Waste Management announced it expects to invest $200 million in recycling infrastructure in 2022, bringing the company’s investment in new and upgraded recycling facilities to over $700 million since 2018. With the demand for recycled content products continuing to rise, the investment will enable WM to capture more recycled materials and increase access to recycling for its customers.
Over the past two years, WM has opened new materials recovery facilities (MRFs) in Chicago, Salt Lake City, Raleigh, N.C., and Sun Valley, Calif. These facilities include state-of-the-art recycling technologies – such as robotics, intelligent sorting, volumetric scanners, cameras on collection vehicles to further reduce contamination. By 2023, WM plans to outfit 95 percent of its residential recycling facilities with updated recycling technology, further enabling and enhancing the company’s ability to provide high-quality recycled commodities to its customers. WM’s Chicago facility was named the National Waste and Recycling Association (NWRA) 2021 Recycling Facility of the Year and served as the pilot location for the technology.
“As consumer-packaged goods companies continue to set aggressive 2025 and 2030 goals for recycled content – in many cases approaching 50 percent – solutions need to scale, especially related to plastics, as plastic capture must grow five times to meet these targets,” said Tara Hemmer, senior vice president and chief sustainability officer, WM. “We are making great progress unlocking this supply, increasing overall recycled plastic volume by 25 percent since 2019 and this will continue to expand. These enhancements will ensure recyclables are efficiently sorted and sold to high-quality end markets, meeting the strong demand for recycled content material in new products.”
WM also expects to upgrade much of its remaining recycling facility network. MRFs in Houston, Cleveland, Woodinville, Wash., and Elkridge, Md., are being fully renovated, and 29 existing MRFs have already been or are currently being outfitted with enhanced technology as well as supplemental capacity.
These recycling investments play an important role in WM’s commitment to sustainability, contributing to WM’s support of the circular economy, while helping WM customers achieve recycling and environmental goals. Since 2019, recycling of specific types of plastic such as polypropylene (#5 PP) has increased by as much as 40 percent, including items such as shampoo and medicine bottles, yogurt cups, skin care lotions and deodorant containers.