About The Owner


Kahley Malloy

Background Brief:


  • Industrial Waste, Landfill Sales & Compliance Manager: 1991-92 – Boston, MA.
  • Founded Corporate Waste Alternatives, Inc., a waste cost-reduction strategies consultancy in 1992.
  • In 2008 merged CWA with Oakleaf Waste Management, East Hartford, CT. This was sold to Waste Management, Inc., Houston, TX in 2011.
  • Joined Schneider Electric’s US-based Sustainability Services business development efforts in 2012, leading the Food & Beverage segment
  • Recruited in 2014 as Managing Director for a California-based management services group to lead growth efforts in the Eastern US.
  • Founded Cumberland Recycling, LLC., in 2018.

After several modestly successful but largely unsatisfying years after college, I began looking for a more meaningful way to earn a living. Looking back, I’m sure that my early years in rural New England and later then along the Alabama Gulf Coast greatly affected my love for and interest in the environment.

After starting a family this interest grew into a commitment. I wanted to find a way to combine earning a living with making a difference in the way we impacted our world. Spoiler alert: I’m old enough to recall the early Earth Day celebrations. It was during college that I had my first experience with recycling, working in the scrap metal business to help fund my education.

With a second child on the way, I exchanged a comfortable job to work in a landfill where I began learning the waste business. At that time, recycling was controlled by the big waste management corporations. A recession, a corporate downsizing, and a generous severance provided the motivation and means to begin my first venture.

Within a few months, I had our first customer. Originally presented as “expense-management” our value proposition quickly and effectively demonstrated that moving certain “wastes” from the expense side of the ledger to the revenue side could quickly reduce, and in some cases, even erase entire waste budgets. This was especially true for food processors and larger manufacturing plants.

Fast forward to today and this has never been truer. And while some will say that recycling no longer holds the financial opportunity that it once did, I say, well, rubbish! The strategic opportunities have never been greater for companies to align themselves with consumer sentiments around product stewardship and responsible environmental practices.

Learn how leaders in your business segment are using recycling to advance their business goals.

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