Update: Property in northwest Ohio considered for new MRF

Lucas County Commissioners have approved a resolution to enter into an agreement with New York-based investment firm Closed Loop Partners to build a new material recovery facility (MRF) in Toledo, Ohio.

According to local reports, officials approved the resolution this week and will use $7 million from the State of Ohio Brownfield Remediation Program Fund for environmental cleanup of a portion of the 15-acre site at Kuhlman Drive and South Avenue near Interstate-75.

"This has been a 10-year-plus journey for the Lucas County Solid Waste Management District," Commissioner Pete Gerken tells WTVG in Toledo. "This is a city, county, private, public partnership that we haven't seen before. This partnership with Closed Loop Partners will enable the local processing of all recycled materials captured in residential carts to offer a more sustainable solution than the current practice of shipping waste materials 90 miles to a facility to be processed."

The Toledo Blade reported that during an agenda review in early February, the council heard a proposal to provide the Lucas County Economic Development Corp. with a parcel of city-owned land located between I-75 and the Maumee River, which would be used for a new MRF.

Currently, the nearest facility with the needed capacity is in Oberlin, Ohio, approximately 90 miles away, and a summary of the proposal sent to the council says locating a new MRF within city limits not only will reduce transportation costs but also will give local control to the processing and marketing of the material while creating additional business and employment opportunities.

The city has been working with the Lucas County Solid Waste Management District to develop a MRF inside Toledo city limits since the update of its Solid Waste Management District Plan in 2018. The proposal says the development of a MRF is a required component of the plan, which covers a period from 2018 to 2032.  The MRF is expected to be operational by 2025.

The city acquired the 1.774-acre parcel of land in 1921, which has mostly been vacant since its acquisition, and will buy other property from adjacent landowners, totaling 15 acres to use for the recycling facility, according to the Blade.

According to the most recent data from the Lucas County Solid Waste Management Plan, 25,127 total tons were recycled from all curbside programs in 2014 and 9,655 tons were collected from 30 full-time urban and rural drop-off sites. The report says an unknown quantity of additional tonnage was collected from 67 other drop-off sites.

In the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the population of Lucas County was 429,191 in 2021, with 268,508 residents living in Toledo.

Following the council’s approval, the county will proceed with entering into a lease agreement with a MRF operator. Ryan Murphy, manager of the Toledo division of solid waste, says three companies have expressed interest in the site, as reported by the Blade.

“With 35,000-plus tons of recyclable processing capacity needed between the [Lucas County Solid Waste Management District’s] programs and the city of Toledo and other communities in the district, recycling processing at the local level is clearly needed,” the Solid Waste Management Plan states. “There is plenty of recycling capacity in the region both in Ohio and Michigan and numerous interested parties to provide recycling services in the district.”

It continues, “With this said, the district anticipates that [a single-stream recycling facility or a recycling transfer station] will be addressed either before this plan update is completed or during the implementation of this plan update.”