Biz Recycling isn’t just about recycling

A $20,000 food recovery grant from Biz Recycling helps Keystone Community Services (2000 St Anthony Ave., St. Paul) save up to 2000 pounds of food from spoiling per week, said Sydney Henderson, the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce Director of Environmental Sustainability. This grant allowed them to purchase additional refrigeration units for their mobile distribution vehicles.
“I know it’s kind of an arbitrary number but if you look at it from Feeding America or USDA guidelines of 1.2 pounds of food per meal per person, that’s roughly a minimum of 833 meals not going to waste,” Henderson observed. “That’s just for 1,000 pounds. If you’re looking at 2,000 pounds, it’s double that.”
This is just one example of how the Minnesota Waste Wise and its connected programs help organizations save money and practice more sustainable processes.
Minnesota Waste Wise is a program run by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce Environmental Sustainability Foundation that helps businesses and communities reduce waste and save money. Biz Recycling is a form of this program specifically run with Ramsey and Washington County recycling and energy teams to help groups in those areas, while MNimize helps communities in Hennepin County receive rebates for compostable and reusable alternatives.
Businesses can get free site assessments and advice through Waste Wise, Henderson said.
“We offer no cost on-site assessments. We kind of tailor and create customized recommendations for each individual business,” Henderson explained. “And then we help them access grants, rebates and other cost saving opportunities so that they can enact those recommendations or implement those players that they have deemed appropriate.”
Businesses produce waste that doesn’t need to be thrown in the trash and may not realize how that increases costs, said Alboury Ndiaye of Minnesota Waste Wise in a recent presentation to Midway Chamber board members.
“About 75% of the waste that businesses typically produce doesn’t need to be in the trash,” Ndiaye stated. “There are huge tax savings that can be realized.”
“The Midway Chamber wants to help our members reach their goals for eco-friendliness while also saving resources. Biz Recycling has been able to help so many local businesses, and we are happy we can connect our members to the program,” stated Midway Chamber Executive Director Chad Kulas.

BIN, BAGS, AND OTHER WASTE REDUCTION EQUIPMENT
MN Waste Wise is able to provide assistance to businesses in identifying which grants will work for them and what they should apply for.
Outta Wax, a record making company in Minneapolis, received a $20,000 grant using a Hennepin County program that was used to buy a grinder and dinker machine, Henderson said. The grinder helps the business grind up unused PVC in order to reuse it or recycle it, while the dinker makes it possible for incorrectly pressed vinyls to be recycled instead of thrown away.
Businesses in Hennepin County can work with the MNimize program to receive up to $1,000 in rebates for purchases of compostable products, reusable products or any similar items they need.
Nice Time Market + More (2402 E 38th St., Minneapolis) and Ichigo Tokyo Crepes (5 W 34th St. in Minneapolis) received the $1,000 Bin and Bag rebate in order to add additional recycling bins, labels and signage, as well as start service to collect organics from their food prep, remarked Henderson. Both businesses also got an additional rebate for compostables.
Biz Recycling has helped organizations streamline waste management systems, provided resources to educate staff and customers, navigated service challenges and helped find outlets for materials that may be difficult to recycle, Henderson said.
There are three kinds of grant programs offered by Biz Recycling. Businesses can get up to $50,000 for waste reduction and innovation, $20,000 for food recovery or $10,000 for waste reduction equipment and supplies.
Gruber Pallets in Lake Elmo received a waste reduction and innovation grant to purchase equipment to reuse pallets. The company used this machinery to recycle an additional 7.2 million pounds of pallets annually.
The smallest grant offered by Biz Recycling is the most popular one because of the reduced amount of barriers to implementing them, stated Henderson.
“Businesses can receive funding for waste reduction equipment and supplies,” Henderson said. “So these might be bins for customers. This might be reusable glass. It might be compostable products.”
The success of the Biz Recycling program isn’t measured in terms of money, Henderson said. Instead, the program measures the pounds of waste diverted from waste streams.
“Just this year alone, we have diverted 425,000 pounds of material, whether that be reducing, recycling, food donation, composting, etc.,” Henderson said.

SURPISING MORE DON’T USE GRANTS
Jason Wagner, owner of J’s Kombucha (755 Prior Ave N #348, St. Paul), said he had a great experience with Biz Recycling and liked the assistance provided.
“I really appreciated the assistance that their team provided in terms of deciding which grants to pursue and then helping flush out exactly what we have a better chance at getting,” Wagner said. “Their flexibility and also expertise throughout the whole process made it a lot easier for me.”
J’s Kombucha received a $50,000 waste reduction and innovation grant for machinery to digitally print can labels, as well as assistance repurposing the scoby waste from the kombucha making process to be made into dog treats called “Scoby Snaxs,” Wagner said. They also received a little over $4,000 from Biz Recycling for bins, dehydrators and compost.
If cans are recycled with adhesive labels it can downgrade the quality of the aluminum can, Wagner said. In order to switch to digitally printing can labels a company needs certain equipment, which J’s Kombucha bought using grant funds.
It’s surprising how many businesses don’t use Biz Recycling’s assistance, Wagner said.
“I’ll become friendly with another business and then I’ll pitch it to them, but a lot of times they’re just busy and grants take a lot of work,” Wagner said. “I’m always surprised by the amount of people that don’t take the opportunity.”
Wagner said that his company hasn’t saved money yet, but this process has opened many doors for future endeavors.
“We’re going to try to revive the project and continue pursuing those things, but that led from the Scoby Snaxs. You know, maybe we can do a freeze-dried powder and that would be something that would mitigate the amount of antibiotics and additives that industrial farmers have to use,” Wagner said. “ If we didn’t have the Scoby Snaxs, we wouldn’t have gotten to the point where we’re like, maybe we can do this. We’re pretty excited about what these ideas might lead to, this was a necessary first step.”
Alyssa Van Cleef is a University of Minnesota student majoring in journalism.