More than 25 years ago, I started Polyco with $400 and a napkin with the name inscribed on it in my pocket. I went from lab technician at a large corporation to CEO at a company of one (I was also chief janitor, R&D, customer service and sales). I’ve been very deliberate with our growth — taking it one step at a time, one person at a time, one customer at a time, one product at a time. As the company grew, it became clear to me that in order to compete in the highly commoditized asphalt industry, Polyco’s products had to perform. 

But in order to create high-performance products from an extremely variable material, such as asphalt, you must get creative. There was a huge opportunity in the marriage of asphalt and tire rubber that had yet to be realized. Tire rubber and asphalt in roads is nothing new (the concept has been around since the 1950s) but creating a high-performance product from that union was never a reality. Until recently. Through deep scientific expertise, Polyco’s Rapid Digestion Process (RDP) was born. 

RDP is the only process in the market that completely digests end-of-life tire rubber into a homogeneous, liquefied state. Since most tires consumed in the United States are burnt for fuel value, depleting the ozone, our process presents an opportunity to reduce our carbon footprint. RDP is unique because it extracts all of the beneficial properties out of tire waste using a clean method.

Utilizing RDP, we’ve created a truly sustainable product that performs well on roads and rooftops. SigmaBond is a revolutionary asphalt concentrate that can be used in binders, tack coats or chip seal applications. Most importantly, it’s Engineered to Perform.

By upcycling end-of-life tires into high-performing asphalt binders and coatings, we’re actually powering a circular economy. The future of our environment depends on the ability to reuse resources over and over again. And, we know that tackling tire waste is just the beginning.

At Polyco, we are committed to ending global waste. We are focused on advancing our process, product mix and geographic presence. With operational capacity growing each year, we are looking at emerging markets in Europe and focused on how we can eliminate tire waste overseas while creating longer-lasting roads and more durable rooftops. With the circular economy as our moral compass and the best team in the industry leading the charge, I am confident that Polyco will continue to evolve to meet the world’s demand for sustainable, high-performance products.