Industry News

MRFs, Financial

TRP invests $4.25M in FCC Environmental Services’ Houston MRF

The Recycling Partnership (TRP), Washington, has awarded a $4.25 million grant to FCC Environmental Services’ material recovery facility (MRF) in Houston to improve the facility’s ability to recover film and flexible packaging (FFP).

The grant, which is supported by brands PepsiCo Inc., Kraft Heinz Co. and the Film and Flexibles Recycling Coalition, will enable a facility retrofit to recover incidental FFP, address cross-contamination of other recyclables, create high-quality bales and offer data and learnings for building a road map to scaling FFP recycling.

Through the grant, FCC will retrofit its Houston MRF with advanced technology to improve the recovery of plastic film. In partnership with its suppliers, FCC has designed a system intended to meet market specifications and recover plastic film at high levels of purity from a single material stream. The upgrades will include Tomra optical sorters to distinguish film from paper and other materials, along with additional conveyors to enhance processing and efficiency.

“Plastic film and flexible packaging are widely used but have historically been excluded from curbside recycling due to processing limitations and contamination concerns,” FCC Vice President of Recycling John Rabon says. “This upgrade represents an important step forward, offering Houston residents new opportunities to recycle more and reduce what ends up in the landfill. While still early, the initiative is designed to strengthen material recovery for the city of Houston and provide learnings that can help guide scalable, sustainable solutions across the country.”

TRP says investments to build recycling infrastructure for FFP are critical as extended producer responsibility (EPR) legislation has been passed in seven states, including California—the world’s fourth-largest economy—with requirements that will affect packaging supply chains nationwide. The organization says EPR is creating pressure to significantly increase the FFP recycling rate and partnerships are essential to creating scalable solutions and meeting EPR compliance requirements.

“To meet these mandates effectively, investment now in the supply chain to turn FFP into new products is critical,” TRP Chief Impact Officer Kate Davenport says. “That is why we founded the Film and Flexibles Recycling Coalition and its new CalFFlex initiative, aiming to address the longstanding challenges of FFP collection, enhance effective processing and drive demand for these recycled materials. By awarding our largest single grant to an individual MRF, we are developing solutions to demonstrate how effective capture and higher quality at this stage of the value chain could provide feedstock for burgeoning markets to use to make new recycled products and thus provide key data to inform compliance pathways and focused interventions.”

Mergers & Acquisitions

Meridian Waste acquires Tate Services Inc.

Meridian Waste Alabama LLC, a business unit of North Carolina-based Meridian Waste, acquired Tate Services Inc. Sept. 1.

The acquisition expands Meridian Waste’s roll-off collection operations in the Greater Huntsville, Alabama, market and adds two new service lines—portable toilets and temporary storage containers—to the company’s North Alabama portfolio. Meridian Waste also assumed Tate Services’ hauling facility in Huntsville, where all 51 Tate Services employees continue operating the company’s three lines of business. 

“The addition of Tate Services to the Meridian Waste Alabama portfolio is a win across all fronts,” Meridian Waste CEO Walter Hall says. “It enhances our financial margins, expands our service offerings, deepens our pool of available talent—including Tate Services owner Zach Tate and his entire team—and strengthens our presence in the dynamic Huntsville market, which has been an exciting growth area for Meridian Waste since we entered the region just one year ago.”

According to Meridian Waste, this acquisition will increase route density and internalization into Meridian Waste’s Noble Hill Landfill in Etowah County while also broadening service offerings. Tate Services customers now have access to front-load services provided by Meridian Waste in the region.

Customers experienced no service disruptions, Meridian Waste says, and existing contact information remains valid.

Mergers & Acquisitions

Hoffman Sanitation Services acquires Outer City Limit Sanitation

Hoffman Sanitation Services, a Durant, Oklahoma-based collection services provider, has acquired Lone Grove, Oklahoma-based Outer City Limit Sanitation (OCLS).

OCLS has served Oklahoma communities, including Carter, Love, Jefferson, Johnston and Murray counties, for more than 10 years. Julie and Chris Gragg own and operate the company, which has approximately 4,000 residential and commercial customers, including polycart, front-load and roll-off accounts. 

“We are proud of what we have built at Outer City Limit Sanitation and grateful to the employees and customers who made our success possible,” OCLS owner and operator Chris Gragg says. “Partnering with Hoffman Sanitation is the right step forward as they bring the resources and vision to take the company to the next level. We are confident this transition will benefit our people, our customers and the future of our business.”

“We are excited to bring the existing OCLS customers to the Hoffman family and to expand the service area, continuing to provide best of the best service to all of our customers,” Hoffman Sanitation Services owner and operator Stewart Hoffman says.

This acquisition expands Hoffman Sanitation’s existing service footprint in southeast Oklahoma.

Landfill

Pennsylvania landfill operator seeks permit modification and facility expansion

Environmental & Recycling Services Inc. (ERSI) has applied for a permit modification at the ERSI Construction and Demolition (C&D) Landfill located in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania.

ERSI has proposed a redesign of the approximately 51-acre Phase IV Expansion in accordance with the permit renewal issued Oct. 13, 2021.

The proposed redesign includes both protective liner and leachate collection system modifications. Additional site improvements would include creating a new stormwater management basin and reconstructing portions of the site access road. However, no increase to the permit area, volume to be accepted or waste types have been proposed.

ERSI has not actively disposed of C&D on-site since 2007. Current operations have been limited to processing small volumes of C&D waste and sending the remaining waste to another landfill for disposal, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) says.

The application was submitted to DEP June 3 and was accepted as administratively complete June 5.

DEP says its waste management staff will monitor the landfill with regular and unannounced inspections and review ERSI’s monitoring reports for daily intake and leachate management to ensure the landfill is operating within the guidelines and conditions outlined in its permit. The department says it also will monitor the landfill to assist in minimizing odor, litter and fugitive dust. 

DEP held a public meeting Aug. 28 and a subsequent hearing to answer questions and accept comments regarding the site’s modification application.

Organics

Rust Belt Riders to buy land for composting facility

Rust Belt Riders, a Cleveland-based worker-owned cooperative focused on composting solutions for food waste, is negotiating the purchase of a former waste transfer station site on the city’s east side.

The composting company is negotiating the purchase at a reported price of $790,000 of a 6-acre parcel of land that for many years housed a Cleveland municipal solid waste (MSW) transfer station, according to Cleveland.com.

Earlier this year, it was reported that the company and the city of Cleveland intended to work out a lease arrangement at the same site, but both parties now have concluded a land sale is a better option.

The land is a brownfield site, and the report says the city will pay for any soil remediation costs to be deducted from the $790,000 total.

Once Rust Belt Riders owns the land, it intends to invest $3.5 million to consolidate its regionwide operations on the parcel and build a facility to host them, according to the report.

Rust Belt Riders has several food scrap drop-off sites throughout the Cleveland area. The firm currently processes and packages composted materials at several locations in northern Ohio, some of which will be centralized at the new site.

“The new East 79th Street hub will house trucks, soil-blending operations and a new composting facility all in one place,” the report says, adding it will have the capacity to process about 5,000 tons of food scraps annually.

The report indicates the site has been vacant for more than two decades since being abandoned as an MSW transfer station.

Rust Belt Riders was founded in 2014 and, in addition to hosting several residential food scraps drop-off sites and a collection service, offers a commercial collection service for grocers, restaurant owners, schools and office buildings.