Texas Recycling earns community honor

Dallas-based Texas Recycling Inc. has received a Distinguished Community Award from the Dallas Police Department, with the department citing the firm’s work and partnership in the community near its recycling facility.

According to the PSI Chapter of the Washington-based Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), in 2015, Texas Recycling moved from a light industrial area of Dallas to a location near an elementary school and nearby residences. “Many eyes were on us, and a NIMBY [not in my back yard] attitude existed,” Joel Litman, the company’s president and co-owner, told PSI.

Joel Litman and his brother, Craig, told PSI they treated the move as an opportunity to engage with the community, including by holding open houses at its facility. Subsequently, “neighborhood association leaders as well as officers at the local Jubilee Park police station encouraged residents and city officials to give Texas Recycling a chance,” the firm says.

“Since then, we’ve stepped up whenever there was a need in the community,” Joel Litman told PSI. Those efforts have included: providing jobs to neighborhood residents, joining neighborhood crime watch programs, providing resources for the police department’s neighborhood Christmas toy drive and, during the COVID-19 shutdown, providing transportation to move pallets of food to neighborhood distribution areas.

“This award validates the partnership our company has forged with the Dallas Police Department, the neighborhood associations and the community at our commercial home in this part of the city near Jubilee Park,” Litman says. “The award also confirms the trust and friendship our company has worked hard to create and sustain among the law enforcement and residential communities.”

Although this is Texas Recycling’s first Distinguished Community Award, the company has been recognized in the past by the local Jubilee Park police station, according to Litman.