MRF operators continue to invest in upgrades across North America to improve efficiency and create cleaner, higher-quality bales through automation and AI.
Companies are also looking to strengthen footprints in their existing regions and offer more widespread services to take advantage of growing populations and newer recycling laws that require stricter recycled content standards.
Here’s a look at a few recent MRF updates in California, Florida and Texas. Do you have other recycling facility news we should know about? Send us an email at waste.dive.editors@industrydive.com.
WM opens upgraded $20M MRF in Orange, California
WM invested $20 million to upgrade the Orange Recycling Facility in California, which can now process up to 130,000 tons of material per year, the company announced.
Upgrades include optical sorters with near-infrared and high-speed sensors, which WM says will help recover higher grades of paper and glass. These will also help the facility sort more types of paper and plastics it previously couldn’t sort, such as PP yogurt containers.
The MRF upgrade is part of a larger $500 million investment in the Southern California region for recycling and renewable energy projects, said Mike Hammer, area vice president, in a news release.
That includes artificial intelligence and automation upgrades at both WM’s Orange facility and its Azusa recycling facility east of Los Angeles. “These investments reflect WM’s dedication to innovation, improved technology, and a more sustainable future for our communities,” he said.
The Orange opening comes a few weeks after WM announced it opened another MRF, in Pembroke Pines, Florida. That $90 million facility, expected to process about 275,000 tons a year, is expected to be the company’s highest-volume recycling facility.
Earlier in February, WM also announced its two new MRFs in Ontario, Canada, were open. The facilities in Cambridge and Greater Napanee are expected to process 30% of the material that goes through the province’s curbside recycling program.
WM invested in MRF infrastructure in the province in the wake of Ontario launching a major overhaul of its EPR for packaging program, which is managed via producer responsibility organization Circular Materials. The updated program launched on Jan. 1 and is expected to increase collection volumes of recycled materials.
Coastal Waste upgrades operations at two Florida locations
Coastal Waste & Recycling began operations at two new Florida MRF projects, with plans to advance two more this year.
One is a commercial recycling facility upgrade in Fort Myers, a 20-ton-per-hour system the company says “transformed a former dump-and-bale site into a fully integrated processing facility.” It was commissioned in fall of 2025.
Upgrades were designed to improve OCC quality while allowing workers to start processing residential recycling alongside commercial material, the company said. The facility now produces bales of OCC and mixed paper, along with ferrous and non-ferrous metals.
Coastal installed new Machinex equipment including a back-scraping drum, screw screen, ballistic separator, eddy current separator and a two-ram baler.
Another project is a C&D waste facility in Indian River that can handle 100 tons per hour. The facility, commissioned in late summer 2025, is meant to expand Coastal’s presence in the region and better handle high-throughput demands.
New equipment includes Machinex trommels and eddy current separators to recover wood, OCC, ferrous, non-ferrous, aggregate and recovered screen material.
“We are excited to open both facilities as they are important to our long term sustainability objectives,” said CEO Brendon Pantano in a statement.
Coastal will also partner with Machinex this year on a commercial and residential single-stream facility in Pompano Beach and a C&D system in Miami.
Coastal is a portfolio company of Macquarie Asset Management.
FCC Environmental commissions Houston MRF retrofit to sort film
FCC Environmental Services is in the commissioning stage for its MRF retrofit in Houston. The company added new technology meant to recover plastic film and flexible packaging.
The project is funded in part through a $4.25 million grant from The Recycling Partnership. It’s the largest single grant TRP has given to an individual MRF. This is part of the group’s efforts to boost recovery rates for the material in light of stricter recycling and recycled content regulations under new EPR laws, particularly California’s SB 54.
PepsiCo, Kraft Heinz and the Film and Flexibles Recycling Coalition support the grants.
FCC initially announced the MRF retrofit last August. It aims to recover plastic film to create high-quality bales, meet market specifications for the material, and collect new data and insight that might help scale film and flexibles recycling in other places around the country.
“With this addition FCC will increase recovery rates and enhance the quality of the materials recovered,” said Andrea Rodriguez-Pinero, vice president of engineering and recycling, in a post on LinkedIn.
Van Dyk Recycling Solutions installed the new technology, including a specialized new disk spreader meant to more evenly distribute film across sorter belts.
Circular Services nearing completion of North Texas MRF
Circular Services’ new 120,000-square-foot MRF in Frisco, Texas, is in the “final stages” of construction, according to KDW, the design/build contractor for the project.
Balcones Recycling, a division of Circular Services, plans to open the $61 million project later this spring to process single-stream recyclables for communities in the McKinney, Frisco and Dallas regions. That area has experienced notable population and business growth in recent years.
The MRF will have a range of “cutting edge” sortation technology, and it will also offer a drop-off center for residents to bring materials not accepted the curbside program. Circular Services also plans for the facility to have energy-efficient elements such as solar panels, passive lighting and electric vehicle charging stations. It expects to employ about 53 people.
Circular Services is backed by Closed Loop Partners.
