Industry News

Mergers & Acquisitions

Meridian Waste acquires Total Garbage

Knoxville, Tennessee-based Meridian Waste, an integrated nonhazardous solid waste services company, has acquired Total Garbage LLC, a waste disposal company based in Knoxville, effective Aug. 1.

Assets the company acquired from Total Garbage include roll-off trucks, roll-off containers and corresponding permanent and temporary commercial contracts. Meridian Waste says it will transfer the assets and operate out of its location at 6236 Rutledge Pike in Knoxville.

The company says the acquisition helps to densify its collection routes and build construction and demolition (C&D) debris volumes at Meridian’s Poplar View and Riverside landfills.

“Meridian Waste’s Knoxville, Tennessee, marketplace operations continue to outperform financial expectations year over year in part due to tuck-in acquisitions such as Total Garbage,” says Larry Seivers, Meridian Waste area president for Tennessee. “Our team of drivers, mechanics and office personnel are unbeatable when it comes to servicing our customers with exceptional care. The opportunity to incorporate the assets and personnel of Total Garbage within our culture and expand our team to reach a greater number of customers is especially rewarding to me and the company.”

Meridian provides residential, commercial and industrial nonhazardous waste collection and disposal services in Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. In addition to a fleet of commercial, residential and roll-off trucks, it operates 14 hauling companies, five transfer stations/material recovery facilities, two municipal solid waste landfills and four C&D landfills.

Neither company has disclosed the terms of the asset purchase agreement

The acquisition was Meridian Waste’s 29th since the company transitioned to private stock under the ownership of Warren Equity Partners in April 2018.

Conversion Technology

Clean Energy opens RNG fuel station in Florida

Clean Energy Fuels Corp., a Newport Beach, California-based provider of clean fuel for the transportation market, has announced the opening of its latest renewable natural gas (RNG) fueling station in Davenport, Florida. The site is providing RNG to heavy-duty trucks and other fleets operating in the area.

Made from organic waste, RNG reduces carbon emissions by an average of 300 percent versus diesel.

The station’s opening coincides with the introduction of the X15N natural gas engine from Columbus, Indiana-based Cummins Inc., designed for heavy-duty trucking fleets looking to shift to ultraclean fuel.

“Clean Energy has seen a strong demand for RNG fuel from both new and existing customers. The Davenport station is in a great location to supply clean fuel to the many fleets that operate in the central Florida area,” says Chad Lindholm, senior vice president of Clean Energy Fuels. “The investments being made by Clean Energy and many others in RNG production will ensure a steady flow of RNG fuel to this station and hundreds of others that are in our network around the country.”

The new station sits on 3.7 acres and includes five fast-fill dispensers designed for easy in-and-out fueling and 98 time-fill fueling hoses, the company says. Clean Energy says it has a network of more than 600 fueling stations in North America and is expanding steadily with stations purposely built and strategically located for heavy-duty truck fleets. Additionally, the company says it is making substantial investments in the production of RNG at dairy farms.

Organics

Divert Inc. cites summer as peak food waste season

West Concord, Massachusetts-based Divert Inc. says its data show that from 2020 to 2023 the amount of discarded food in the United States measured nearly 30 percent higher in the summertime compared with the winter months.

“While wasted food is truly a year-round crisis, our data indicates that the summer months are the leading source of food waste throughout the year,” says Ryan Begin, CEO and co-founder of Divert.

The increased volume could be difficult to manage for food donation networks, he says, thus requiring backup infrastructure to be put in place to accommodate these swings in material to avoid landfilling.

Begin adds, “Our findings demonstrate the importance of data in having visibility into this problem, but we must take it further to drive meaningful change. From here, we need real action and solution implementation with stakeholders across the industry—from consumers to retailers, food manufacturers to restaurants.”

Divert says it reviewed its 2020 to 2023 wasted food data from retail, food service and industrial customers at operating facilities to which it had access.

In examining total food waste collected each year and comparing the months of July, August and September with January, February and March of the same calendar year, it found a nearly 30 percent difference.

Divert says it has identified several key factors contributing to the summer increase, the first involving extreme heat.

Household consumers also change their behavior in the summer months, Divert says, which are synonymous with fresh, high-quality produce available at grocery stores and a surge in consumers dining out at restaurants and bars.

To meet that challenge, Divert says “technologies can be implemented that uncover key data and insights to better inform food retailers and restaurants” about product life and expiration dates.

Divert also describes summer as “peak season for perishable food products” such as berries and other fruit that may be discarded faster than other types of food.

MRFs

Eureka Recycling receives more than $10M for MRF upgrades

Eureka Recycling, a nonprofit, mission-based independent regional material recovery facility (MRF) operator headquartered in Minneapolis, has received a multimillion-dollar financing round led by Closed Loop Partners’ private credit arm, the Closed Loop Infrastructure Group, alongside American Beverage and The Recycling Partnership.

The more than $10 million loan from Closed Loop Infrastructure Group includes $3 million from American Beverage and the Minnesota Beverage Association.

The funding will be applied to infrastructure upgrades to enable Eureka to collect, process and return more valuable materials to supply chains and advance the local circular economy. It will support the installation of additional optical sorters to decrease contamination and increase the quality of recovered materials, including mixed paper and old corrugated containers, polyethylene terephthalate (PET), aluminum, polyethylene and polypropylene.

Once the upgrade is completed in 2025, the new machines are estimated to increase the annual collection of PET and aluminum by 222 and 248 tons, respectively.

This is the fourth investment from the public-private partnership formed by Closed Loop Partners’ Infrastructure Group, American Beverage’s Every Bottle Back and The Recycling Partnership. These investments have strengthened recycling infrastructure nationwide, increasing the volume of quality recycled materials to meet growing circular economy demands.

“One of our industry’s highest priorities is circularity for our valuable bottles and cans,” says Kevin Keane, president and CEO of Washington-based American Beverage. “They are made to be remade, and this investment will help make sure more of this valuable material can once again become a new bottle or can.”

“Delivering on the promise of a circular economy requires that we build a better recycling system, and that’s exactly what our support to Eureka Recycling is delivering,” adds Cody Marshall, chief community strategy officer at The Recycling Partnership, Washington.