MILWAUKEE — What happens to the recycling you bring out to the curb? Well, it's a long and lengthy process, but some of it actually comes to a Milwaukee manufacturing company and is turned into eco-friendly paper towels.
Sellars Absorbent Materials, headquartered in Milwaukee's Havenwoods neighborhood, makes all types of paper towels and shop rags, including Bravo Paper Towels. It's made from 75 percent recycled fibers. The paper and cardboard used to make it are regionally sourced from curbside recycling bins in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota.
“Half of (the recycle) is going to a landfill. You just took it out to the street to do the right thing, but the market isn’t there to consume all those boxes. So that’s one of the things that drove us in terms of developing the next generation of a reusable household towel," Tom Sellars, the CEO and chairman of Sellars Absorbent Materials, said.
Sellars is a 41-year-old family business that was originally run by four siblings. It started in a Milwaukee garage, and now its products are in retailers across the nation, like Target. You can find them locally at Sendik's and Woodman's.
The company continues to expand its manufacturing footprint in Milwaukee too by taking over abandoned or unused buildings.
“So we have a history of not only recycling our materials but also recycling buildings that are great here on the northwest side of Milwaukee," he said.
So I’m all about environmentally friendly products. I actually go one step further. I use Swedish dishcloths. They’re reusable, you can wash them, they last for a while, and they are biodegradable. So I asked Tom Sellars to convince me. Why should I use his product?
“In your case, you might want to use both, because that Swedish towel gets pretty grody," he said.
The cloths can get gross. I will give him that. Bravo Paper Towels are meant to be used, wrung out, and used again, but not as often as those other cloths. A pack of six rolls, which Bravo Paper Towels says is the equivalent of 18 rolls, costs $20.99 on Target's website.
"Strong when wet. You can rinse and reuse it, and because you can reuse it, and it's durable, your actual cost is actually much less than the single-use towel," Sellars said.
Beyond paper towels, Sellars collaborates with the Havenwoods Neighborhood Partnership to offer forgivable home loans to employees for up to $7,500.
“When you grow up like I did, you know, you grow up poor. You really don’t know about home buying. You rent. But as I got older and the more and more I rented, I’m like, man, I can have my own house. So when this opportunity came, I had to take it," Kenyatta Robinson, a Sellars manager and recipient of the loan, said.
If it weren't for the forgivable loan, Robinson doesn't think she would have been able to buy a home.
“If I'm being perfectly honest, no. No. Cause they helped me step by step. Even if I had a question for them, everybody helped me, everybody,” she said.
Employees who purchase a home in the Havenwoods neighborhood can receive the full $7,500. If the home is purchased outside the neighborhood, employees are eligible for $5,000. The loan is forgiven after employees live in the house for three years and continue working at Sellars for the same amount of time.
“It feels real good. Something of my own I can call my own," Robinson said.
So far, three people have received the loans, and 12 more are in the pipeline to do so.
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