GFL Environmental awarded NWRA 2022 Recycling Facility of the Year

Ontario-based GFL Environmental Inc. has been awarded the National Waste & Recycling Association (NWRA) 2022 Recycling Facility of the Year. The Arlington, Virginia-based association recognized GFL for its multimaterial recovery campus in Toronto.   

According to a news release from GFL, the award recognizes leading material recovery facilities (MRF) in North America based on factors such as innovation, partnership, public education and environmental impact.  

"We are proud to receive the NWRA 2022 Recycling Facility of the Year award," says Patrick Dovigi, founder and CEO of GFL. "We have always invested heavily in technology to provide the best in sustainable solutions to our customers. This award supports our vision of always remaining entrepreneurial, investing in leading technology and providing our customers with the very best in recycling services."  

GFL says its Toronto multimaterial recovery campus is located on a 27-acre site that houses two single-stream MRFs that operate 24 hours per day, seven days per week.   

The facility at 122 Arrow Rd. was the first MRF developed at the campus. It began operations in 2010, processing mainly commercial material, and can now house an advanced single-stream processing system. The facility at 124 Arrow Rd. was built in 2013 for Toronto’s single-stream processing contract, with excess capacity for future opportunities. The company says this facility was designed with sustainability and future needs at the forefront of all decision-making.  

Both facilities have technology including elliptical fiber separation, optical sorting, fully automated high-speed sorting robots and other mechanical separation processes. The company says the design maximizes recovery and allows GFL to adapt to changing material composition and ensure the end product of high-quality processed recyclables. A dedicated material composition analysis center is also on-site to facilitate the sorting and analysis of inbound and outbound material.  

The campus has proven to be an overwhelming success for GFL. The company says the campus serves the material recovery needs of approximately 4 million municipal households and has processed over 3.5 million tons of material from municipal and commercial sources since its inception in 2010.