WM Designs MRF of the Future to Address Ongoing Market Issues

SEATTLE (Waste 360): In 2017, Waste Management (WM) began conceptualizing a materials recovery facility (MRF) that would help the company address two major ongoing market issues: high labor turnover rates and processing the highest quality materials for end markets.

Recycling and engineering teams at WM sat down and began designing a highly automated facility, known as Waste Management’s MRF of the Future, that would make high-quality material with the lowest labor possible.

Brent Bell, WM’s vice president of recycling, explains the idea was initially pitched to senior management as a research and development (R&D) facility. WM ended up building its new, 160,000-square-foot MRF in Chicago, due in part to its centralized location in the U.S.

And, at the time, WM had two facilities already operating in Chicago—one in the South Side and one in the North Side. But once WM decided on Chicago and started procuring the building and looking at the design, there was a fire at the facility in the South Side of Chicago. WM had to quickly decide whether to rebuild the facility or turn this new R&D center into a facility that can process materials for the Chicago area.

“So, we made the decision to go for it and convert the R&D facility into an actual operating processing facility that we could depend on daily,” says Bell. “It’s the largest investment Waste Management had made in a residential recycling facility. We’re also not completely done with it yet.”

Waste Management began testing some tons through the facility late last year and is actively running material through every day. The company expects the MRF will operate at full capacity in the third quarter of 2020.

At full capacity, the facility should be able to process about 1,000 tons per day, which would put it in the range of 21,000 to 23,000 tons per month. Today, the MRF is processing a little more than half of that and continues to ramp up.

Courtesy: www.waste360.com