Bill Keegan, who runs a 150-acre landfill-and-recycling operation in Shakopee, is part of the long-term supply-chain solution for all those small brewers and beverage makers whose sales are restrained by the shortage of cans and bottles. Keegan’s company, Dem-Con, established in the 1960s solely as a family-owned landfill, is growing the recycle-and-reuse side of the business to process and sell used materials from glass and aluminum to cardboard, steel and construction debris into increasingly lucrative markets. That business now diverts up to 75% of material that once ended up in the landfill.
Dem-Con has invested millions into the processing and recycling facilities. The result: Less garbage. Lower manufacturing feedstock cost. Less energy. Less carbon output than with virgin materials. “There is a growing market and political demand for a recycling of what was ‘waste,'” said Keegan, whose company now employs 230 in Shakopee and several smaller Minnesota plants.
Take aluminum, the most recyclable and valuable single-use beverage container. The value of recycled aluminum has soared from 40 cents to more than $1 per pound since 2020. It can be transformed into a new aluminum can or other product at 90% energy savings from processing aluminum from virgin bauxite.