986 Tower Place
Santa Cruz, CA 95062
Central Phone: 462-1565 or (800) 752-2867
Product or service: Manufactures plastic injection-molded products from primarily recycled feedstock.
Award Status: Innovative Business Model

The Plactory, Inc. has been in business since 1976, and in 1989, began manufacturing plastic injection-molded products from primarily recycled feedstock that would have otherwise ended up in the waste stream.

In 1993, The Plactory received the California Resource Recovery Association (CRRA) award for Recycling-based Manufacturing. Steven Suess, CEO, received CRRA's Service Award, and the SCC Board of Supervisors provided recognition on November 15, 1997.

The Plactory is the prototype for a new business framework that would create a larger number of smaller factories serving local communities by using their plastic discards. The goal is to take inexpensive raw materials extracted from the waste stream, coupled with inexpensive used equipment, to create local business opportunities to manufacture their product and create new jobs. Contrast this with mainstream plastic industry practices that depend on the use of sophisticated equipment, automation and large-scale mass production.

Current projects include:
- Building tools and delivering vehicle oil draining kits, manufactured from used oil bottles and other #2 plastics
- Working with local government agencies, also funded by state grants, to develop products made from used tires.
- Working with the California Integrated Waste Management Board to develop pilot programs for silicon Valley corporation to learn how to purchase items molded from recycled plastic.

The Plactory is prepared to increase their manufacturing volume to make full use of capacity and knowledge already developed.

Employees at the Plactory are treated with respect, and allowed to use their own creativity to solve problems; innovation is encouraged. The Plactory management understands that wasting human resource and potential wastes other types of precious resources.

The Plactory also provides frequent tours for children to help them learn how plastic can be transformed into new and useful items.

The Plactory is in the business of taking other people's waste and creating a home for it, either by making their own products with it, or by passing it to someone else who can. The Plactory strives not to generate any waste of their own, as the real goal is "zero waste" to insure a sustainable world.
SQA Application, 1997/8
The Plactory

The Plactory, now based in Santa Cruz and in business since 1976, manufactures plastic injection-molded products from primarily recycled feedstock that "nobody else in America" would touch.

In 1993, The Plactory received the California Resource Recovery Association (CRRA) award for Recycling-based Manufacturing. Steven Suess, CEO, received CRRA's Service Award, and the SCC Board of Supervisors [did something] on Nov. 15, 1997.

In 1989, the Plactory began using recycling as a priority for the business. This innovative approach, using plastic raw materials

The difficulties of recycling-based manufacturing tends to suffer a high rate of failure (compared to the industry) due to lack of infrastructure specifically, marketing. If you work with recycled materials you have to modify and experiment with equipment to get it to work properly. It takes patience and creativity to put all the pieces together and make it work. Raw material supply issues, R&D with that material (not needed if that material is "standard"), obtain the right equipment and adapt it to create the right widgets, and hire and train mold operators that can innovate, then get distributors to be "trail blazers" and resell products that are a bit different. Two channels: (1) find niche markets where an innovative design will "win" the business (display racks part of their business for the past 7 years). (2) Custom "promotional" items (oil grant funds used to make a license plate out of old oil cans ... probably sold $20K of frames to various counties and state agencies); may make an oil changing kits. Made some rulers out of old computers for HP. Not high enough volume to be profitable. Supply-demand limitations. Starting to get some people from the State of CA to "influence" CEOs, etc. ($10K / day fines weigh in the balance).

A lot of money out there to develop markets can go to consultants, nonprofit groups, government agencies (academic stuff will lead nowhere without business sense, though corporations cannot accept the funding ... and the foundations realize that half the people are charlatans and fakes ....).

Hire Steven

How to make biodegradable plastics work. Price of the plastic depends on the price of the plant used to make it. If you have $M's to invest, it'll be expensive; if $B's, it'll be cheap.

Making "zero waste" a household word due to his frustration with AB959. We're getting rid of the wrong 50%. Let's put zero waste on the agenda for the future. Let's get the county and city of Santa Cruz.

Do it politically. Environmental Defense Fund ... or ... go to McDonald and give them grief until they commit to make everything compostable. Launch the negative campaign and then they'll have to look into it. Then come back to them with the biodegradable.

Or work with DuPont that has a PET that will hydrolyze into (ester)monomers, edible by bacteria and soil. They have a 2-pg ad in Scientific America for months now, looking for suggestions to market this stuff.

Phase 2 is to persuade them to make it not out of fossil fuel, but instead use vegetable oils.


Used to be 30-40 people; now down to 15 people.

Plactory strives not to generate any waste of their own; they are in the business of taking other people's waste and making a home for it, either as part of their own products, or by passing it onto someone else who can use it. Plastics recycling is really just a step, a "finger in the dyke," as the real goal is zero waste and to have a sustainable world. With plastics, we still use fossil fuels. It is possible to make a plastic that is compostable, or one that doesn't contain harmful components, and use it as many times as possible, and can then burn it as heating fuel. Think in terms of loops, cycles, as in nature.

We have a 20 yard dumpster that fills up rarely (with surplus stuff that they cannot use). Internally, we recycle all the corrugated boxes we can get our hands on. Grey Bears takes our magazine and white paper. Stopped using HTPE and continue to take polycarbonate bottles. They take plastics from people to use as much as they can. More often than not end up selling it off at a loss.

Could lower electricity use if we "modernized" some for the equipment they use (energy-efficient motors, for example).