Today, Houston-based Waste Management opens the Detroit Recycling Center, a 63,000-square-foot facility that will process recyclables from southeast Michigan businesses and residents. The center, which Waste Management spent $2 million to build, can process up to 150 tons of material each day and employs six workers.

The plant will initially handle cardboard, office paper and shredded paper, and industrial plastics; however, Waste Management hopes to one day expand the facility’s operations to process other materials.

“This facility is an investment in the city of Detroit and all of southeast Michigan,” said Waste Management CEO David Steiner in a press release. “Waste Management is thrilled to be able to create this facility to help residential and commercial customers throughout the Detroit metropolitan area ‘think green.’”

“Waste Management’s Detroit Recycling Center is an example of how Detroit is transforming into an economically diverse metropolitan area,” said Detroit Mayor Dave Bing in the same press release. “The company was able to take a large vacant commercial building and turned it into a sustainable business operation.”