Akron, Ohio, recycling plant breaks down petroleum products

The city of Akron, Ohio, will be adding 50 new jobs to the local economy this year thanks to the growing business potential of Vadxx Energy, a company which specializes in extracting the necessary material from items made from petroleum products. According to ABC affiliate WEWS, owner Bill Ullom has created a new recycling process that uses the scraps from everyday recycling plants and converts them into reusable quantities.

"Light, sweat crude oil. It's the most valuable crude oil in the world," Ullom told the news source. "Made from waste plastics that you recycle on your curb every week. We are taking materials and breaking them down into their molecular component parts. Molecules are science. But molecules can be business."

Ullom has filled a void in the recycling industry where plants would recycle bottles and milk jugs and send the rest of the scrap petroleum products to landfills or overseas. By breaking down these products to their base ingredients, he can sell them back to manufacturers and cut down on waste entering local landfills.

There is an astounding array of items that are made from petroleum products, so it's no surprise that Vadxx Energy is growing at an exponential rate. Products such as polyester clothing, plastic hangars, wax paper, garden hoses and many common household products should be placed in a recycling bin instead of the trash can.

The growth of Vadxx Energy should be a boon for the Akron area, which like much of the country is trying to reinvent its waste procedures to create more jobs. With private contractors taking the lead and finding new and inventive ways to recycle products that would otherwise end up in a landfill, communities can preach sustainability and support their local economies in the process.