Dive Brief:
- Infinitus Energy LLC has "temporarily" closed its $35 million Advanced Mixed Materials Recovery Facility that opened in 2014 in Montgomery, AL. The facility harvested recyclables directly from garbage, and that material will now go to the landfill.
- CEO Kyle Mowitz said in a statement that the "market price for these materials have dropped dramatically." He noted that customers were satisfied with the material. Plastics News reports there have been questions about the quality of the recyclables coming out of these types of sites, nicknamed "dirty MRFs," due to contamination from the waste.
- Scott Saunders, general manager of KW Plastics Recycling Division in Troy, AL, said at a recent conference that the quality of the plastics coming from dirty MRFs is the same as those coming from traditional recycling facilities.
Dive Insight:
Company officials and city leaders plan to meet with new investors on Oct. 22, The Montgomery Advertiser reported, noting that the plant employs about 100 people. Montgomery Clean City Commission Director Susan Carmichael told the paper there is no long-term alternative in place, though residents can take their recycling to two recycling centers.
Infinitus is not the only company to feel the burn from falling commodity prices, however the concept of "dirty MRFs" is still being experimented in the industry.
Regarding "dirty MRFs," Saunders told the Resource Recycling Conference Sept. 29 in Indianapolis: “Consider it, because we are stagnated. We can’t grow because nobody’s building new material recovery facilities for curbside [recycling]. The big cities have them. But the small and medium cities, they don’t. Landfill is cheap and there’s no political will to get it done."
