A Central New York man and his new startup company are teaming up with a precision molding company to produce a state of the art product.

Production on the new Recoil bottle and can coolers began last month right here in Central New York. This local invention may be the first of many more to come using sustainable materials.

"This is where it all starts," said Us and Hemp Founder Matthew Merritt.

Merritt, 34, of Oneida is the founder of Us and Hemp. The company’s focus is on creating environmentally friendly products.

"When I started this, I was looking into sustainable materials, and that’s been a drive for a while," said Merritt.

That drive inspired him to come up with quite the crowd-pleasing concept back in March: Recoil, an adjustable cooler that can keep any sized bottle or can cool.

Merritt says the secret ingredient is hemp plastic. The use of hemp and hemp products has increased dramatically after industrial hemp was legalized in the U.S. in 2018.

"It’s a main component and it reduces plastic by 25%. Another thing is its 100% US made with 100% U.S. sourced components," said Merritt.

After coming up with the concept, Merritt was talking to a representative with The Hemp Plastic Company in Colorado which produces the main material.

That call led Merritt to Mamco of Oneonta, a longtime precision molding company with a new bio plastics division called Material Maxim.

"We do injection molding. As you can see down through the facility we’ve got 40 machines. We build parts for all kinds of different customers," said Mamco Precision Molding Representative Matt Ward.

With that, a partnership was formed. The mass production of the new cooler product began just a few weeks ago.

Not only is the invention giving a local company more work, but it’s also using sustainable materials which we could see much more of in the future.

"You understand that our environment, our planet, is going to heal on the shoulders of products like he’s coming up with so to be part of that, it’s just amazing," said Ward.

There’s no telling just yet how popular the Recoil cooler may be. Merritt has plans to work with local craft beer makers and hopes it could be a hit with concert goers as well.

When it comes to the environment, Merritt sees a bright future.

"This is definitely just the beginning. I’d like to branch out with different products and also help other companies adopt some of these materials that we’re working with," he said.