Better World Materials Converts Trash into Building Materials

Better World Building materials is converting rejected recyclables into materials to create railroad ties, sheds, and houses.

By Kathryn Hawkins. Posted on September 14 2011

What can you do with a bag of garbage? While you might think it’s not good for much more than landfill material, Al Braun, co-founder of Better World Materials in Kearns, Utah, has other ideas: His company is converting waste products into building materials.

The company takes items that recycling centers often reject—milk jugs and cereal boxes, for instance—and uses machinery to grind them down into a woodlike substance that can be used for building materials such as railroad ties, foundations, and boards.

Braun began developing the process 20 years ago, after seeing how much garbage ended up scattering across his native Hawaiian island as debris after a hurricane. He’s spent hundreds of thousands on his mission, but he’s now developed a process that can convert most forms of rejected recyclables into building materials.

Currently, the company is focusing on railroad ties, but that will change soon: Better World recently signed a contract with TuffShed to produce planks that can be used for shed foundations. Better World is also aiming to build plants to convert trash into construction materials in 15 states. If that happens, the company will need a lot of raw materials to process—but the company’s CEO, Dalyn Judd doesn’t believe that should be a problem.

“Are we going to run out of garbage?” he asked the Salt Lake Tribune. “I don’t think so.”

Filed under: Business, Green,

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