Dive Brief:

• Alpine Waste & Recycling has finished a $5 million upgrade to its Altogether Recycling Plant in Denver. The renovation added all new equipment from Quebec-based Machinex, which more than doubled the MRF's ability to process single-stream recycled items. 
• The plant now has twice as many transfer belts, two new balers, new material-sorting technology, and the first device in a Colorado single-stream plant that condenses polystyrene foam material into recyclable bricks. The improvements will allow the facility to handle 30 tons of material per hour at capacity, according to Alpine. 
• The renovation came as a result of a 2013 audit, which revealed that Alpine's residue stream was comprised of 7% trash and a large amount of recoverable recyclables. 

Dive Insight:

As technology advances, materials recovery facilities have the opportunity to sort recyclables in a more precise manner with less risk of error or injury. The machinery that Machinex has designed is also flexible for future market changes, which is an important benefit for such a large investment.

Additionally, Altogether Recycling Plant's ability to condense polystyrene material (or Styrofoam) into recyclable bricks will put it ahead of other MRFs as the recyclability of foam continues to be an industry-wide hurdle that is difficult to cross. 

Last week, Alpine signed a five-year deal to provide Golden, CO with waste hauling and single-stream recycling services, adding 3,400 homes to the company's operations.