A southwest Alabama materials recovery facility that drew state and industry financial support has opened its doors, marking a significant step in localizing processing and lowering costs for area municipalities. Meanwhile, Circular Services broke ground on a single-stream MRF to serve a North Texas community.
Many partners collaborate on Gulf Coast sorting facility
Along Alabama’s Gulf Coast, the Solid Waste Disposal Authority of Baldwin County has been working for years to build a MRF that serves not only its 14 member municipalities but also the surrounding region. The MRF began processing material early this year, producing 319 bales of recyclables in February, and on March 20 the agency celebrated the MRF’s grand opening.
The 62,000-square-foot MRF, which has an annual processing capacity of 40,000 tons per year, carried a total investment of $25 million.
It received substantial public and private sector support during its development. Grant funds from the Alabama Department of Environmental Management helped with equipment purchases and to finance an on-site education center for public outreach. Some $4.6 million in federal funds went towards the design and construction.
Industry groups including The Recycling Partnership, the Glass Recycling Foundation and the Can Manufacturers Institute contributed funding for specific abilities within the MRF. The Recycling Partnership, for instance, financed purchase of an optical sorter through its PET Recycling Coalition. The sorter enables the MRF to separate out PET and create dedicated bales, “where before it could only deliver mixed plastic bales,” the group wrote in a case study.
The Can Manufacturers Institute provided similar funding to install an eddy current separator, enabling the MRF to capture an estimated 516,000 pounds of aluminum per year.
Beyond the industry group and government support, the grand opening announcement indicates the MRF drew industry support from Indorama, International Paper, KW Plastics, Midland Davis, Novelis, Pratt Industries, SA Recycling and Sibelco, which owns glass processor Strategic Materials.
The MRF will receive recyclables from drop-off recycling locations the disposal authority manages around the county and from curbside recycling programs operated by some member municipalities.
For some of those member cities, the new MRF represents a significant step in lowering costs by bringing processing closer to home. The city of Foley, Alabama, for example, delivered its first load of paper, aluminum and plastic to the MRF in January, marking a big change for the city’s recycling operations.
“Now, we’ll be able to take our recycling directly over there instead of out of state,” said Darrell Russell, public works director for the city of Foley, in a written statement. The city added that recyclables were previously transported to Escambia County, Florida, which is over 40 miles away, compared to the 9-mile trek to the new MRF.
Additionally, the per-ton processing fees at the new MRF are lower than what Foley was paying in the past, the city noted.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey echoed the localizing effect of the MRF in a statement: “By processing and supplying high-quality recyclable materials, we are keeping resources and business here in Alabama.”
The MRF will process OCC, mixed paper, plastics and metals. Other materials, including glass, will be accepted through a second project the disposal authority is managing. This project will develop six “CHaRMs” – Centers for Hard-to-Recycle Materials – throughout the county. In addition to the materials accepted at the MRF, these centers will accept glass, batteries, electronics, lightbulbs, fire extinguishers and other household hazardous waste.
North Texas facility is latest for growing MRF operator
Circular Services on March 19 kicked off construction on a 120,000-square-foot MRF in Frisco, Texas, a city of about 225,000 in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area.
Circular Services is the facility operations arm of Closed Loop Partners, and its subsidiaries include Balcones Recycling, a regional MRF operator known for its presence throughout Texas.
The MRF will have the capacity to process more than 150,000 tons per year, company spokesperson Alexandra Gyarfas told Resource Recycling.
The new facility carries a $61 million investment and represents a “major step forward for recycling infrastructure in North Texas,” Circular Services Chief Commercial Officer Joaquin Mariel said in a statement.
He added Balcones has been working on this project for more than a decade, and the new facility will include innovative sorting technology and a focus on employee well-being.
“The new facility is engineered to meet the region’s diversion goals, with a focus on maximizing recovery rates, ensuring employee safety, and maintaining the highest quality standards,” the company said in a statement.
The new project begins less than a year after Balcones opened a similar facility in San Antonio. That MRF, also 120,000 square feet in size, features equipment including AI-enhanced optical sorters, auger screens to bolster worker safety and an experimental system to remove and potentially market what would otherwise be film contamination.
Gyarfas of Circular Services noted the Frisco MRF will have similar equipment, including optical sorters and a FilmMax for film removal. The site has a projected start-up date of spring 2026.
In other Circular Services news, the company on March 31 acquired Waste Recycling Inc., a MRF operator with a particular focus in the industrial and commercial materials management space.
A version of this story appeared in Resource Recycling on Apr. 1.
