Meridian Waste, Charlotte, North Carolina, announced Feb. 3 that it has closed on the purchase of Sunrise Sanitation in the greater Greenville, South Carolina, market. The acquisition expands the company’s operations to seven states. 

The acquisition includes the assets of Sunrise Sanitation Inc., which is headquartered in Easley, South Carolina. The terms of the purchase agreement were not disclosed.

The Sunrise Sanitation acquisition includes residential subscription and commercial contracts in South Carolina’s Anderson and Greenville Counties. The front line team members of Sunshine Sanitation will remain with Meridian Waste after the acquisition, which will help ensure a seamless transition, the company says.

This marks Meridian Waste’s first acquisition within South Carolina and the 14th acquisition since the company transitioned to private stock under the ownership of Jacksonville Beach, Florida-based Warren Equity Partners (WEP) in April 2018.

The town of Stratham, New Hampshire, launched an automated recycling collection program in February. The city is providing its residents with new, lidded and wheeled recycling carts for its automated curbside collection program.

According to a news release from Falls Church, Virginia-based The Recycling Partnership, the city applied for and received a grant from the organization in recognition of the city’s commitment to recycling. The $51,200 grant helps to offset the costs for 3,200 new recycling carts and includes funding for education and outreach about recycling and the town’s new collection process.

The Recycling Partnership says Stratham residents received either a 95-gallon recycling cart at single-family homes or a 65-gallon recycling cart at townhouses and condominiums. The new carts arrived Jan. 18, and collection started the week of Feb. 2.

“We are grateful for the support of The Recycling Partnership, through a community survey and extensive deliberation by the townspeople and our Curbside Collection Advisory Committee, the commitment to a robust recycling program at curbside was deep and consistent,” says David Moore, town administrator for Stratham.

According to The Recycling Partnership, the new lidded carts replace the smaller, uncovered red bins that were undersized for most residents and led to the migration of materials into the environment. The nonprofit says the new collection system will increase residents’ recycling container capacity dramatically.

“The Recycling Partnership is proud to partner with the Town of Stratham to expand access to recycling for the town’s 7,400 residents,” says Chris Coady, director of community programs at The Recycling Partnership. “We are thrilled to support Stratham residents’ efforts to recycle more, better, capturing more quality recyclables and unlocking critical supply for the circular economy.”

Stratham is asking its residents to review the list of acceptable materials to ensure a reduction in contamination in recyclables and wishcycling.

Since CompuCycle was founded in 1996, the Houston-based electronics refurbisher and recycler has expanded, both physically and in terms of the services it offers. Though it has tripled the size of its operating facility and changed ownership since that time, CompuCycle’s co-owners say the goal always has been the same for the family-owned business: making clients feel like much more than just clients.

Before CompuCycle, there was Complex Metals Inc. Back in 1986, Clive Hess and his father, John, emigrated from South Africa to the United States, settling in Houston. John purchased a share of a local metal alloy distribution company. He had been in the scrap metal recycling business in South Africa, and that company was focused on recycling electronics to recover the precious and nonferrous metals they contained.

After Clive graduated from the University of Houston in 1992, he joined his father’s company, Complex Metals Inc.

The father and son saw a void in the city when it came to electronics recycling services. To fill that void, they formed CompuCycle.

“Together, they built a company focused on recycling scrap electronics into raw materials for feedstock to mills, smelters and refineries and refurbishing reusable electronics to extend their useful life as an alternative to purchasing new product,” says CompuCycle President and CEO Kelly Hess of the work the men did to establish the electronics recycling firm. “John and Clive really created a company that has been an industry leader in Houston as an electronics recycler.”

Kelly says she’s been a part of the business since she married Clive 19 years ago. When their kids started school, she brought her public relations and marketing skills to the company as a full-time employee.

During the last 24 years, CompuCycle grew and moved to a larger facility. In 2013 Kelly stepped into the role of president and CEO. She and Clive also bought the business from John. Kelly purchased 51 percent of CompuCycle, making it a woman-owned enterprise, though she and Clive share ownership responsibilities. They say they believe the change in ownership allowed the business to grow and offer even more to clients.

Focusing on all aspects of information technology asset disposition (ITAD), including data center decommissioning, on-site IT asset inventory/validation services and on-site hard-drive shredding, CompuCycle executives say it’s important to offer clients what they need from a single facility.

Transitioning ownership

After joining CompuCycle full time, Kelly says, “I was able to grow the company and saw a need for us to become a woman-owned business. And it really has been a growth opportunity.”

