Green Success Stories shines the Green Spotlight on Lane Powell of Harmony Enterprises. Harmony Enterprises offers the widest range of long lasting recycling and waste equipment for virtually any industry sector in over 90 countries worldwide.
Tell us a bit about the product or solution you offer.
Harmony Enterprises is a third generation, family owned manufacturer of recycling balers, trash compactors, and full product destruction equipment located in Harmony, MN. We offer the widest range of long lasting balers and compactors on the market, serving virtually any industry sector in over 90 countries worldwide. Our equipment helps businesses and municipalities reduce their waste and carbon footprint, while recycling a variety of valuable materials to be reused in a circular economy.
Share a green success story with us – how have you helped customers or other businesses in the fight against climate change?
It is not climate change per se, but Harmony has helped underdeveloped countries start recycling centers to deal with the increasing problem of plastic waste, specifically in Panama, Honduras, and Jamaica. The Basel Convention requires certain countries to begin aggressively reducing plastic pollution, especially in the area of PET bottles. We have worked with recyclers in rural areas to create hubs with smaller recycling balers capable of handling this rigid commodity, as well as larger hubs in urban areas that utilize conveyor fed automated systems to process large volumes of the collected plastic from the rural areas and oceans.
What would you do with $1 billion dollars?
A lot more with recycling advocacy in the U.S., letting people know not only the benefits of recycling re-usable commodities and the revenue to be recouped in doing so, but the environmental and business benefits of less carbon emissions from haulers, reduced burdens on landfills, and reduced workplace hazards. I would use it to establish a national committee to build out private business infrastructure to support local recyclers.
What do you envision your industry looking like in ten years?
There will still be a need for larger recycling equipment like balers and compactors, but IoT will drive not only the reporting of these machines, but also diagnostics that will reduce the need for first trip triage by service techs. The machines will continue to be more automated and efficient, reducing the need for labor, and allowing staff time to be spent on other, more important tasks.
