Bruin Waste to build new MRF in Grand Junction, Colorado

Bruin Waste, a Colorado-based waste management company, is building a recycling facility in partnership with the city of Grand Junction. 

The firm operates in Montrose, Mesa, Garfield, San Miguel, Ouray, San Juan, Dolores, Montezuma, Delta and Archuleta counties. As reported by Telluride Daily Planet, Bruin Waste does the majority of recycling in Telluride and Mountain Village, which is done at a single-stream facility. 

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Bruin owned and operated a facility in Montrose but has since discontinued those operations. 

“During COVID, it became extremely difficult to staff that, as you can imagine. So, we changed gears a little bit and started taking that recycling that we were collecting, packing it up and sending it to a facility in Salt Lake City,” Rob Kendall, Bruin Waste vice president of sales and new market development, tells the Daily Planet.

On Dec. 18, 2024, Grand Junction City Council voted to negotiate a contract with Bruin to create a regional material recovery facility (MRF). The plan is to construct a 58,450-square-foot building on 9.58 acres of land. According to a Grand Junction city staff report, construction costs are estimated at $5.5 million, with equipment costs likely between $8 and $10 million. 

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The city of Grand Junction also is applying for a $5 million Solid Waste Infrastructure for Recycling grant to help pay for the project.

The facility will use artificial intelligence- (AI-) powered robots and “sophisticated machinery” to aid sorting efforts, Kendall tells Daily Planet, adding that the new technology will allow Bruin to “sort a much higher amount of recyclable materials on the Western Slope."

“We're really heavily reducing that road time of transferring all those recyclables to be sorted in Salt Lake or Denver,” he says. 

The facility also is expected to help Bruin keep up with Colorado’s extended producer responsibility (EPR) law, which mandates that producers of packaging and paper products fund a statewide recycling system and that people have access to recycling services along with trash at no additional cost.

“For the Western Slope to keep up with the infrastructure investments needed, it's too uneconomical to recycle at scale,” says Bruin Waste CEO Jeff Kendall. 

Educational opportunities and options for school tours will also be available for students to learn about the recycling process.