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A New York transplant is thriving in the Upstate and building his business as he forges relationships to buy and sell plastics, sometimes diverting surplus and scrap materials from landfills.

Just don’t ask him to recycle your old office equipment.

“It’s funny. I get that question all the time,” says Larry Welnowski Jr., who owns Nickel City Polymers Inc. in Mauldin.

“A guy said, ‘I just threw out my fax machine. Could you recycle that?’ I try not to laugh. But I'm, like, ‘No, I don't do that kind of recycling.’”

Post-consumer recycling happens after the City of Greenville empties the bin at the side of the road.

“There’s a big difference. We do post-industrial recycling,” Welnowski says.

'One Word: Plastics'

Through Nickel City Polymers, Welnowski purchases prime plastic resin (a petroleum-based material that could become plastic bottles or buttons on a shirt or other items consumers rely on every day). Then he distributes the resin to a processor that manufactures plastic products – from automobile manifolds to plastic gears.

Welnowski also purchases scrap plastic and then contracts with companies that grind it into flakes or granules. He sells the small, uniform pieces to companies that also produce plastic products – but made from recycled plastic.

“I've been doing this for 26 years, and it's overwhelming to me sometimes. There are a million different kinds of plastic,” says Welnowski, who moved his family and Nickel City Polymers to Greenville eight months ago from Buffalo, New York.

(His company is named for Buffalo’s nickname, the Nickel City – which comes from the so-called Buffalo nickel, minted until the 1930s with the image of an American Indian on one side and a bison on the other)

A Hotbed

“Plastic is your computer or your phone or your car. Everything feels a little different. We supply plastic pellets to anybody making anything out of plastic. It's kind of a plastic hotbed in Greenville because of the BMW plant.”

For instance, larger and mid-sized molding shops supply parts made from plastic to automobile manufacturers and other industries. Since coming to Greenville County, Welnowski has focused on cultivating customers from the shops that supply big manufacturers.

“We don't manufacture anything. We are buying from one company and selling to another company. We distribute plastic resin,” he says.

“I would say that side is about 65% of our business right now; the other 35% involves plastic recycling.”

Welnowski says he can save companies money and inconvenience – and generate income and clients for Nickel City Polymers – by buying a company’s scrap or overstock plastic, arranging for it to be re-ground, then selling it to a manufacturer that turns it into a new product made from recycled plastic.

“We’ve been doing that, frankly, for 20 years now,” he says. “We have developed customers for our recycled material by saying, ‘Hey, this works just as well as the more expensive prime material.’”

Most of Welnowski's clients are east of the Mississippi River and in Texas.

That’s partly why the move south was easy. “I fell into a group of suppliers and started developing customers in the area. Some are good friends of mine who I've done business with for 10 years or more,” Welnowski says.

Goodbye Bad Winters

He says he had long wanted to move away from the harsh winters in Buffalo – not that he was prepared for a scorching, humid summer in the Upstate.

“Buffalo has never reached 100 degrees, not one time in the history of Buffalo,” he says.

“We have nice summers in Buffalo. It’s beautiful. It starts at the end of May and lasts through the end of September, maybe a little bit of October. Beyond those months, the weather is not great. A couple of days will be nice. But the next day is 38 degrees with hail. It's aggravating.”

Welnowski says he realized he could move himself, his wife, his son and his business without waiting for retirement. His mother moved in with them for part of the winter.

“It's an adventure to move 750 miles away from where you grew up. We lived in the same house for 25 years,” he says.

“We all had our hesitations. It’s almost like we began a new life. We thought about it for a couple of years and then decided, ‘Let’s stop talking about it, just do it and see how things come together.’”

... And Better For Business

Welnowski says the move is working out well for the business.

“Back in Buffalo, there wasn't a lot of plastic manufacturing. Here, it seems like every person I talk to … even the lawyer at our house closing said his fiancée works for a company that does plastic. Everybody knows somebody who has something going on with plastic.”

The recycled plastic side of his business is growing.

Helping Clients Through Recycling

“Some of these plants are paying a company to put a dumpster on their site. They could be paying $2,000 a month for a dumpster,” Welnowski explains. “So, if they're throwing out reusable plastic and things that we can recycle, and there's a decent amount of volume for us, then we can save them that dumpster cost right off the bat.”

He partners with a business that has a fleet of trucks. “We're sending a truck to pick up the scrap, and we're paying him for the scrap also.” Another partner can grind the scrap at a plant in Piedmont.

“My job over the years has been to know everybody in the industry. We have connections upon connections,” he says. “We get our hands into every part of the plastic industry and every kind of plastic.”

At Home In Fountain Inn

Things have fallen into place for the family, too. Welnowski and his wife, Amy, bought a home in Fountain Inn. She and their son, Jared, work for the company. Daughter Alyssa led the way south. She’ll be a junior this year at Coastal Carolina University in Conway.

Ironically, people in the Upstate seem to have no trouble pronouncing his Yankee name: wel-now-ski.

“People in the South do a better job than where I'm from,” he says, wryly. Buffalo is almost 400 miles from New York City. “But still we talk fast. We often talk before we think.”

Welnowski says he and his family have needed to slow down.

“You have to practice patient listening. We're used to interrupting each other. I think that's why people pronounce my name correctly. They think about it first,” he says.

“I don't have any regrets. I love it down here. The people have been amazing.”