Murphy Road Recycling receives gold-level glass certification

The Glass Recycling Coalition (GRC), Ann Arbor, Michigan, has announced Enfield, Connecticut-based Murphy Road Recycling as a recipient of a gold-level certification for its All American material recovery facility (MRF) in Berlin, Connecticut.

The approximately $40 million single-stream MRF began operations in 2022 and features a processing system that includes optical sorters, artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics supplied by Van Dyk Recycling Solutions.

The All American MRF employs glass cleaning equipment, including a glass breaker, vibrating table screen, secondary fines screen and vacuum system. The MRF sends its clean glass to processors to be converted into cullet used for manufacturing glass containers, fine powders used in fiberglass insulation and ground glass used as pozzolan, a cement binder.

“Smart and modernized MRFs like All American who have glass certification are producing cleaner glass that provides a competitive advantage,” says Scott Mouw, GRC MRF Certification Committee member and senior advisor of strategy and research at The Recycling Partnership. “All American and the other certified facilities in the GRC program demonstrate that MRFs can successfully accept, process and move high-quality glass to market.”

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The free certification program offered by GRC recognizes MRFs with additional equipment and operational procedures to clean glass in single- and dual-stream systems.

GRC says Murphy Road Recycling continues to improve its facility and plans to add a magnet to remove additional metals as well as a paper removal system to further clean the glass stream.

“Gold MRF glass certification demonstrates our commitment to increasing the amount of material that is truly recycled and made into new products,” says Frank Antonacci, chief operating officer at Murphy Road Recycling. “When the All American MRF was planned, we wanted it to transform the way recyclable materials are processed and sorted, and we are keeping true to that plan with continuous material sorting improvement.”

The GRC MRF Glass Certification program launched in the fall of 2019. In 2022, GRC updated the glass certification criteria to prioritize end market consistency and more thorough glass cleaning prior to beneficiation. Eligible applications are judged on current MRF infrastructure and the results of a glass purity test aligned with the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries’ (ISRI’s) Three-Mix Specification. An independent committee scores applications and awards MRFs with either gold, silver or bronze certification.

GRC’s website currently hosts an interactive map showing MRFs, glass processors and end markets across the country. GRC certified MRFs are noted on this map, along with public recognition of this certification.