WM opens Cleveland-area MRF

Houston-based WM hosted a grand opening Sept. 15 for a new Cleveland-area material recovery facility (MRF) that can process up to 420 tons of recyclables daily, or 144,000 tons per year. The project began roughly 2 ½ years ago.

The WM Cleveland Recycling Facility, located in the southeast suburb of Oakwood Village, Ohio, includes glass recovery equipment, 14 optical sorters, nonwrapping screens and ballistic separators as well as a plastic film recovery system that the company is piloting in partnership with Dow. WM’s investment of nearly $30 million in the MRF is intended to help meet the need for recycling infrastructure in northeast Ohio, Aaron Johnson, WM Great Lakes Area vice president, says.

WM partnered with McKinsey on a study to decide where to invest in outdated recycling capacity, identifying Cleveland as one such area given its low participation in recycling, low processing capacity and good manufacturing base that could consume recovered recyclables.

RELATED: WM diverts nearly 15 million tons from landfills in 2022

Photo by DeAnne Toto

The company has earmarked $1 billion to invest in MRFs throughout the U.S., which includes approximately 40 planned new or automated recycling facilities that are expected to add 2.8 million incremental tons to those the company manages by 2026. With demand for recycled-content products expected to rise, WM says it expects the investments to enable it to capture more recyclables and to increase access to recycling for its customers.

“At our core, WM is a sustainability company, and, with this investment, our team is proud to reinforce our commitment to the environment, and our ability to provide a local solution for cutting-edge single-stream recycling in NE Ohio, as we work with our communities to drive circularity and help give materials a second life,” Johnson says.

Van Dyk Recycling Solutions, Norwalk, Connecticut, designed and integrated equipment at the nearly 100,000-square-foot MRF, which includes technology from Stadler, Tomra, Pellenc ST and CP Group and Steinert. The MRF also has four balers: a small one for film, one for clean commercial fiber and two for all the other materials that are processed.

The MRF’s 14 optical sorters that also integrate artificial intelligence (AI) are positively sorting paper or plastics, which Johnson says yields better quality than negative sorting.

“I consider this facility a manufacturer as well as a partner with local manufacturers,” he says.

WM received an Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Market development grant for the site’s glass breaker, which is located after the presort line, and glass recovery system. The company says the grant award continues the collaboration it has with the Cuyahoga County Solid Waste Management District to improve Ohio’s recycling capabilities.

WM has operated on the site in Oakwood Village for more than 30 years. The 20-year-old building at the site, a former transfer station that performed some limited commercial material processing, was expanded by 50,000 square feet to accommodate the processing system and bale storage.    

Johnson says roughly 70 percent of the material the MRF processes is collected by WM, while 30 percent is from third parties.

WM’s Smart Trucks are equipped with AI-enabled cameras, he says, to identify contamination as material is tipped into the vehicles. This allows WM to target education to customers who have high rates of contamination in their recyclables.

Betty Trimper, Great Lakes Area recycling manager at WM, says the site is seeing 15 percent contamination on average in incoming loads during its first month or so of operation and has put an emphasis on education and material audits.

Photo by DeAnne Toto

She adds that higher the quality of the incoming material, the higher the quality of the MRF’s outgoing recyclables.  

Approximately 90 percent of the MRF’s staff are WM employees, Trimper says. She adds that the company plans to reach 100 percent in the future as it brings staffing to a range of 50 to 55 people following the initial startup phase.

Aside from the presort and quality control areas, hand-sorting is limited at the facility. “The jobs that remain here will be more like careers,” Johnson says. “We are creating safer, more efficient jobs and filling the need for [recycling] capacity in northeast Ohio.”

WM says its investments in new and upgraded recycling facilities, including WM Cleveland Recycling Facility, are intended to:

• increase overall recycling capacity in this market;
• increase the capture rate of traditional recycling materials while evolving into accepting materials that are traditionally difficult to recycle (such as film plastic);
• expand the list of acceptable recyclables that WM manages for its customers;
• improve the quality, value and marketability of the finished recycled bales, benefiting the economics of recycling for its commercial customers and municipal communities; and
• allow WM to manage inbound contamination, or “nonrecyclables,” more efficiently and provide opportunities to educate customers on how to recycle right.

Photo by DeAnne Toto

“The Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District is honored to partner with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency to assist WM in the development of their new Recycling Facility within Cuyahoga County,” says Elizabeth (Beth) Biggins-Ramer, Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District Executive Director. “This facility will increase recycling capacity within the county and the region and assist in furthering local sustainability efforts. We look forward to working with WM to promote Recycling Right education and bettering our environment.”

The MRF also features a recycling education center. For those who can’t make it to the MRF, the WM Cleveland Recycling Facility also has a virtual learning center, the first of its kind for the company, Johnson says. This allows the MRF to be viewed in area classrooms.  

“I am optimistic that this investment will enable WM to bring recycling to more people,” Johnson says. He adds that with its recent investment in the WM Cleveland Recycling Facility, “Northeast Ohio is set for the next 20 years” in terms of recycling capacity.