The Wilmington Group was originally founded in 1977 as Wilmington Paper Corporation by Harvey Lurie. Six months later Stuart Lurie joined his father. Over the next six decades, the Lurie family built the business into a multi-faceted, dynamic set of companies focused on sustainability and value.  

Since its inception, Wilmington Paper – The Program™ has zeroed in on bringing an efficient process of collecting and recycling scrap fiber to folding carton and converting plants and responsibly marketing that material scrap to destinations worldwide. The Program™ has been continuously improved and expanded to meet the specific and unique requirements of the facilities serviced, consulting and material marketing/brokering for over 250 Distribution Centers, Manufacturing, Retail Centers, and Folding Carton and Converting Plants in the United States, Canada and Europe.

When a need arose to improve the processing of the scrap acquired from the plants serviced by The Program™, Recycling Management Resources was created, opening its first plant in Raleigh, NC. Upon starting up operations in Raleigh in March 2008, RMR employed five people and processed about 600 tons per month of recyclable paper and plastic. Today, 10 plants move close to 50,000 tons monthly. 

Concurrently in 2008, the third generation of the Lurie family became fully involved in the business when Brett Lurie started full-time. After joining Wilmington Paper, Brett worked closely with the leadership team to learn all aspects of the business. He joined Stu in visiting plants and partners for several years before shifting into sales in 2011. Brett was instrumental in leveraging the company’s experience and standing in the industry to build and develop an export brokerage and trading business, which has grown into an important business unit for The Wilmington Group. 

RMR opened its second facility in Louisville, KY in September 2009 and kept the positive momentum in 2010 with the opening of its RMR Central Carolina plant in High Point, NC. In 2012, RMR opened a plant in Duluth, GA, where RMR also has a corporate office.

Brett’s brother Joshua Lurie joined the company in 2014 and currently is Head of Data Analytics and Information, playing a key role in IT and reporting.

The acquisition of National Paper Recycling, a New Jersey-based recycling company in 2017 added three facilities: Wilmington, DE, Richmond, VA, and Camden, NJ. This brought RMR up to eight recycling plants employing over 230 people. In 2018, the Camden plant suffered a devastating fire. The next year that plant relocated to Barrington, NJ and became an amazing turnaround story. RMR Philadelphia in Barrington is the highest-volume plant in the RMR portfolio.

Royal Shredding, a successful paper shredding and secure product destruction business with a fleet of shredding trucks operating in multiple markets in the Southeast US soon joined the Wilmington Group family. North Carolina’s Shamrock Shredding was later acquired to increase Royal Shredding’s footprint.

Wilmington Paper was named an Exporter of the Year by the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) in 2020, a nod to its successful brokerage business.

In 2021, RMR opened its first NAID-certified, secure product destruction facility in Haw River, NC. Also in 2021, New State Capital Partners took a majority stake in The Wilmington Group. Brett Lurie was named President with Stu ascending to Chairman of the Board.

In November 2022, RMR Memphis opened in Olive Branch, MS, raising the number of recycling plants under RMR to 10.

The portfolio of companies officially rebranded as The Wilmington Group in 2023: Wilmington Paper – The Program™, Recycling Management Resources, Green Logistics, and Royal Shredding. The Wilmington Group relocated to new corporate headquarters in Parsippany, NJ in June 2024 (photo on right).