 Our speaker on Monday was Marty Davis from Midland Davis Corporation. Their business is recycling, and the world of recycling is an ever-changing one. Midland Davis has been changing with the times since the beginning. Midland is a family owned business and currently in the 5th generation of ownership. Marty and his brother Mitch are 4th generation owners, taking over from their Dad, Hank Davis (a long time Moline Rotarian). Over Marty’s career Midland has gone from a scrap metal company who does some paper to a paper recycling company who handles some scrap metal. Midland currently does business all across the country with their freight brokering based out of their office in St. Louis. Just last year Midland decided to move into pallet repair and recycling and will be soon moving into a warehouse in Rock Island to do that. For years the world struggled to find a home for mixed paper and plastics, but over time other markets developed. Many recycling communities had to landfill their material during this time but not here in the Quad Cities. Midland has always found a market for all of their commodities. The paper recycling market has changed dramatically in the last 10 years. Now there is a lot less newspapers in the system and a lot more cardboard boxes. The pandemic added even more cardboard to the recycling centers as more and more people shopped at home. (This is called the Amazon Effect in the industry.) Marty talked about how the market took a huge hit years ago when China stopped taking recycling materials due to the amount of trash mixed in with the recyclables. He emphasized how important it is for us all to be diligent about not only recycling clean items, but the proper items. For example, paper towels are recyclable, but only if they are wet with just water such as after washing your hands. Things like plastic wrap and styrofoam are not recyclable. Marty did want everyone to know that Midland has drop boxes at their 5th Avenue location for recycling to make up for Rock Island County closing all their locations. Midland is open Monday - Friday 8a - 4:30p, and Saturdays 8p - 11p. |
.png)
