A History in the Recycling Industry
Before working at the Pro Recycling Group, Smokey started out as a truck driver at Waste Management. Through his hard work, Smokey made his way up into management, becoming their recycling manager in 1994. When he moved to The Pro Recycling Group in 2003, Smokey brought with him 19 years of recycling industry experience, which led him to purchase the Pro Recycling Group Companies from Bob Anderson in 2007.
New Opportunities
Smokey saw an opportunity and the need for change in the recycling industry. In 1995, with the blooming age of the internet, he recognized that printed materials would scale back, and that the need for plastic recycling would become more prevalent. In 2007, after purchasing the Pro Recycling Group, Smokey started Pro Polymers in Morgan, Utah, to fulfill this need. Smokey directed PRG to take large volumes of plastic manufacturing scrap and grind the plastics into regrind form to resell to manufacture new goods and packaging. Smokey would later move those operations to Salt Lake City, where Pro Polymers would merge with Interwest Paper. Under Smokey’s direction, we now have two large shredders and four grinders that help us keep plastic waste from landfills.
Zero Waste Programs
Smokey developed our Zero-waste program, allowing companies enrolled to recycle over 99% of their waste. Smokey attributes a huge portion of this program’s success to PRG’s Director of Marketing, Beau Peck, saying that Beau’s efforts and listening to what customers need is what helped this program come to fruition.
New Growth
The Pro Recycling Group has grown from 10 employees to well over 100, servicing recycling and zero waste in 7 states. We have also had the development of a new Northern Facility and continued expansion of the materials and capabilities.