Going Green

Eco-friendly businesses are a win-win for Jersey.

Posted August 11, 2009 by Bob Seligman

Axion’s recycled plastic components support this railway bridge.

Courtesy of Axion International.

In the eco-conscious eyes of Jim Kerstein, green is the new black. Kerstein is CEO of Basking Ridge-based Axion International, a new company that recycles seemingly useless junk like Styrofoam and crushed soda bottles into useful construction materials. Axion is just one of numerous New Jersey companies that are trying to improve the environment while developing profitable businesses. It’s a strategy that is rapidly going mainstream.

“In the future, it’s not going to be, like, a green solution and a non-green solution,” says Gary Survis, managing partner of Woodbridge-based Go Green Display. “It’s just going to be, that’s the way we do it. Everything will be green.”

Here’s a look at six New Jersey companies that are blazing a green path.

AXION INTERNATIONAL
Location: Basking Ridge
NJ employees: 8
axionintl.com

More than 40 years after The Graduate promised “a great future in plastics,” Axion International is showing why. Axion uses recycled plastics to create eco-friendly, weight-bearing building components, like I-beams for bridges, marine pilings, and railroad ties. Its products were used in the construction of an all-plastic bridge used by emergency vehicles in the Pine Barrens.

Axion works closely on plastics recycling research with Rutgers University. A key Rutgers-developed technology it employs involves taking two types of recycled plastic materials that have different properties and combining them. “You have one material, like milk jugs, juice containers, and detergent bottles, that have tremendous strength and durability but may not be particularly stiff,” says CEO Jim Kerstein. “We mixed these tough, durable, strong materials with another type of material, whether it’s a Styrofoam coffee cup or plastic eating utensils or car-bumper scrap, which has tremendous stiffness properties but on its own might be too brittle. By putting the two materials together in the right proportions, you get a material that gives you tremendous strength, durability, and toughness, and fantastic stiffness properties.”

The benefits don’t end there. “We use considerably less energy to manufacture our product than it takes to process steel or than it would to harvest a tree and have it cut down into boards,” adds Kerstein. “Our product is lighter than either wood or steel, so we reduce transportation and shipping costs.” Further, Kerstein claims Axion’s materials are long-lasting, do not rust or chip, and do not leach chemicals into the environment. 

Axion, which is only a year old, is projecting $6 million in sales for 2009, according to Kerstein, and could grow three to four times that in 2010.

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EPV SOLAR
Location: Robbinsville
NJ employees: less than 100
epvsolar.com

It would be natural to sing “Here Comes the Sun” at EPV Solar, an energy company that designs, manufactures, and markets thin-film amorphous silicon solar modules, which capture energy from sunlight.
EPV Solar says its technology is non-polluting and ecologically benign. The modules are manufactured with substantially less silicon than traditional crystalline modules. “The benefit of silicon is it’s very plentiful,” says Ren Jenkins, VP of marketing and business development. “It’s one of the most abundant elements in the Earth’s crust.”

What’s more, EPV’s modules produce electricity from a renewable source—the sun—without polluting the environment or depleting finite resources like fossil fuels. “There are no emissions from solar modules, so it’s a very clean energy as opposed to fossil fuel,” Jenkins adds. “There are no toxic emissions or waste from our product, and it does not need to be recycled.”

The modules have multiple uses. They can be installed in open areas like commercial rooftops, parking lots, and open fields as part of an energy-producing system. They’ve also been integrated into structural glass to create curtain walls, awnings, or canopies—even solar cabanas for a pool area.
EPV Solar is privately held and does not report its revenue.

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GO GREEN DISPLAYS
Location: Piscataway
NJ employees: 18
gogreendisplays.com

Go Green manufactures trade-show exhibit booths and displays using sustainable materials that either have recycled content or are themselves recyclable. Booths are constructed with pressboard made of waste byproducts like sunflower-seed husks. Shelves are made of high-density recycled cardboard for stiffness and also contain bamboo, which is more rapidly renewable than wood. Aluminum used has a minimum 25 percent recycled content and is completely recyclable. Backdrops for display systems contain recycled soda-bottle fibers. Even the inks are chosen to be nonpolluting.

Go Green also sells eco-friendly LED lighting, which is more energy efficient than halogen lights. The company also distributes sustainable flooring.

“Everything that we sell is focused on limiting the environmental impact, reducing consumption of materials, and recycling as much as possible of the products once they’re past their useful life,” says managing partner Gary Survis.

The company, which has been in business for five years, claims growth of 60 percent a year on a compounded annual basis. “Even in a down economy, green exhibiting is extremely strong,” says Survis. “Budgets may have been cut. Green initiatives have not.”

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Haftek CWS
Location: Paterson
NJ employees: 4
haftekcws.com

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Concrete Washout Solutions
Location: Jackson
NJ employees: 5
njwashout.com

These companies keep the environment clean by storing concrete mixer washout and then transforming it into cured concrete that is crushed into small stone and resold for use as roadway base. The base can be paved over to create parking lots, for example.

“Concrete washout water is corrosive, very caustic, and has a high pH level,” says Roger Haftek, president of Haftek CWS. “It’s basically like dumping Drano onto the ground.” Such dumping is barred by the  federal Clean Water Act. “We provide a sealed, watertight, patented container that concrete trucks wash out into,” says Haftek. The washout is stored in the specially lined containers until it hardens. Then it is taken to a concrete recycling facility in New Jersey, where it is crushed and reused. “Once concrete is cured it is not toxic. It’s the slurry and the water that’s toxic,” explains Haftek.

Haftek CWS has a license to handle the concrete washout storage in New Jersey north of the Raritan River, while Concrete Washout Solutions has the business south of the Raritan River. Both companies are licensees of Concrete Washout Systems of Sacramento, California.

Sales at CWS have increased every year since inception three years ago and should reach $1 million in 2010, according to Haftek. Concrete Washout Solutions, launched at the same time, would not divulge its sales numbers.

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McSHANE ENTERPRISES
Location: East Brunswick
NJ employees: 67
winansmcshane.com

McShane Enterprises, which does 90 percent of its business as a distributor of janitorial supplies and cleaning materials, including towels, tissues, chemicals, soaps, and trash-can liners, is responding to the demand for green products. VP of operations Mark Rogers says that sales of eco-friendly products were about 5 percent of the company’s business three years ago; today, he says, the segment is closer to 20 to 25 percent, and likely to increase.

“This is where we’re focusing our year and our future,” Rogers says. “This is where the cleaning industry is going.”

McShane Enterprises greens with towels and tissues made from 100 percent recycled content. Soaps and trash-can liners are biodegradable. Its green chemical line meets the Green Seal environmental standard for industrial and institutional cleaners, including, among other criteria, having noncarcinogenic ingredients; noncombustible products; and low skin, eye, and respiratory irritation potential. Mop heads—made from green soda bottles that are broken into tiny pieces—are biodegradable.

The company recently moved into the food-service industry with eco-friendly cutlery and plastic cups made from cornstarch.

“These products will replace the products we’ve used in the past,” Rogers says. “They won’t be in your landfill for years to come. They’ll break down faster.”

And they build business. The company reports annual revenue of $35 million.

Bob Seligman is an award-winning freelance writer who has become more eco-conscious as a result of doing this story.

For more stories about: Piscataway, Paterson, Jackson, East Brunswick, Basking Ridge, Robbinsville, Green Technology, Green Jobs