SWANA and ISRI announce MRF Summit

The Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) Summit, hosted by the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), Washington, and the Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA), Silver Spring, Maryland, will provide stakeholders with a forum to address MRF challenges affecting the recycling and solid waste industries, the organizers say. Industry leaders from all links in the recycling supply chain will offer their expertise and vision to help guide stakeholders toward solutions for North American recycling programs in the wake of China’s waste import restrictions.

“In a time of uncertainty, we see opportunity to collaborate collectively as a full recycling value chain to progress to a more sustainable society,” Maite Quinn of Sims Municipal Recycling, Brooklyn, New York, and co-chair of ISRI’s MRF Council, says. “At the MRF summit we will hear from all the different sides of the value chain. This is a time where we need to debate, be creative and work together to come up with innovative solutions.”

Key MRF Summit panels include:

Keynote Panel: The Changing Market for Recyclable Materials
China and other international markets are placing a priority on environmental improvement and demanding levels of product quality that many MRFs and other suppliers find challenging to attain. Panelists in this program provide an overview of new policies in place in China and discuss how these policies are affecting present and future of recycling. Speakers include Robin Wiener, president, ISRI; David Biderman, executive director and CEO, SWANA; and Stephen Sikra, associate director of corporate research and development, Procter & Gamble, Cincinnati.

Standardized Metrics for Developing and Measuring Municipal Recycling Goals
A major challenge in finding solutions to improved, measured output quality is the varying challenges of measuring the input of municipal and MRF recycling. This session discusses the concept of creating a scorecard, using real data from a substantial set of U.S. cities that could become a common metric for these operations.Speakers include William P. Keegan, president, Dem-Con Cos., Shakopee, Minnesota; Will Sagar, executive director, Southeast Recycling Development Council, Hendersonville, North Carolina; Scott Pasternak, senior project manager for the solid waste and resource recovery practice, Burns & McDonnell, Kansas City, Missouri; and moderator Myles Cohen, president of the recycling division, Pratt Industries, Conyers, Georgia. 

Single Stream vs. Dual Stream Collection
Since the 1990’s, single-stream recycling has been the trend as more and more communities, large and small, sought to improve recycling rates and reduce collection costs. The reduction in product quality is often recognized but offset by the improved recycling rate. But now, increasing demand for better quality output and the increasing costs to meet that demand may suggest it’s time to take a new look at the viability of single-stream operations. What will be the most effective operations in the future? Are there ways to adapt a fully committed single-stream operation into another collection system? Are the costs of such a change justifiable or unavoidable? Speakers include Kerry R. Getter, CEO, Balcones Resources, Austin, Texas, and Willie Puz, director of public affairs and recycling, Solid Waste Authority of Palm Beach County, West Palm Beach, Florida.

“In the past 25 years, the recycling industry has adjusted to swings and deviations, but we are witnessing an industrial shift like never before,” Robert Smouse, assistant director of code compliance for the solid waste services in Fort Worth, Texas, and a member of SWANA’s Recycling Task Force, says. “Recycling professionals attending these sessions and hearing these industry leaders will learn specific applications and advancements to help ensure successful recycling programs are an integral part of their future integrated solid waste management plan in North America.”

Held at SWANA’s Wastecon Aug. 20-23 in Nashville, Tennessee, the MRF Summit is an opportunity for MRF owners, municipal solid waste professionals, consumer products companies and government officials to come together to address common issues and discuss challenges and opportunities.

For more information about ISRI and SWANA’s MRF Summit, including additional session details, go to swana.org/Events/WASTECON/MRFSummit.aspx.