RSF issues 2 business loans to recyclers

RSF has issued about $19.3 million in business loans in recent months to help seven businesses expand their operations.

San Francisco-based RSF has channeled more than $1 billion into businesses and nonprofits addressing the world’s most urgent issues since 1984.

“These borrowers exemplify regenerative thinking, pursuing positive social and environmental impacts while providing goods that contribute to personal and community health,” says Michael Jones, vice president of lending business development at RSF. “We’re happy to partner with them as they grow.”

Among the recipients is Burlington, Vermont-based Glavel, a manufacturer of foam glass gravel, which is a recycled-glass insulation product used in bridges, buildings and parking lots, among other end uses.

Glavel also provides meaningful job training and employment opportunities for formerly incarcerated people at its Burlington production facility. The $2.75 million loan is RSF’s second issued to Glavel, which intends to purchase production equipment needed to grow operations.

Also receiving a loan is Gen2, which turns discarded materials like tires, plastics and organic waste into fuels like diesel and hydrogen. RSF says Gen2, based in Newman, Georgia, is working to move beyond zero waste to develop products that create more energy than was used to produced it.

In 2020, Gen2 acquired Stockton Tri Industries, a metal and piping factory in Stockton, to convert it into a processing facility. The nearly $5.73 million in combined financing for the two businesses from RSF will help them divert more waste from landfill and use those materials to produce fuel as well as metal products for businesses like solar developers and recycling facilities.

Other recipients of RSF’s recent wave of loans include Shea Radiance, Artisan Tropic, Apothékary and Plankton Energy.