreneurship has pervaded the way that Wang approaches business. A native of San Francisco, he refers to reRubber as a startup and has incorporated the latest technology into his operations, something which he says gives him an advantage over his competitors.

Wang knew he wanted to run a businesses focused on sustainable practices, and after due diligence, he settled on tire recycling with the goal of operating a facility somewhere in California, where he perceived there was a demand for the service. Statewide here are only six recyclers. In 2009 he launched reRubber in Ontario.

The recycling facility began operating last June, and since then, business has taken off. Wang he had anticipated a slow start for the fledgling company and speaks with enthusiasm about its recent growth.

The 50,000-square-foot facility currently recycles 1 million tires a year. Wang plans to increase that to 3 million.

"We are growing pretty fast," Wang said. "We've doubled our crew from last year to this year, and we are probably going to double that again in the next two months."

The facility is able to extract a number of materials from the recycled tires - steel, fiber and rubber. Wang estimates that approximately 6 million tires a year are deposited in the Azusa landfill in Los Angeles County. On average, one tire, per person, per year is disposed, he said.

That's a lot of tires, but most importantly, that's a lot of crumb rubber, for which there is large demand.

There is also a market for the steel that is extracted from the tires as well as an emerging market for the fiber, he said.

"There's always been a shortage of crumb rubber in California," Wang said. "There's not enough recyclers in California. There's only six recyclers. For the amount of tires we have, that's very little. We are addressing a big need."

Despite the recession, starting the business in 2009 was good timing, Wang said. He had identified the location where he thought his business could succeed as well as the technology he would employ to recycle tires, and he had lined up investors. In addition, he had the full support of his parents, who endowed him with his entrepreneurial bent. His father owned a general contracting business in San Francisco while his mother ran a small publishing house printing books and magazines in Chinese.

His mother is now reRubber's chairwoman; his father, chief operating officer. They have 16 employees on the payroll and expect to hire more.

"Everything fell together for us," Wang said.

Before settling on Ontario as a location, Wang had considered the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, and neighboring states as possible recycling facility sites.

He chose Ontario for its easy access to freeways and major transportation routes and because Ontario is close to the heart of Los Angeles.

"It was a combination of the right city, the right landlord and the right location," Wang said of opening the facility.

Inside the recycling facility, machines shred the tires and separate out the crumb rubber, steel and fiber.

The rubber is further separated into different grades, which is sold to various industries.

The crumb rubber produced by the recycling facility can be used to make tiles for gym floors, synthetic turf, rubber mulch, fake cobblestones and curbing, even the bases for traffic cones.

"There's a lot that can be said about this industry," Wang said. "Back in the day, they were always saying how the auto industry employs so many million people. Well, the recycling industry employs just as many people. The recycling industry is vital."

 

Paul Alvarez/Contributing photographer

[ full article on The BizPress ]