Recycling Veteran Timpane’s Advice on How MRFs Can Brace For The FutureRecycling Veteran Timpane’s Advice on How MRFs Can Brace For The Future
Materials recovery facilities (MRF) operate in a fast-changing world. New fee structures, tightening regulations, rapidly advancing sorting technologies, and a consolidating industry are among converging evolutions that have come down the pike.

Materials recovery facilities (MRF) operate in a fast-changing world. New fee structures, tightening regulations, rapidly advancing sorting technologies, and a consolidating industry are among converging evolutions that have come down the pike. Michael Timpane, retiring veteran of RRS, consultants to the recycling and recovery supply chain, discusses these transformations and what they will mean for facility operators. He sheds light on risks and opportunities. And he answers the question: How can MRFs brace for a healthy, secure future?
Waste360: What are the most significant changes MRFS have experienced lately, and what is driving those changes?
Timpane: There has been ~$2.5 billion in retrofit and new infrastructure for processing residential recyclables committed in the last four years with roughly 65 percent of it in operation. There are several main drivers for this investment:
Pricing. For the first time since curbside recycling began, in most markets, MRF processing fees cover operator costs plus a profit, making the risk of commodity revenues more distributed in municipal contracts between providers and the public sector. Recycling processing is now seen as “investment grade” by capital-rich waste giants like WM, Republic, Casella, Waste Connections, and GFL. Similarly, the private capital market took note and now represents a large segment of MRF ownership. The risk reduction from full pricing for the convenience of sorting post-consumer mixed recycling service is the most significant industry change in the last decade, accounting for a now sustained, continuous level of investment.
Reduced labor costs. New AI-assisted technologies and improvements in automated sorting (air separation systems, optical sorters, material recognition, etc.) allow MRF operators to reduce the dangerous and repetitive manual sorting jobs once required to separate materials. Resulting savings from reduced costs due to significant reductions in manual sorting, and related improvements in safety exposure, allow for generous ROIs on equipment investments. Labor forces have shrunk more than 50 percent compared to 10 years ago.
Increasing levels and promised investments by material makers and brands in plastics recovery. This has spurred more sorting investment for more grades of plastic, and up-sorting, where more highly sorted plastics may be cost-effectively used for recycled content. These trends were strong until mid-2024, when continued downward long-term price pressures on virgin PET, HDPE, and PP feedstock disrupted demand for more expensive recycled plastics.
Increasing regulations. Regulations, especially on the west coast, for greater diversion, EPR, and deposit systems have driven the rise of mixed-waste MRF investment, back-end organic capture, MRF infrastructure, and direct participation of brands in the recycling supply chain. Technology and infrastructure advancement will continue due to the inherent increased resources certain regulations bring.
Waste360: What are the toughest challenges MRFs are up against these days?
Timpane: MRF managers face a series of new challenges. Issues including emissions, contamination, rapid dissemination of unverified information, and the swift evolution of packaging may have existed 10 years ago but were not what kept MRF managers up at night. Now they do. Some of the most dramatic include:
Increasing MRF fires mostly from damaged lithium batteries (see NWRA, Fire Rover, and EPA reports). This trend is assisted by hotter ambient temperatures, especially in the summer. The abundance of lithium batteries, personal compressed gas containers, and other incendiaries misplaced into residential and commercial recyclable systems has caused fires throughout the waste industry supply chain. The potential available fuel at MRFs, e.g., fiber and plastic, have driven fire frequency through the roof (literally). Consequently, obtaining property insurance for MRFs who are not self-insured is prohibitive.
Increasing misinformation from media and anti-recycling sources. Contamination in recyclables has increased due to confusing or false recyclability labeling on packaging and confusing messages on public recycling websites. Additionally, some programs are being cancelled based on the political polarization that recycling is a ruse and cannot meet its environmental goals.
Consolidation of the industry. The top six public integrated service providers have increased their market share to above 60 percent of the fleet. Other private capital consolidators have also consolidated MRF ownership. The number of local MRF owners (and garbage companies) has correspondingly decreased, reducing competition. There are positive aspects like availability of capital. However, consolidators are deploying regional hub-and-spoke mega-MRF models with less competition, and, often, added transfer and overall costs. Some regions have consequently experienced rising costs (sometimes more than double) for recycling programs, driving suspensions or cancellations of some.
Lower volumes/value/lower growth trends. Ironically, the popularity of the circular economy, which spurred large CPGs and retailers to lighten/shrink packaging material size, is exacerbating weight/volume losses in available recyclable material. Further, upstream actions that reduce captured energy and packaging scalability also reduce its downstream value.
Finally, digitization has changed the nature of the stream itself, with vast reductions in printing and writing papers and increases in packaging. Program volume growth has halted or even shrunk.
Waste360: How can MRFs brace for a healthy, secure future?
Timpane: Change is bringing both good opportunities and higher risk.
The industry must raise the bar even higher for qualified MRF managers, requiring a more analytical and robustly trained person than in the past.
Similarly, new technology requires advanced maintenance and computer savvy. Many plants have started to hire permanent plant engineers and college-degreed, computer-literate maintenance managers, given the advances in technology. Skimping on the right profile for managers and maintenance professionals, given the kind of investments now made in MRFs, is a big mistake.
Analytic management of KPIs is also a must; i.e., real-time metrics on operating and profit trends, quality, and safety are required along with feedback loops. Using the data for decisions, and investing in MRF staff through incentives and recognition, can maximize operating changes in the right direction.
More than ever, MRF public participation is required locally and often at the state level. MRF managers must allocate time for networking, socializing, and negotiating and/or sharing negative inputs like contamination and lithium battery threats while insisting on better education for better inputs and higher recyclable volumes.
MRF owners also have a large role to play, along with their representing NGOs, in pushing for other parts of the supply chain to make operations more sustainable. For instance, packaging must be more uniform in material, more resilient to the recycling process, and at a scale to be recycled cost-effectively. Providing input to influence packaging and CPGs, like support for regulation like EPR, deposit recycling systems, etc., will be required to protect sorting plants.
Waste360: Are there associated risks that come with opportunities? If so, what guardrails should be put in place?
Timpane: There is a risk in not allocating time broadly while maintaining effective MRF operations. Good MRF operators measure constantly. They have continuous improvement plans. And they don’t skimp on professionals needed in the automated modern MRF.
Waste360: What’s the best you can do to keep up with market fluctuations, evolving waste streams, and other changes?
Timpane: MRF professionals should be keenly aware of available resources and allocate time to studying marketing and operating conditions. There is a rich vein of professional industry information in the form of professional journals, supply chain publications, on-line resources, and peer webinars. In addition, local conditions, including political change and municipal budgeting trends, should be monitored. Data on commodity market conditions is available on real-time platforms, with key indicators of change. Keeping up with trends here can assist in framing decision making.
Waste360: How far in the future should operators plan investment decisions and other business strategies?
Timpane: Planning horizons seem to be the same length as major MRF processing contracts with municipalities (U.S. average for MRF processing contract 5-6 years). If a manager knows a contract renewal is coming, plan now on sharing upcoming retrofits and modernization. It takes a few years to pull those off in exchange for a renewal. Also, share improvements, issues, and market conditions with clients regularly, and well before negotiations or possible procurements. These activities should widely involve key MRF staff and include frequent communication with the whole team so alignment takes place.
Waste360: What is your underlying message about future proofing a MRF for financial stability/security?Timpane: Good pricing, analytical operations, continuous improvement, professional leadership skills, and more competition are all needed. And plan for lower growth as we move towards a circular economy.
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