As she and Clive brought on more corporate clients, Kelly says they often were asked if they were woman-owned. So, about eight years ago, they bought the company from John, and Kelly became the majority owner.

Its woman-owned status doesn’t guarantee CompuCycle new clients, Kelly says, but it does open the door for potential success and opportunity as such companies could benefit from government or private grants, local bank and other loan programs and government contracts.

While the business has always been family-owned, she says the dynamic is different between spouses compared with a father-and-son team.

“You know, a husband-and-wife team I wouldn’t say is always ideal, but we definitely use both of our strengths and are able to make it grow and work to our advantage and have really built quite a phenomenal business,” she says.

“[John] got the business to a certain level and was able to really run an efficient company, but Clive and I saw the ability to grow this company,” Kelly says, adding that female ownership helped to fuel that growth.

Under Kelly’s majority ownership, CompuCycle has worked to help corporate clients with diversity goals meet their objectives, setting itself apart from its competition.

“We are the only company in Texas and [the] only woman-owned company capable of shredding electronics and separating them into raw materials,” Kelly says. She adds that the reasons she is able to succeed in the male-dominated electronics recycling industry are “[l]istening and providing tailored solutions to our clients’ needs,” which include “secure recycling, brand protection, responsible processing, refurbishing product for reuse and elimination of the middleman.”

Everything’s bigger in Texas

CompuCycle doesn’t just service customers locally—the business also serves companies around the world through partnerships with other service providers. Five years ago, it brought on a new client that needed international services. “We have serviced this client and others in the USA, Canada, Mexico, Central America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia successfully,” Kelly says.

“There’s nothing that we really can’t handle when it comes to our customers,” Clive says.

When Kelly and Clive took over the business in 2013, they planned to expand but needed more operating space. In 2018, the opportunity became available for CompuCycle to purchase a new building.

“We went from 40,000 square feet to 80,000 square feet,” she says. “That following October, we purchased the building next door, or an additional 40,000 square feet.”

That expansion allowed CompuCycle to add a processing plant with a shredding system.

“We have a processing plant next door that’s [a] state-of-the-art, fully automated electronic shredding system,” Clive says. “If materials can’t be recycled and reused, it’s going through that processor, and it is going to its bare components,” he adds.

Kelly says it was important for CompuCycle to have everything it needed in one facility so no middleman was needed, adding that “it comes to us [and] ends with us.

“Our variety of services include responsible recycling, data center decommissioning, on-site IT asset validation/inventory, on-site hard-drive shredding, IT asset relocation and deployment and IT lease return management,” she continues.

Set apart by service

Clive says CompuCycle focuses on the level of service and security it offers clients. Using propriety software for hard-drive sanitization, he says drives are linked to the device that once contained them to enable thorough reporting to clients.

“When we provide the reports for their hard drives, not only can we give them the make, model and serial number of the drive, but we also can link them—the serial number and the machine that drive belongs to,” Clive says. “From a compliance standpoint, or if these companies are ever audited, our information that we provided to them is extremely detailed.”

The company also provides secure shredding services to some of its competitors using two shredders manufactured by SSI Shredding Systems of Wilsonville, Oregon.

“We work with a lot of other electronics recyclers,” Clive adds. “We have essentially competitors that are shipping their scrap to us because of our processing plants.”

Kelly says she believes that having equipment on-site is a big advantage, making clients feel safe that whatever materials they turn over will be safely destroyed on-site.

It’s also about making clients feel like more than just clients.

“Clive and I, being the owners of the company, when we get new customers, they become part of our CompuCycle family and team,” Kelly says.

She adds that while each customer has an account manager, she and Clive give clients their cellphone numbers, so they know they are always a priority.

“There is no cookie-cutter approach. Every customer is different, and we want to tailor a solution to make them able to save time and, of course, to be a cost savings and to give them value back from material that we can remarket and reuse.” – Kelly Hess, president and CEO, CompuCycle

“There is no cookie-cutter approach. Every customer is different, and we want to tailor a solution to make them able to save time and, of course, to be a cost savings and to give them value back from material that we can remarket and reuse,” Kelly says.

Clive and Kelly say they pride themselves on their no-nonsense approach, doing what it takes to ensure clients are happy.

“As all small companies, it is very difficult to compete with the likes of Dell, HP, Lenovo and others in selling electronics recycling services to Fortune 1000 companies,” Kelly says. “In 2010 we committed to becoming R2 (Responsible Recycling) certified, and in January 2011 became Houston’s first certified electronics recycling company,” she adds.

As a result, Kelly says CompuCycle has been able to educate clients and prospective clients on certification as well as to improve its processes and procedures.

