The world’s largest plastics recycler is in Troy, Alabama.

Every time you buy a gallon of paint, a bottle of shampoo or bleach, or even a new car, there’s a pretty good chance that not only are you buying recycled material, you’re buying material that was recycled in Alabama.

The Alabama recycler supplies resin for some of the world’s largest brands, including Unilever, Kimberly Clark, Proctor and Gamble, L’Oreal, Estee Lauder, Sherwin Williams, Valspar, Toyota, Ford, ExxonMobil, GM, Scotts, and Xerox.

But to provide the resin for that many products, KW needs used plastics and a lot of them. KW Plastics pays to have recyclable plastics shipped in from all over North America and the world, truckloads full of them every day.

Last year, KW shipped used plastic bottles from Europe to Alabama to help meet demand.  Baker said she’d love to bring in more material from within Alabama, but the company needs more than the whole Southeast can give. The amount of plastic the entire state of Alabama recycles in a year would keep KW’s plant running for just two days, she said.

Read entire story featured on al.com.