Joel Litman to receive ISRI's Proler Award

Texas Recycling Inc. co-owner and President Joel Litman has been selected to receive the 2023 Israel Proler award from the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) Gulf Coast Region.

Photo courtesy of ISRI

The award is named in memory of Israel Proler, who served as Gulf Coast chapter president of ISRI predecessor the Institute of Scrap Iron and Steel from 1955 to 1956, and given to individuals for their leadership, achievements and contributions to the recycling industry.

“Joel Litman exemplifies what it means to be a leader in the recycling industry,” Gulf Coast Region President Nidhi Turakhia says. “Not only has he built a successful recycling company with his family members over the past four decades, but every day he sets an example of what it means to operate with integrity and dedication to his family, team members, community and industry.”

Litman entered the recycling industry in 1984 when he joined his father, Stan, at his paper and rag recycling company, Daltex Waste Material Co., before eventually founding Texas Recycling, headquartered in Dallas, with his father and brother, Craig, in 1992.

“We did not have one pound of paper when we started Sept. 1, 1992,” Joel Litman told Recycling Today in 2021. “We were like, ‘Now what?’ But we just started moving. We were confident we could get this going.”

Since its inception, Texas Recycling has grown to nearly 70 employees and expanded into metals and plastics recycling, while the Litmans also established Action Shred of Texas in 2003 to provide document destruction as well as hard drive and product destruction.

Litman has been an active member within ISRI nationally as well as the Gulf Coast Region and Paper Stock Industries (PSI) chapters, serving as a board member for all three, and has been a board member for the Global Recycling Standards Organization (which oversees the Recycling Industry Operating Standard, or RIOS) as well as PSI president from 2012 to 2014.

“I am humbled and honored to be recognized by my peers,” Litman says. “I’ve looked up to the current and past Gulf Coast Region officers as leaders in ISRI and the industry, and it is gratifying to have them honor me in this way.”

Litman will receive the Israel Proler Award at the ISRI Gulf Coast Region’s summer convention in Dallas on June 22.

A full list of Proler Award recipients can be found here.