What’s next

With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it’s hard to make predictions on growth and change, but the Hesses say they believe CompuCycle will get through this challenging time.

“Most of our clients’ offices are closed or either have restricted access right now, so to be able to go in and get equipment is not happening at this time,” Kelly says.

CompuCycle had a drop-off program for residents, but that also has been put on hold during the pandemic.

Kelly says CompuCycle has received calls about companies going bankrupt and needing to liquidate their IT assets. While that means CompuCycle will gain a customer, she says it means someone else is losing a business.

“The stability of what we had is definitely being challenged,” she says of the pandemic’s effect on the firm.

During the pandemic, she says CompuCycle’s management has taken “significant salary reductions,” and their hours have been reduced to 32 per week. Additionally, the company’s refurbishing plant remains at 50 to 60 percent capacity, and its recycling plant is at 60 percent capacity.

Kelly adds, “With news of the COVID-19 vaccinations, we are optimistic about 2021 and getting our working hours back to 40 hours per week ASAP.”

Once business levels out and returns to prepandemic levels, Clive says he hopes the future of electronics recycling will be brighter.

“We do support a no-landfill policy for electronics; however, Texas does allow electronics to be landfilled,” Clive says. “We would support a bill to end landfilling electronics because we don’t think that’s a good thing.”

When it comes to being a better business, Clive says it’s not just about recovering materials and helping the environment—it’s also about helping people, from its employees to its clients. Continuous improvement factors into CompuCycle’s philosophy.

Kelly says most clients know the business and that it’s never been anything but family-owned and operated.

For CompuCycle and its co-owners, whether it’s communicating to clients about industry standards or sharing information that can benefit them, it all comes back to one goal: making them feel like family.

This article originally appeared in the January issue of Recycling Today.

Concord, California-based Mt. Diablo Resource Recovery (MDRR) has selected Eugene, Oregon-based Bulk Handling Systems (BHS) to undertake a major retrofit of the company’s Mt. Diablo Recycling Center (MDR) in Pittsburg, California.

Originally commissioned in 2009, the MDR plant currently processes up to 20 tons per hour of recyclables. The renovated material recovery facility (MRF) will be operational in the second quarter of 2021 and will be able to process more than 35 tons per hour, BHS says.

Through what the supplier calls a creative installation strategy, MDR and BHS are anticipating just 35 days of downtime.

The retrofit design includes process upgrades and new equipment to increase throughput, recovery, purity and overall system efficiency, BHS says. Included are BHS Tri-Disc screens, National Recovery Technology (NRT) optical sorters and Max-AI artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

According to BHS, Max-AI technology identifies recyclables similar to the way a person does to direct robotic and optical sorters and collect and report material characterization information. For MDRR, the Max-AI AQC (Autonomous Quality Control) robotic sorter will work at the “last chance” position to identify and capture remaining recyclables before they exit the recycling process. The AI technology also will work in collaboration with an NRT SpydIR optical sorter to identify and remove nonfiber from the mixed paper product.

“The world of recycling has changed, and this powerful new system will keep Mt. Diablo Resource Recovery at the forefront of recycling excellence,” says MDRR Chief Operating Officer Gary Lazdowski. “BHS offers the overall quality, partnership and advanced technology to help MDR achieve the throughput and quality to meet our business goals. We believe the future of recycling will rely heavily on using technology and data to optimize performance, [and] Max-AI and NRT equipment throughout our system will deliver that for our operation. We are excited for our future and confident that this innovative technology will empower us to meet recycling expectations for our state regulators, for our community and for our business.”

BHS CEO Steve Miller comments, “This major retrofit is an excellent example of a company like Mt. Diablo Resource Recovery adapting to change in the industry. The new system features proven screen technology to increase throughput and precisely present material downstream to NRT and Max-AI sorters to maximize both recovery and product purity. We are thrilled to deliver this creative solution that meets our customer’s business objectives and to have worked out an installation plan with our partners that minimizes system downtime. I want to thank the MDRR team for choosing BHS and we look forward to future collaboration.”

Mt. Diablo Resource Recovery, a family-owned company, provides solid waste, recycling and yard waste service to the areas of Concord, Pittsburg, Brentwood, Discovery Bay, Oakley and Rio Vista, California, northeast of San Francisco.

Bulk Handling Systems describes itself as a worldwide leader in the innovative design, engineering, manufacturing and installation of sorting systems and components for the solid waste, recycling, waste-to-energy and construction and demolition industries. Its subsidiaries include Amsterdam-based Nihot, Tennessee-based NRT and California-based Zero Waste Energy.