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U.S. Plastic Lumber Company
Manufactures Plastic Lumber for Decks ... and Many Other Uses
If
you look at a deck around a home or other building, you may notice that
it has smooth, even boards with no knots or splits. You may not see any
screws or nails holding them in place, and the owner didn’t even
apply any paint or waterproofing sealer. This deck was built with plastic
lumber made from recycled plastic milk jugs and other household containers.
Such products often come from small mom-and-pop companies out to help the environment by finding a way to recycle plastic. They fight an uphill battle selling the virtues of their product to a public that has used conventional wood lumber for generations. But U.S. Plastic Lumber (USPL) has taken a different approach as a larger company on a mission to take plastic lumber mainstream.
Headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, USPL boasts some 500 employees and operates under the mantra that anything you can build with wood lumber can be done in plastic. They can supply material for an entire deck from the ground up. The company’s products also see use in a host of other applications, from joists and pilings to fencing, traffic barriers, fendering systems, railings, docks, railroad ties, and outdoor furniture such as picnic tables.
While USPL espouses the environmental benefits of plastic lumber, which include reducing the need for landfills and the number of trees cut down, the company also cites a number of other advantages. Plastic lumber doesn’t rot when exposed to moisture and therefore never requires waterproofing or similar maintenance when used outdoors. It doesn’t warp, splinter, or crack, and it resists insects such as termites. Over time, plastic lumber saves on labor, materials, and equipment because it lasts longer than wood and requires less frequent replacement.
Recently, plastic lumber has come to the forefront as a viable replacement for conventional pressure-treated lumber in light of new legislation from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency banning lumber treated with copper chromated arsenic (CCA) because of its toxicity. Lumber treated with alkaline copper quaternary (ACQ) was seen as a replacement, but this has shown to corrode screws and nails and even joist hangers used to fasten it.
USPL came to life in Nevada in 1992 when a handful of environmentally-oriented companies merged to become Clean Earth. In 1996, the company acquired Earth Care Global Holdings and changed its name to U.S. Plastic Lumber. At one point, USPL owned many plants all over the country, but its executives found they could take better advantage of advancements in technology if they confined operations to two or three large facilities, so they consolidated plants. USPL now has two large manufacturing facilities in Ocala, Florida and Chicago with a sales and marketing division in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
The company buys plastic raw material from solid waste companies in bales of containers made from high-density polyethylene (HDPE). Nathan Kalenich, senior applications engineer, states, “Most of our products are post-consumer or post-industrial waste like milk jugs and detergent bottles. We take advantage of recycling programs out there.”
They sort the bottles, grind them, wash the flake, and then melt it down and mix it with additives such as UV stabilizer, which helps to hold color, static electricity inhibitor, and pigments for color. Then, using a patented process, the material is extruded through a die into rigid boards. USPL extrudes HDPE in many dimensional lumber sizes, and they cut it to standard lengths of 8, 12, 16, and 20 feet. The company has over 60 production lines capable of manufacturing a multitude of cross-sectional shapes. They sell products through a network of distributors and retailers that include lumber yards, building supply centers, and plastic and decking specialty companies.
In its operations, USPL uses several types of process engineers, including mechanical, manufacturing, and chemical types. They get involved with chemical formulation and the extrusion lines at the two plants and investigate advancements to create stronger, stiffer, and more cost-effective deck boards.
On another front, structural engineers deal with structural design for applications and meeting building codes, often assisting customers on projects. This is where Kalenich comes in. “I’m a structural engineer and a civil engineer. They hired me to provide the experience behind the building and construction side of it. My job is an engineer supporting sales. This is something new we’ve offered in the past year. Just due to how busy I’ve been, I know this is going to be another opportunity some day for expanding.” In describing his work, he says, “I travel to potential distributors. I work with clients. I’ll even work with the end user or contractor that has an installation issue. We have hot tub manufacturers and sauna manufacturers and all sorts of different people that call us regarding installation questions.”
Besides
standard plastic lumber used for decking and other non-structural applications,
which comprises most of its business, USPL manufactures structural lumber.
“The product that’s gaining a lot of potential is our TriMax
structural lumber,” Kalenich reveals. TriMax consists of 30 percent
fiber fill, actually fiber glass, and 70 percent recycled plastic. “That
gives us a stiffer board, so we’re able to use that as joists, posts,
girders, sea walls, piers, and docks.” TriMax works well in wet
or damp environments and any outdoor application requiring strength and
durability. “In deck boards, it virtually eliminates expansion and
contraction, which was a negative association with the high density polyethylene
decking of years past.” He adds, “We even use the product
for railroad ties, which we send all over the world. We have railroad
ties even in the swamps of Brazil.”
USPL boasts a slew of notable large-scale projects that sport its products. They produced the lumber for a 3100-foot nature walk for the city of Oneida, Florida. TriMax was used as the structure, railing, and decking for the Lake Placid Bobsled Run in New York. The company supplied lumber for the construction of the First Vehicular Bridge in New Baltimore, New York, made from 68,000 milk jugs. And they provided approximately 13,000 railroad ties for reconstruction projects on the Chicago Transit Authority’s Blue-line.
When it comes to price, another concern consumers have about plastic lumber, Kalenich says, “Our structural lumber is slightly more expensive than pressure-treated wood. The price difference between plastic and real lumber varies depending on the application. I have designs that have been anywhere between 300 dollars more to two or three times as much. It all depends what you’re doing and how efficient the design is.” He counters that by saying the new ACQ-treated lumber costs 40 to 60 percent more than traditional CCA-treated lumber, yet it lasts only 60 to 70 percent as long. Meanwhile, USPL offers a 50-year warranty on many of its products. “That’s all people need to hear.”
In comparing the strength of structural plastic lumber to that of wood lumber, Kalenich explains, “With TriMax, the allowable span is not as great as typical pressure-treated lumber, but through designing it efficiently, you can use the same amount of material, if not slightly more. But the nice thing about TriMax is, in an engineering sense, deflection always controls design, which is a little different than lumber, where the breaking stress normally controls.” This is because plastic isn’t as stiff as wood, so plastic lumber typically sags to an unacceptable level before it reaches its breaking strength.
Kalenich points out that “you can cut our plastic lumber with conventional tools such as miter boxes, circular saws, and jigsaws.” You can nail it like wood, but stainless steel screws are the preferred way of fastening, as screw strength is much greater. Carefree Xteriors groove-in-groove deck board, USPL’s most popular product, uses a fastening system consisting of hidden screws, so you don’t have to worry about screw or nail heads coming up.
While it has proved no small task converting the public to plastic lumber, USPL stands poised to make a big move toward doing just that. They’re not hiring engineers now, but they plan to expand operations and further develop their patents. As Kalenich notes, “To do this, we will need a wide variety of engineers in the near future.”
As a possible harbinger of things to come, business has picked up in recent times. “Because of the new issues with the ACQ-treated lumber, the demand for our TriMax has gone through the roof,” says Kalenich. “People are looking for an alternative. They’re tired of worrying about wood, the different treatments involved in it, and are searching out a different option. They’re looking for a virtually no-maintenance product. We are busy across the board.” Hopefully, this is a sign that USPL is indeed bringing plastic lumber mainstream.
Snapshot
Company: U.S. Plastic Lumber Company
Type: Manufacturer of plastic lumber
Location: Headquarters in Boca Raton, Florida; plants in Ocala, Florida and Chicago, Illinois
Website: www.usplasticlumber.com
Progressive
Engineer
Editor: Tom Gibson
2049 Crossroads Drive, Lewisburg, PA 17837
570-568-8444 * progress@jdweb.com
©2004 Progressive Engineer