Recycling business opens plant in Marion Enterprise Center

An Illinois recycling company has opened a plant in the Marion Enterprise Center, the 184-acre business park developed by Marion Economic Development Co.

Quincy Recycle, 6281 N. Gateway Dr., takes in plastic and paper at its sixth location in five Midwestern states. The privately owned company also operates plants in Alsip, New Haven and Quincy, Ill., St. Louis, Mo., and West Bend, Wis.

A subsidiary, Quincy Farm Products in Quincy, Ill., accepts food waste from Iowa food processing and manufacturing plants.

Another subsidiary, On-Site Information Destruction, covers the Cedar Rapids area from facilities in Waterloo and Des Moines. The company sells certified paper, hard drive and product destruction services.

Quincy Recycle works directly or brokers materials for manufacturers and recycling businesses throughout the United States, and exports recycled materials to China, India and other international destinations.

Bryan Stokes, president of Quincy Recycle, purchased the company from his father, Keith Stokes, in 1994. The absentee owner of Quincy Recycle had hired Keith Stokes in 1974 to manage the struggling company.

Over the next two years, Keith Stokes turned it around and bought the business in 1976.

When Bryan Stokes purchased the company, Quincy Recycle had a single plant that recycled fiber, primarily from a mill. When the mill closed, Stokes and his employees moved to diversify the products it recycled as well as the company's customer base.

In 2001, Quincy Recycle bought industrial shredders to handle challenging materials.

On-Site Information Destruction (OSID) was added in 2012 when Bryan Stokes was approached by the owner of a growing secure document-destruction company in Iowa about acquiring the business. Believing OSID was complimentary to Quincy Recycle's core business of, Stokes bought the company.

QRP Logistics, founded by Quincy Recycle in 2015 to handle freight hauling for the company's St. Louis and West Bend facilities, also provides similar services for other customers.