Dive Brief:
- Circular Services has taken over operations at two county-run MRFs in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. It will run the MRFs under a five-year contract with two one-year extensions, the company said in a news release.
- Circular Services is now operating the Pence Road MRF, which will be used in an “interim capacity” to process residential single-stream materials while the county moves forward with a retrofit of its other MRF, known as the Metrolina MRF.
- Circular Services and the county plan to move residential recycling to Metrolina once the upgrade is complete in 2026. Then, Circular Services will repurpose the Pence Road facility as a construction and demolition facility, which it says is necessary to “meet the region’s growing demand for industrial material recovery.”
Dive Insight:
The new partnership expands Circular Services’ national footprint into a new region of the Southern U.S. a move the company says advances its goal to “build resilient, regional infrastructure” throughout the country. It already operates numerous MRFs and organics facilities in New York, New Jersey, Arkansas, Indiana, Ohio, Connecticut, Arizona, Florida and Illinois. It launched in 2022 as a Closed Loop company.
Circular Services will manage processing, material marketing, maintenance and upkeep at the 48,510-square-foot Pence Road facility. It is expected to process about 6,000 tons of residential single-stream materials a month. The company plans to hire 35 full-time employees to support the site’s operations, not including existing county staff.
Circular Services will operate the Metrolina MRF under a separate five-year agreement, it said.
Many of the materials recycled at the MRFs stay in regional markets. Paper and cardboard typically go to markets within the state while glass and aluminum tend to be sold into markets in Georgia or Tennessee, said Solid Waste and Recycling Director Jeff Smithberger in an interview with WFAE.
The MRF improvements are part of Mecklenburg County’s larger sustainability program. The county does not collect curbside materials itself, but it offers a number of drop-off locations for recycling and food waste, as well as ongoing collection programs for solar panels, textiles, shredded paper and medical devices, according to its website.
The MRF improvements fit with “the County’s ongoing investment in environmental stewardship, sustainability and innovation,” said Ebenezer Gujjarlapudi, director of the county’s Land Use & Environmental Services Agency, in a statement. “Recycling in Mecklenburg County is not optional, it is essential.”
Circular Services CEO Ron Gonen, also CEO of Closed Loop Partners, said in a statement that the company’s “operational expertise” will help the county with its goals to maximize recycling recovery and reduce landfill disposal costs.
Notable ongoing projects in Circular Services’ portfolio include the company’s Balcones Recycling division, one of the largest privately held recycling companies in the U.S. In March, Balcones broke ground on a new MRF in Frisco, Texas, widening the company’s existing reach in that state.
Circular Services announced in March that it had acquired Alabama-based Waste Recycling Inc., a move meant to expand its footprint in the Southeast. Circular Services announced in February that it would expand into organics through its acquisition of Connecticut-based Quantum Organics.
This story first appeared in the Waste Dive: Recycling newsletter. Sign up for the weekly emails here.
