Ship Shape

Since Recycling Today last published its list of largest material recovery facilities (MRFs) in 2004, none of the trends that have led to larger MRFs have faded.

To the contrary, solid recycling markets—particularly for metals and plastics—have provided additional incentives for haulers and recyclers to seek material.

And higher fuel and energy costs are providing the additional incentives to consolidate processing and shipping operations into fewer, highly capitalized MRFs.

The combination of trends means that MRFs have largely remained busy and financially viable. Most of the facilities that appeared on the last list are on this year’s list as well, with most of them reporting larger throughput.

As with the 2002 and 2004 lists, the numbers make clear that some sizable MRFs are in operation, producing impressive amounts of secondary fiber, aluminum used beverage containers (UBCs), steel food cans, plastic bottles and glass bottles and jars.

MRF ELIGIBILITY. For our list, Recycling Today chose to include only facilities that process 50 percent or more residentially generated material. Facilities with a higher mix of commercially generated material may also take in bottles, cans and other commodities, but these facilities are instead considered when our "20 Largest Paperstock Dealers" list is published in odd numbered years.

Two facilities that appeared on the 2004 list (the Deffenbaugh Industries MRF in Kansas City, Kan., and the Metropolitan Paper Recycling plant in Brooklyn, N.Y.) are not on this year’s list because currently less than 50 percent of the material they are handling is coming from residential or municipal program sources.

As in the past, we have chosen the amount of scrap paper shipped as the yardstick for ranking order on our list of the 20 largest MRFs. Although containers make up an important portion of the volume at most MRFs, this volume is greatly reduced in states with deposit-and-return bottle bills. Thus, MRFs in bottle bill states would be at an immediate disadvantage if total recyclables were used to rank facilities.

Unfortunately, designating a facility as either a MRF or a paperstock plant is somewhat arbitrary. Many facilities with a commercial to residential split ranging from 51/49 to 70/30 may look and sound like a MRF, but because a line had to be drawn, they will be considered as paperstock plants for purposes of creating our lists. The line is blurry, however, and we are open to suggestions for other definitions or criteria for designating a plant as one or the other. Please feel free to contact the editors with your thoughts.

CAPITAL IDEAS. Readers of Recycling Today magazine and its weekly e-newsletter (available by signing up at www.RecyclingToday.com) have noticed a non-stop string of MRF equipment installations and upgrades in the past two years.

Operators of MRFs—whether national hauling companies or regional solid waste and recycling companies—have been upgrading their plants to increase production at a time when commodities are yielding good returns.

Among the examples:

FORWARD PROGRESS. Stability and growth are the positive adjectives associated with MRF operations in the past two years.

Recyclers, city budget crunchers, recycling advocates and haulers who have made recent investments are united in their hope that economic trends will continue to favor the management of curbside recycling programs.

If all goes well, our 2008 list will include many of the same locations, but with even larger volume figures in the columns beside their names.

To see Recycling Today's list of the 20 largest MRFs in North America, follow this link:

The author is editor of Recycling Today and can be contacted at btaylor@gie.net. Recycling Today Managing Editor DeAnne Toto, Senior Editor Dan Sandoval and Associate Editor Jackie Gubeno also contributed research for the article and list.