GFL wins Recycling Facility of the Year for multi-material recovery campus in Toronto, Ontario

GFL Environmental Inc. has been awarded the National Waste & Recycling Association (NWRA) 2022 Recycling Facility of the Year award for its multi-material recovery campus in Toronto, Ontario. The award recognizes material recovery facilities ("MRFs") in North America based on key factors such as innovation, partnership, public education, and environmental impact.

"We are proud to receive the NWRA 2022 Recycling Facility of the Year award," says Patrick Dovigi, founder and chief executive officer. "This is the second time in the last three years that one of our MRFs has received this honour. We have always invested heavily in technology to provide the best in sustainable solutions to our customers. This award supports our vision of always remaining entrepreneurial, investing in leading technology and providing our customers with the very best in recycling services."

GFL's Toronto multi-material recovery campus is located on a 27-acre site that houses two single stream MRFs that operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The first MRF developed on the campus was at 122 Arrow Road. It began operations in 2010, processing mainly commercial material, and has since been modified to house an advanced single stream processing system. 124 Arrow Road was built in 2013 for the City of Toronto single stream processing contract, with excess capacity for future opportunities. As one of the largest single-stream facilities in North America, this facility was designed with sustainability and future needs at the forefront of all decision-making.

Both facilities are designed with technology including elliptical fibre separation, optical sorting, fully automated high-speed sorting robots, and other mechanical separation processes. This design not only maximizes recovery, but also allows GFL to adapt to changing material composition and ensure the end production of high-quality processed recyclables. A dedicated material composition analysis centre is also located on-site to facilitate the sorting and analysis of inbound and outbound material.

The campus has proven to be an overwhelming success for GFL. The campus serves the material recovery needs of approximately four million municipal households and has processed over 3.5 million tons of material from municipal and commercial sources since its inception in 2010.