Paper recyclers recycle business

Sonoco Products, the Hartsville-based packaging giant, is recycling its local paper recycling business.

The division, formerly called Paper Stock Dealers, has been renamed Sonoco Recycling in time for its 1.5-mile move to a brand new building at the former Macalloy industrial site on Shipyard Creek in North Charleston.

The relocation — from a site at 20 Braswell St. to 2025 Tellico Road — marks a major upgrade for Sonoco, the company said.

"Our new North Charleston facility is larger — a nearly 30,000-square-foot building on a 5-acre site — and much more efficient than our former location," said Myles Cohen, division vice president and general manager of Sonoco Recycling. "Its additional space and improved productivity will allow us to process and warehouse a larger volume of recyclables than we've been able to handle in the past."

The new plant processes most corrugated boxes as well as other grades of paper materials, metals and plastics. It will have a capacity of about 250 million pounds a year.

Sonoco said it uses many of these recycled materials collected in North Charleston to produce paperboard at its South Carolina mills. The paperboard, in turn, goes back into new consumer and industrial packaging, making Sonoco "one of the few cradle-to-cradle suppliers" in the industry, the company said. Much of the paper recovered locally finds its way to Asia and India through the Port of Charleston.

Sonoco said its new center accepts curbside materials dropped off by the public. It also offers pickup services for larger loads that meet certain requirements.

The relocation of Sonoco Recycling was triggered more than a year by Magnolia, a large redevelopment being proposed by an investment group that includes local real estate developer Robert Clement III and North Carolina-based Cherokee Partners. The project calls for a mix of shops, offices and residences to be built between the Ashley River and Interstate 26 — including parts of Braswell Street — over the next two decades.

A land-acquisition affiliate of the Magnolia group bought the 1.8-acre former Paper Stock property from Sonoco for about $2.8 million last year. The Braswell Street building will be razed, said Tim Nelson, Magnolia's construction manager.

"It won't be long — about two or three weeks," he said Friday.

Clams for oysters

Through its nonprofit arm, aluminum giant Alcoa is shelling out $200,000 in grant money to kick-start an oyster habitat-improvement program in South Carolina waters.

The multiyear reef development and restoration effort is part of the Nature Conservancy's focus on protecting a stretch of the coast from the Gulf of Maine to Cape Canaveral, Fla. That area, viewed as a critical habitat for migratory shorebirds and neotropical songbirds, is increasingly threatened by development, global climate change and other factors, according to the group.

Mark Robertson of The Nature Conservancy in South Carolina said oysters have a unique role in tidal habitats because they create living reefs that support about 130 other species. Part of the plan includes devising ways to place recycled shells into those reefs.

"With this grant we can increase the number of oysters in South Carolina waters, build oyster reefs to decrease erosion along salt marsh and boost recycling of oyster shells cast off by restaurants, seafood suppliers and the public," Robertson said in a statement last week.

The goal of the Alcoa Foundation, which has assets of about $534 million, is to provide funds that improve the quality of life in areas where the aluminum maker operates.

Reach John McDermott at 937-5572 or jmcdermott@ postandcourier.com.