Material Recovery Facility to Boost Recycling in Philadelphia

12 April 2011 Waste Management Inc. has opened a 60,000 square foot (5600 square metre), single stream Material Recovery Facility (MRF) in Northeast Philadelphia. Waste Management says that it has invested over $20 million to create one of the most advanced single-stream technology plants in operation at a former brownfield site. The Philadelphia MRF is claimed to be the largest such facility in the region and can sort and process more than 20,000 tons (18,100 tonnes) of recyclable newspaper, cardboard, aluminum, glass and plastic each month. The company says that the plant will also capture materials that were historically discarded, such as plastic film and rigid plastics. In a single-stream system, residents and commercial customers place recyclables in a single container for pickup and no longer need to separate these materials in their homes or workplaces. When recyclables arrive at the Philadelphia recycling facility, technology that includes magnets, screens and optical scanners is used to separate, sort and process the materials, which are then shipped out for reuse. According to Waste Management Single-stream recycling streamlines and simplifies the process of collecting and processing recyclable materials, and increases recycling rates by up to 50%. The Philadelphia MRF accepts materials from the City of Philadelphia's single-stream residential collection program, as well as from other communities and commercial customers in the region. "Waste Management is focused on recovering more of the valuable materials in waste through the use of advanced technologies such as single-stream recycling," said Patrick DeReuda, president, Waste Management Recycle America. "By making the process of handling recyclables simpler for local residents and businesses, this facility has the potential to significantly increase local recycling participation rates, enabling us to further reduce waste, recover more material and improve the effectiveness of municipal and commercial recycling programs," he added. The company says that the new facility has been constructed using sustainable building and design techniques and has received LEED Silver certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. The siding and roofing of the processing building contain over 80% recycled content; advanced stormwater management systems, including a green roof on the office facility, treat stormwater to improve its quality prior to release. The project is part of the company's sustainability initiative to nearly triple the amount of recyclable materials it recovers, from approximately 8 million tons (7.3 million tonnes) today to over 20 million tons (18.1 million tonnes) by 2020. "Philadelphia's recycling program is good for the city environmentally and economically. Single-steam recycling makes keeping the city clean as easy as possible for our residents," said Mayor Michael A. Nutter.