Waste Management opens Salt Lake City MRF

Waste Management of Utah, a subsidiary of Houston-based Waste Management, has opened its $17 million material recovery facility in Salt Lake City, with processing ramping up to full production in July. In March of last year, the company announced its plans to build the new, larger MRF to improve its Salt Lake City recycling operations. 

The new MRF supports recycling programs throughout the Salt Lake Valley, processing recyclables for Salt Lake City’s roughly 41,000 residential customers as well as numerous communities and businesses throughout the valley.

“This recycling facility was custom designed and equipped to support the future recycling needs of the Salt Lake Valley, one of the fastest growing population centers in the country,” Mark Snedecor, director of recycling operations for Waste Management of Utah, says in a news release on the MRF’s opening. “The cutting-edge sorting equipment and expanded production capacity at the new facility will enable us to increase operational efficiencies and exceed the quality standards required by U.S. product manufacturers who buy the metals, cardboard, paper and plastics produced at this MRF.”

The new WM Salt Lake MRF occupies 50,000 square feet inside an existing structure at WM’s site at 3405 W. 900 S. The facility features advanced automation as well as rotating fiber screens, ballistic separators, optical sorters and magnets. More than 2.5 miles of conveyor belts carry materials through this single-stream processing facility, which can sort 35 tons per hour, 280 tons daily and more than 71,000 tons annually, according to the company.

“With the new Salt Lake MRF up and running, our next goal is to grow our partnerships with like-minded recycling advocates,” says Blake Leonelli, Waste Management of Utah’s public sector representative. “We are looking to expand the number of area communities and businesses we service—partners committed to recycling as a proven way to conserve natural resources, benefit the environment and support U.S.-based product manufacturing.”

Considered the largest recycler in North America, Waste Management says it continues to secure domestic buyers for the recycled materials produced at its processing facilities. As such, recycling programs supported by WM not only conserve natural resources but are assured to directly support American manufacturing. The thousands of tons of viable recyclables people put in recycling carts and WM processes ultimately are used as the raw materials to produce a wide range of everyday goods, such as toilet paper, shipping boxes, beverage cans, containers for food and medical supplies, as well as athletic shoes, clothing, carpeting and building materials.