J.P. Mascaro & Sons, headquartered in Audubon, Pennsylvania, received more than $7.5 million in competitively bid long-term municipal waste collection and recycling contracts. Several Pennsylvania municipalities awarded the company contracts, including Muhlenberg, Hamburg, Catasauqua and Newton. 

“Our company really appreciates the new long-term waste collection and recycling contracts recently awarded to us by the municipalities of Muhlenberg, Hamburg, Catasauqua and Newton, and we look forward to serving these communities and their residents,” says Sam Augustine, director of sales at J.P. Mascaro & Sons.

The company also received a five-year operating permit from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection to operate the Brooke County Landfill in Colliers, West Virginia. 

According to a news release from J.P. Mascaro & Sons, the Brooke County Landfill is one of two Mascaro-related landfills in West Virginia, the other being the Wetzel County Landfill in New Martinsville, West Virginia. Those two landfills serve as primary disposal facilities for waste collected by the operating divisions of Solid Waste Services of West Virginia Inc., a J.P. Mascaro-related collection company that serves municipal, commercial and industrial customers in the panhandle region of West Virginia and in eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania.

“The Brooke County Landfill is an important component of the operational infrastructure of the Mascaro-related waste service businesses in West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania,” says Ryan K. Inch, company director of engineering at J.P. Mascaro. “These businesses not only serve our municipal, commercial and industrial customers, but also are important to the thriving Marcellus and Utica Shale gas development activities occurring in that three-state regional area.”

Giving to students

J.P. Mascaro & Sons has announced that it has awarded $1 million for student scholarships and supplemental education programs for the 2019-2020 school year. According to a news release from J.P. Mascaro & Sons, the awards have been distributed to more than 90 schools, including the St. Catherine of Sienna School in Reading, the John Paul II Center for Special Learning in Shillington, the City School in Philadelphia, the Regina Angelorum Academy in Plymouth Meeting, the St. Cornelius School in Chadds Ford, the AIM Academy in Conshohocken, the MMI Preparatory School in Freeland, the Upland Country Day School in Kennett Square and others.

“During the last seven years, the Mascaro company has awarded approximately $9 million for student scholarships and supplemental educational programming,” says Lindsay Mascaro Ptaszenski, company director of education. “My grandfather and company founder, Joseph P. Mascaro Sr., was a man with a limited formal education, but he was a huge proponent of education in general and of young students having the best educational opportunities possible, regardless of their financial standing, and as a company, J.P. Mascaro & Sons feels the same.”

J.P. Mascaro & Sons company President, Pat Mascaro, says, “When a company commits to funding student scholarships and educational initiatives, it is also committing to the betterment of the local community as a whole. J.P. Mascaro & Sons is proud to have participated substantially in such funding in the past, and it looks forward to doing so for many years to come.”

The National Waste & Recycling Association (NWRA), Arlington, Virginia, applauds Senate Environment & Public Works (EPW) Committee Chairman John Barrasso, R-Wyoming; Ranking Member Tom Carper, D-Delaware; Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee Chairman Shelley Moore-Capito, R-West Virginia; and Subcommittee Ranking Member Ben Cardin, D-Maryland, for their introduction of America’s Transportation Infrastructure Act (ATIA). This 5-year, $287 billion bipartisan surface transportation bill reauthorizes EPW’s portion of the FAST Act, which is set to expire in September 2020. Committee markup is scheduled for July 30.

“Apart from the waste and recycling industry and the U.S. Postal Service, one would be hard-pressed to name another industry that travels every road in America at least once a week, every week,” says Darrell Smith, NWRA president and CEO.

“Nearly 200,000 miles of major highways require repairs and more than 47,000 bridges are deemed ‘structurally deficient,’ all of which impacts our industry’s ability to deliver its services that are essential to maintaining the quality of American life efficiently and in a timely manner,” Smith says. “Introduction of this legislation is an important first step in addressing our nation’s transportation infrastructure needs.”

The bill also will authorize new programs to incentivize key priorities, including safety, resiliency and emission reductions. ATIA increases funding to the existing Highway Safety Improvement Program and supports state-led initiatives to lower driver and pedestrian fatalities.

“NWRA will advocate for safety provisions in the bill to support state ‘move over’ laws covering the waste and recycling industry,” says Jim Riley, NWRA vice president for federal affairs. “Members of Congress are increasingly aware of the danger our industry’s roadside workers face every day from careless and distracted drivers. This is a prime opportunity for Congress to make a statement and do something significant to help protect these hardworking men and women.”

To access Van Dyk Recycling Solutions' case study on how its customer's retrofit, replacing the material recovery facility's existing screening equipment with nonwrapping 440 StarScreens from Bollegraaf, improved the plants overall performance, click here.   

The Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA), Silver Spring, Maryland, has announced that it’s Safety Committee has selected its 2019 SWANA Safety Award recipients. According to SWANA, these awards recognize those who have demonstrated a profound commitment to improving employee safety through communication, best practices, training and policies. The recipients, which were chosen by the SWANA Safety Committee.

The Best Safety Innovation Award was given to the city of San Antonio’s Solid Waste Management Department for fully implementing a safety management system (SMS) that “challenged convention, created synergies and engaged employees at all levels and functions,” according to SWANA. These efforts reduced accidents by 47 percent and injuries by 50 percent, with a lost workday rate reduction of 28 percent.

“The men and women of the city of San Antonio’s Solid Waste Management Department serve more than 358,000 households weekly and are routinely faced with high-risk conditions,” Walter Barrett, solid waste manager for the city of San Antonio’s Solid Waste Management Department, says. “Through the implementation of a safety management system, the department strives to mitigate and eliminate these risks and provide a safer work environment that ensures our employees go home to their families in the same condition as when they arrived at work. Their commitment to safety guided us on the journey to obtaining an ISO 45001 Safety Certification and making San Antonio the first municipality in the world to achieve this accomplishment. [We wanted to give] our thanks to SWANA for its role in this challenge and to our entire team whose dedication and innovation propels the continual improvement in achieving a sustained reduction in accidents and injuries.”

The Biggest Safety Improvement Award was awarded to Lakeshore Recycling Systems (LRS) for continued success in increasing transparency and two-way communication among employees and management to reduce incidents by over 50 percent from the previous year. LRS is headquartered in Morton Grove, Illinois, and serves the Chicago area with more than 720 full time employees.

“Lakeshore is proud to be recognized by SWANA for our continued dedication to the ‘live safety’ philosophy,” says John Sliwicki, vice president of risk management at Lakeshore Recycling Systems and safety ambassador of SWANA’s Illinois chapter. “This belief is at the heart of our core values and guides our decision-making at every level. Our efforts and commitment have finally started to be demonstrated in the overall reduction of incidents and claim spend. These metrics provide further support that our culture is blossoming, and we are headed in the right direction.”

SWANA also gave an honorable mention to the Casper Regional Landfill in Casper, Wyoming, for the operators’ innovation and improvement in safety.

The winners of the SWANA Safety Awards will be recognized at Wastecon in Phoenix, Arizona.

Autocar,Hagerstown, Indiana; New Way, Scranton, Iowa; Otto, Charlotte, North Carolina; and Preco, Lenexa, Kansas, sponsored this year’s SWANA Safety Awards.

For more information on SWANA’s safety programs, visit swana.org/safety.