WM has announced plans to invest $75 million to construct the new WM Recycling South Florida facility in recognition of America Recycles Day on Tuesday, November 15. The state-of-the-art, 127,000-square-foot recycling facility will be built on a 12-acre parcel adjacent to WM’s existing Reuter Recycling Facility in Pembroke Pines. The site is just north of the Miami-Dade/Broward County line and is already zoned for a recycling processing facility. “WM Recycling South Florida is planned to be the largest and most technologically advanced recycling facility in the Southeastern United States and will demonstrate our commitment to increasing recycling for our municipal and business customers in South Florida,” said WM Florida Area Vice President David Myhan.
At the America Recycles Day event, the Florida Panthers Hockey Team also named WM as an Official Sustainability Partner as part of a new sustainability collaboration with WM. “We are excited to partner with WM to educate and inspire our fans and guests to not only make eco-friendly decisions when visiting Panthers facilities, but to continue supporting the environment at home and in their local communities,” said Panthers Executive Vice President of People & Facilities Rob Stevenson. WM’s investments in new recycling facilities, including WM Recycling South Florida, are intended to:
- Increase overall recycling capacity
- Increase the ‘capture’ rate of the most environmentally significant materials
- Expand the list of acceptable recyclable material that WM manages for its customers
- Improve the quality, value and marketability of the finished recycled bales benefiting the economics of recycling for its commercial customers and municipal communities
- Allow WM to manage inbound contamination or “non-recyclables” more efficiently while improving the quality of the final marketable product
“WM Recycling South Florida’s technological advances will result in the production of high-quality recycling materials to ensure the long-term viability of sustainable recycling programs throughout South Florida,” said WM Director of Recycling Michael DeClerck. These technological advancements are expected to allow the new facility to:
- Recycle more types of plastics to benefit the environment
- Use optical sorters and artificial intelligence (AI) to achieve a tenfold increase in efficiency
- Use intelligent sorting where conveyors and optical sorters communicate with each other and with technicians to improve material quality
- Include a final optical sort line which sends missed recyclable material back for a second chance to be recycled and diverted from landfilling
As a highly automated facility, WM Recycling South Florida is anticipated to provide new job opportunities for individuals with the skillset to work directly with the monitors, computers and optical sorters while lessening the need for hard-to-fill manual sorting roles. WM Recycling South Florida also has plans to include a world-class, 1,200-square-foot education room called the WM Sustainability Education Station, that can be used by school and civic groups, as well as municipal and customer communities.
Recycling benefits the environment by saving precious natural resources including energy and water and reducing greenhouse gas emissions to help address climate change. Recycling also benefits the supply chain as recycled paper and cardboard become new paper and new boxes for e-commerce. Recycled plastic becomes new containers, a park bench, or even clothing and running shoes. Recycled aluminum cans are back on store shelves in 60 days. Demand for recycled material is expected to grow in anticipation of Minimum Content legislation and commitments from national consumer brands to use recycled content in the manufacturing of new packaging. WM expects to invest $800 million in recycling infrastructure through 2025, including this investment. These investments include automating existing facilities and developing new recycling facilities.
For more information, visit www.wm.com.