A growing end market for mixed paper, plastic and cartons abruptly closed this fall.
The Continuus Materials site closure in Des Moines, Iowa, comes only a couple years after the company was acquired by hauling giant WM. Continuus manufactured a construction board product made from recycled paper and plastic, as well as cartons.
On Oct. 22, the company provided notice to Iowa Workforce Development that the company would close its manufacturing site effective Nov. 1, laying off 32 workers.
Emails seeking comment from Continuus and WM were not returned. Waste Dive and the Des Moines Register previously reported on the closure.
Until 2018, Houston-based Continuus Materials was largely focused on developing its technology. Even then the company was partnering with WM, then named Waste Management, to try out different recycling technologies. In 2018, after working to develop a process that recycles mixed paper and plastic into construction boards suitable for commercial roof and wall installations, Continuus moved from technology development into commercial manufacturing, with its purchase of the ReWall Company.
ReWall operated a single manufacturing location in Des Moines, where the company took in cartons and processed them into construction boards. Shortly after the sale, ReWall announced it would build its second manufacturing facility, this time in Colorado. Company representatives said the project would be solely a ReWall site and not connected to the Continuus-ReWall partnership in Iowa.
ReWall received $1.5 million from Colorado’s Recycling Resources Economic Opportunity grant program, which at the time was the largest grant distributed through the program to date.
But the Colorado expansion never came to fruition. In a 2019 report, Recycle Colorado briefly noted that “the company was awarded an RREO grant in 2018 to help fund the construction of a facility but the project was dropped and grant rescinded.”
Back in Des Moines, the deal gave Continuus its first manufacturing assets, and therefore the ability to start producing its boards commercially. Continuus branded its boards Everboard, and the company also incorporated some of ReWall’s processes to use cartons in the mix.
WM was long an investor in Continuus before buying a majority stake in 2022 along with a Dallas, Texas-based private equity firm.
At the time, Resource Recycling reported WM was planning to support Continuus in building a second processing plant. With that new facility, WM planned to increase the amount of recyclables it sent to Continuus, estimating it could be sending 150,000 tons of mixed paper and plastic each year by 2025.
That second plant was being considered for a location near a WM landfill in Pennsylvania. In WM’s 2020 sustainability report, when the company was an investor but not yet majority shareholder, WM reported that “Continuus is finalizing the development of its first commercial manufacturing plant, which may be co-located at Waste Management’s Fairless Landfill in Philadelphia. When fully operational, the plant will divert approximately 320 tons of materials per day from landfills to convert them into new building products.”
That second location has not come about.
Carton end markets advance elsewhere
Jason Pelz, vice president of recycling projects for the Carton Council of North America, said the group was “disappointed to learn of Continuus Materials closing.” The industry association was an early supported of Continuus Materials and ReWall. Pelz said the group did not have details to share on the facility closure.
However, Pelz added there has been “good progress on a few fronts for food and beverage carton recycling and we expect things to continue to advance in the new year.” Recent developments include Essity Tissue in Barton, Alabama, beginning to use post-consumer cartons in the paper mill’s feedstock, and Sustana Fiber – which has been a growing end market for cartons in recent years – continuing to increase carton consumption at its mills in Wisconsin and Quebec.
Finally, Pelz reported an in-development carton end market on the U.S. west coast is gearing up to announce its location in the coming weeks.
