Dive Brief:
- Waste Pro will break ground on a new 14,000-square-foot material recovery facility in Sarasota, FL this week. According to the Brandenton Herald, the facility is estimated to cost $10.2 million and sorting equipment will cost $2.4 million.
- This addition to an existing facility will allow the company to process 2,000 tons of material per month and meet the needs of Manatee County's new single-stream program which begins in the fall.
- The facility is being built by Metropole Construction. It will use equipment from CP Manufacturing and employ 20 people to help with manual sorting. The company will also spend $4.8 million on natural gas-powered recycling trucks and refueling equipment.
Dive Insight:
Waste Pro currently collects from about 70,000 homes in the county as well as some commercial customers. Per its contract, the company is required to put all material into recycling markets. While Waste Pro gets to keep all profits from selling this material it also has to bear the losses of high disposal fees for low-value commodities. The company sees this project as a way to eliminate the cost of a third-party processor.
The county's 18-gallon recycling carts are also being replaced with 64-gallon carts as part of the single-stream transition. Officials anticipate this will lead to more material and hope that it will also help Manatee County reach its goal of 60% diversion by the end of the year.
"We are expecting the overall amount of recyclables to increase due to the added convenience and the larger capacity of the new carts customers will be receiving," said Waste Pro Regional Vice President, Keith Banasiak in a press release. "Currently, many residents and businesses often throw recyclables in the trash when they don’t fit into bins."
Florida-based Waste Pro serves more than 2 million residential and 40,000 commercial customers. It is one of the industry's fastest growing companies and has acquired numerous companies this year already.
