NWRA announces 2024 Recycling Awards recipients

The National Waste & Recycling Association (NWRA) has announced its 2024 Recycling Awards recipients, recognizing innovators and leaders in the recycling and waste industry.

Awards were given in five categories to private companies and municipalities that have made contributions to global recycling efforts through partnerships, public education and innovations in recycling facilities. This year’s winners were selected by a panel of independent waste and recycling professionals.

“This year’s awardees represent a shift to a circular economy, embracing more reuse, reduction and recycling,” NWRA President and CEO Michael E. Hoffman says. “Through their innovative design, modernized facilities, education programs and dedication to finding new and more ways to reuse waste, the industry is leading economically viable solutions to a circular economy.”

The 2024 NWRA Recycling Awards recipients will be recognized at NWRA’s 2024 Executive Leadership Roundtable held Oct. 14-16 in Savannah, Georgia.

Sustainability Game Changer of the Year: Republic Services’ Polymer Center in Las Vegas

The 71,000-square-foot Polymer Center is a secondary processing facility that takes baled plastics from material recovery facilities (MRFs) and processes them into recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) flake and color-sorted high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and polypropylene (PP) to be made into new packaging.

The facility is capable of processing 10 tons of PET and olefin plastics per hour (80,000 tons per year), utilizing 17 optical sorters, a combination of both near-infrared and medium-infrared optical units and other equipment.

NWRA says this facility is an important step toward Republic’s 2030 environmental, social and governance (ESG) goal of increasing the recovery and circularity of key materials by 40 percent.

Phoenix-based Republic is developing a national network of polymer centers, following the successful startup of the Las Vegas Polymer Center, that will sustainably support a circular economy with PET and olefin plastics for years to come, according to NWRA. This network is designed as a hub-and-spoke model, with local recycling facilities supplying sorted PET, HDPE and olefin to a regional polymer center for secondary sortation.

Construction of the company’s second Polymer Center is underway in Indianapolis and is expected to open by the end of 2024.

Recycling Facility of the Year: LRS’ Exchange MRF in Chicago

LRS’ Exchange MRF opened in 2023 and can process 1 million pounds of recyclables daily.

The Exchange was designed in partnership with CP Equipment, the city of Chicago’s Department of Planning and Development and LRS team members and aims to help the city of Chicago achieve its residential waste diversion goal of 90 percent by 2040.

As previously reported by Recycling Today, the MRF features a pair of identical Harris two-ram balers for full baler redundancy.

Recycling Facility of the Year honorable mention: GFL Environmental’s MRF in Horicon, Wisconsin

The 133,000-square-foot Wisconsin MRF processes single stream material from approximately 50,000 commercial customers, 150 municipal customers and serves more than 225,000 curbside residential recycling customers.

The GFL MRF is outfitted with a Scalping Auger Screen as opposed to a traditional staffed presort line, eight optical sorters, three plastic film capture systems, two single-ram balers, one two-ram baler and more. NWRA says the MRF’s processing system was designed to be flexible with maximum recovery and quality of product in mind. It also offers expansion areas for future equipment upgrades, including additional optics, in-feeds and sorting lines.

Excellence in Recycling Public Education: Recology King County in Seattle

Recology King County’s public education and outreach program set a “a world without waste” goal. To achieve its goal, it says it focuses on practices that increase participation in recycling and composting programs, decrease contamination, encourage reuse and engage communities.

Recology conducts tabling events, MRF tours, site visits, recycling workshops and waste audits; distributes service guides, social media posts and quarterly bill inserts; and operates a Slotted Lid Program, four recycling-focused retail stores, an artist-in-residence program, an environmental education center and a school outreach program.

Recycling Equipment Innovator of the Year: Machinex Technologies’ Next-Generation MRF in Coventry, England

The Machinex Next-Generation MRF, operated by Sherbourne Recycling Ltd. in Coventry, England, features an integration of 19 SamurAI sorting robots, 14 optical sorters—including 13 Mach Hyspec optical sorters, a Mach Vision stream composition analyzer and multiple Mach Intell.

The facility is capable of processing 52 tons per hour of residential single stream recyclables while maintaining 95 percent plant and equipment availability. The MRF has purity levels of up to 99 percent for targeted commodities and material recovery rates exceeding 98 percent, NWRA says.

Organics Management Facility of the Year: City of Quebec’s Biomethanization Center of the Agglomeration of Quebec (CBAQ) in Quebec, Canada

Comprised of two sectors, the Organic Material Recovery Center and the Organic Material Methanization Center, CBAQ is capable of processing 80 tons per hour, 250,000 tons of municipal solid waste per year and 65,000 tons of organic material per year from more than 300,000 households.

Equipped with optical sorters and other technologies, the facility decomposes food waste in a controlled process, converting it into renewable natural gas (RNG) and soil amendment to enhance soil quality.