Our History-Recycling Services, Inc.

Recycling Services was formed in 1984 by David Levinson and Michael Finn. After working together at The Neighborhood Institute to show how recycling could create jobs in the inner city, the two decided they could be more effective as entrepreneurs. Capitalized with $10,000 they formed the company to respond to the growing solid waste problem in Illinois and to demonstrate how solid waste recycling was an economic and environmental alternative to traditional disposal. Making recycling available to businesses and the general public was the company’s primary mission.

Operating out of two buy-back centers on vacant lots in Chicago, the recycling company grew and became the first to offer large scale office recycling programs in the downtown Chicago business district. Educating customers on how and why recycling worked became a cornerstone of Recycling Services success in the marketplace. Recycling Services opened up its first processing facility in 1986 to offer waste disposal programs to retail and commercial customers.

Recycling Services started to develop markets for the recycled material with manufacturers who were using the material to make new products. As the demand for recycling services continued so did the need to process and sell more material. In 1992, Fiber Options was created to develop markets for material and offer brokerage services to customers who needed long term markets for recycled material.

In 1993 the company moved to its current processing facility and began a capital expansion program that created a state of the art paper sorting and processing facility capable of producing quality material for new markets.

In 2000 Recycling Services acquired Great Lakes Secondary Fibers, adding printer and converting recovered fiber to it’s portfolio of services. In 2001, a strategic partnership was formed with Premier Waste and Recycling to offer our customers both waste removal and recycling. In 2006 a unique partnership with SCA was developed to offer our customers long term markets and the ability to close the loop. That same year, Cutting Edge Document Destruction LLC, a document shredding company, was created to offer our customers secure document and product destruction.