Furniture manufacturing used to be a mainstay of North Carolina's economy. Today, many of those enormous plants sit like tombstones in communities across the state.
But, after years of sitting empty, an old building atop this mountain in Spruce Pine is open once again for business.
Reuse is the key word here. This 650 thousand square foot building is now home to PRC Industries.
Sean Ledford is Manufacturing Technician for the company.
"It's refreshing to have something that's not furniture or textile related to come in, and sense of wonder of what could be."
P-R-C stands for Product Recycling Center.
The New York based company specializes in remanufacturing, research and recycling of small household appliances and their packaging.
"Almost all these goods are made overseas, Indonesia, China," says Kent Zambelli, Vice President of Operations at the Spruce Pine plant.
This is where some of the items we return... end up. Some need fixing; most the company finds are just the byproduct of buyer's remorse.
Zambelli adds, "China really doesn't allow a lot of things to be brought back. So us manufacturers don't have a lot of options unless it's dealt w locally."
Appliances are all tested here at the plant.
If they're ok, they can be cleaned up and resold. Defective goods are broken down for parts while manufacturers use the information to improve their products. Â The whole process requires a lot of room --mostly for merchandise storage.
The company has plenty of room to expand- including another 600 square foot building on the 100 acre complex. And there's not a shortage of displaced workers looking for a job.
Rebecca who works as a product tester says, I'm glad to be back. If you get a job here, you better stick to it." Right now 70 employees work at the spruce pine facility. The average wage is around 9 dollars an hour.
"North Carolina has to leverage the fact they're relatively centrally located with a growing population and a good availability of trained labor," says Zambelli.
While Mitchell County may seem remote to some, the amount of affordable space and the state's central location nationally, lured the company here more than 4 years ago.
"The fact of the matter is if someone can do auto, manufacturing, textiles... We can convert those skills into being very usable for our industry," according to Zambelli.
He explains that 5 to 7 percent of all merchandise sold is returned… adding business is growing as they land more contracts and help companies deal with waste.
Watching workers break down products it's like watching someone unwrap a present then take it a part- piece by piece. They currently handle about 10 thousand units a week.
Zambelli says, "There's a lot of opt as regulations change as manufacturers come up w their own green initiatives for less impact on the environment."
And less cost at landfills. Careful sorting allows the company to collect and then sell parts to someone else.Even the styrofoam packaging can be reused. It's chopped and melted into blocks that will be resold to make picture frames. Plastic is chipped into manageable size portions for some type of reuse.
Zambelli is optimistic too, predicting business will triple this year at the North Carolina plant as more businesses find out about their services.
So if there's an upside to taking back that product you're not thrilled with perhaps it goes along with Zambelli's way of rethinking problem merchandise. "It's great to be in remanufacturing and bring a new business to light. Remanufactured in the USA.
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