As many cities across the country have struggled to meet changing recycling market conditions, the City of Phoenix found a solution to this issue through a public and private partnership. This partnership was established to assist with the upgrade of the North Gateway MRF to ensure that the city was able to meet new industry standards, which includes more stringent commodity specifications (residual requirements) and change in inbound material composition. The North Gateway Transfer Station (NGTS) processes recyclables from North Phoenix, the City of Peoria, and the City of Prescott. The $4.5 million upgrade to this facility was funded by a $3 million no-interest loan from the Closed Loop Fund, $1 million from the City of Peoria, and the remainder was covered by city funds. Upgrades to NGTS began in September 2019 and concluded in December 2019. Equipment upgrades at the facility included two new anti-wrap disk screens, two new optical sorters, a drum feeder, expansion to the pre-sort line, critical infrastructure upgrades to the electrical and fire life safety systems, and a ballistic separator. Benefits from the upgrade include a substantial improvement of the capture of glass, paper, PET, OCC and aluminum; the ability to achieve tighter material quality specifications; 50% improvement in MRF throughput (processing speed); increased inbound processing capacity due to increased throughput; reduced residuals sent to landfill; the ability to temporarily process the City of Scottsdale’s recyclables since their MRF burned down in 2019; the ability to temporarily shoulder recyclables from 27th Avenue transfer station as this MRF underwent baler replacements over two weeks; and the ability to process more fiber products due to the increased demand of cardboard and paper during the COVID shutdown. None of these benefits would have been possible without the upgrades.

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Eduardo Rodriguez;Ron Stearns

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