Blog Post

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) recently awarded more than $1 million in grant funding to help six recycling companies in the state improve operations and expand the infrastructure needed to address hard-to-recycle materials. This round of Recycling Business Development Grants (RBDG) will help recyclers more effectively handle and process glass, wood, plastics, and mixed recyclables. In addition to diverting materials from the waste stream, the grant funding is intended to spur economic activity and promote job growth for local businesses.

This yearā€™s grant recipients include the following companies:

  • 120 Old Boston Road Recycling Co. in Wilbraham, which operates a construction and demolition material processing facility. They plan to use their grant money for new sorting equipment to separate clean wood from other construction and demolition material. The new equipment will enable them to recycle up to 4,000 tons of wood per year.
  • Aaron Industries Corp in Leominster, which manufactures and distributes polymers, polypropylene, polystyrene, and polyethylene. They will use their grant funding for a new screen changer that will increase through-put volume, reduce downtime, increase raw material flexibility, and reduce production waste by 96 percent. With this funding, they will be able to increase their recycled tonnage by 320 tons annually.
  • Casella Waste Management of MA in Auburn, which is a solid waste organization that processes and markets over 270,000 tons of recyclables each year. Funding will be used to retrofit a facility to expand current processing capacity and raise the value of their recycling streams. Casella estimates they will be able to increase the facilityā€™s annual tonnage capacity by 12,000 tons.
  • J M Equipment Co. in East Freetown, which processes glass into aggregate. They plan to use the funding to procure an impact crusher, which will allow the company to process 12,000 tons of glass annually into processed glass aggregate (PGA).
  • Champion City Recovery in Stoughton, which operates a construction and demolition processing facility. The company plans to use their grant funding for a quality control line to separate clean wood from other incoming material. This QC line will allow the facility to separate and recycle an additional 1,200 tons of wood annually.
  • United Material Management of Millbury, which manages a construction and demolition waste processing facility. The company plans to utilize the funds to purchase new optical sorting equipment to separate clean wood from other waste materials. The funding will allow the company to separate and recycle an additional 4,500 tons of wood annually.

The RBDG program is one of several initiatives that the MassDEP is leading to reduce statewide trash disposal by 2 million tons annually through 2020. The department also recently launchedĀ Recycle Smart, a statewide initiative focused on putting the right materials in recycling bins and separating ā€œproblem materialsā€ that cause contamination and drive up the cost of recycling.

RecyclingWorks in Massachusetts assists businesses and institutions with recycling, reuse, and food waste diversion. RecyclingWorks provides direct technical assistance to help businesses maximize waste diversion opportunities, and many of the above service providers are included in the RecyclingWorksĀ Find-A-Recycler tool.Ā To learn more about implementing or expanding a waste diversion program, call our hotline:Ā (888) 254-5525Ā or email us atĀ info@recyclingworksma.com.