GFL Environmental Inc., Ontario, has announced it will acquire the Soil Safe group of companies, based in Columbia, Maryland, in its second acquisition announcement within the past week. The transaction closed July 5, and financial details were not disclosed.

Patrick Dovigi, GFL’s founder and CEO, told Waste Today that the acquisition added new markets in California. Dovigi says the acquisition is in line with the company’s goal of replicating all its existing services across the continent.

Since its inception in 1989, Soil Safe has recycled more than 30 million tons of non-hazardous petroleum-contaminated soil for beneficial reuse outside of landfills.

"Soil Safe and its management team, led by Mark Smith, are recognized as industry leaders in contaminated soil recycling and the development of inert soil products for beneficial use in sustainable construction and green building applications. GFL is one of the largest processors of contaminated soils in Canada, and our acquisition of Soil Safe is in keeping with our strategy of replicating all of our service offerings in the US," Dovigi says. "Soil Safe's in-house expertise and recycled products complement and extend our existing capabilities as we build our infrastructure business to service our customers' needs across North America. We are excited to welcome Soil Safe and its employees to the GFL team."

At its facilities in New Jersey and Maryland, Soil Safe recycles contaminated soil into an engineered soil product meeting regulatory and end-market specifications that is used in a wide range of applications, including capping material, road base and structural and general fill. Soil Safe's California facility is the largest non-hazardous thermal treatment operation in the state from which it produces a clean recycled soil product for beneficial reuse in both brownfield and greenfield development applications. 

The acquisition comes right at the heels of GFL’s acquisition of Toronto-based Canada Fibers Ltd., which the company announced July 5. That transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2019.

Dovigi says that acquisition “will create new opportunities to provide integrated collection, sorting, processing and marketing of recyclable materials,” adding to GFL's existing MRF offerings.

Canada Fibers has been an operator of material recovery facilities (MRFs) for the recovery and processing of recyclables for more than 28 years.

Dovigi told Waste Today that the close timing of the acquisitions was coincidental. The purchase of Canada Fibers depended mostly on the commodity market, which has hit record lows since China implemented its National Sword policy.

"We were fortunate to watch what happened with commodities over the past year. It's tougher to buy recycling businesses when commodity values are extremely high," Dovigi says. "On the commodity sales side, we believe it's very close to the bottom."

GFL made waves last year when it merged with the Raleigh, North Carolina-based Waste Industries. The merger, which more than doubled GFL's footprint of operations in North America, was expected to take place over the course of a year. Dovigi says integration is almost complete and has "been a very smooth process with very like-minded teams."

Acquisition activity is likely to continue the second half of the year as GFL pushes forward with a swath of new companies under its belt.

"I think we look at anything that makes sense in any of our existing offerings. It's a complete coincidence that these happened at the same time, but GFL being what it is, we're always looking at ways to be greener," Dovigi says. "I think we'll continue to look at opportunities to be a little bit different and a little bit greener."

Best Process Solutions (BPS), Brunswick, Ohio, says its CSL vibratory screeners are highly effective for applications requiring material separation.

Powering the screeners are two rotating vibratory motors that are designed to give a linear, straight-line conveyance action. The company says the unit propels the product forward with a positive conveyance action that is designed to offer better stratification than typical sloped, gravity and orbital screeners.

BPS offers several screen options, such as wire mesh, finger screen deck, perforated plate, grizzly deck and wedge wire, to meet a variety of process requirements.

The company says it will custom engineer a screener for a customer’s unique application, including requirements for dust-tight covers, stainless steel construction or multiple decks.

The American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), Washington, reports that for the month of May, U.S. steel mills shipped about 8.14 million net tons, a 0.8 percent decrease from about 8.21 million net tons shipped this April. However, AISI reports that steel shipments for May increased 1.1 percent compared with about 8.06 million net tons shipped in May 2018.

Year-to-date shipments are at 40.5 million net tons, a 3 percent increase compared with 2018 shipments for the first five months of the year. 

A comparison of May shipments to previous month April also indicates a for several steel products, including hot-rolled sheets (down 1 percent), hot-dipped galvanized sheets (down 2 percent) and cold-rolled sheets (down 4 percent).

Gershman, Brickner & Bratton Inc. (GBB), McLean, Virginia, announced July 9 that Jennifer Porter has been promoted to vice president. Porter, who joined GBB as senior project manager in 2017, has more than 17 years of experience working on sustainability initiatives for both governments and the private sector, with extensive expertise in solid waste management, recycling and composting program evaluation and development.

“Jennifer has successfully tackled high-visibility, strategic and ambitious projects which involved multi-disciplinary teams and a wide range of stakeholders. She has proven she is up to the challenge,” GBB President Steve Simmons says. “The combination of her passion for the environment, business acumen and expertise make her a great addition to GBB’s leadership team.”  

At GBB, Porter has managed multiple key projects, including leading the team tasked with planning and implementing the development of a sustainable business park in Kent County, Michigan, that aims to achieve 90 percent waste reduction by 2030 with an emphasis on implementing a circular economy model. Porter also led the strategic review of solid waste management services, contracts and service providers for the city of Taunton, Massachusetts, and is now heading the procurement efforts for waste collection and processing services. She was also project manager for public sector assignments in Deschutes County, Oregon; the Chittenden Solid Waste District of Vermont; the city of Baton Rouge/Parish of East Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Charles County, Maryland; and the city of Columbus, Ohio. Additionally, Porter led a comprehensive waste audit/assessment at Boston’s Logan Airport as part of a sustainability plan implementation for the Massachusetts Port Authority.

Prior to her work with GBB, Porter was conservation program coordinator for more than six years with the city of Portland Oregon’s Office of Sustainable Development, where she managed citywide recycling change, led multifamily recycling projects resulting in a 21 percent rise in volume and a 90 percent decrease in contamination, headed the renewal of the 10-year franchise for the city’s 23 residential waste haulers, coordinated the annual residential rate setting for the $43 million annual enterprise fund, established strong working relationships with multiple stakeholders, and developed a statistical model for a commercial food composting program.

She has also worked as COO at Tarrytown, New York-based Rivertown Composting, manager of corporate sustainability for Fairfax, Virginia-based Healthy Buildings, and director of workforce initiatives at the Honesdale, Pennsylvania-based Wayne Pike Workforce Alliance. She has also volunteered and held board positions with many organizations, including the Association of Oregon Recyclers, the Columbia-Willamette Clean Cities Coalition, the Hollywood Farmers Market and the Sunnyside Gardens Community Association.

“I am thrilled for this leadership opportunity at GBB,” Porter says. “I’m eager to contribute to GBB’s growth while continuing to work closely with clients and project teams on paradigm-shifting projects that create customized, sustainable and technically sound solutions for complex solid waste management challenges.”

Porter earned a master’s degree in urban and regional planning from Portland State University and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Wells College in New York.