Wearing of the Green

The name Greenstar splashed onto the North American recycling scene in 2007, when Ireland’s NTR plc began announcing a series of acquisitions of American-based recycling companies.

The decision to form Greenstar North America was made by NTR in 2006, as was the decision to hire former Waste Management-Recycle America

Ragiel and the executive teams on both sides of the ocean have stayed busy during the past two years assembling a portfolio of processing facilities in the United States that—if the company sticks to its plans—will continue to grow until Greenstar North America has a coast-to-coast presence.

Dublin-based NTR has roots in Ireland that trace back to the late 1970s and the construction of bridges and toll roads in that nation. The NTR acronym originally referenced the name National Toll Roads.

As a way to diversify its operations, NTR entered the solid waste and recycling industry in Ireland in 1999. The Greenstar name was adopted for this segment of NTR’s business. Today, the segment includes three material recovery facilities (MRFs) in Ireland, including one the company calls "the country’s largest and most sophisticated recycling facility."

The company also established a presence in the United Kingdom (it is currently operating four facilities there under the Greenstar name) before setting its sights on America in the past two years.

The three Greenstar subsidiaries operate as part of NTR along with the National Toll Road segment; a wind farm subsidiary known as Wind Capital Group; a biofuels segment operating as Bioverda (which recently merged with Great Plains Renewable Energy); and a water utilities segment known as Celtic Anglian Water.

The Greenstar North America unit (Greenstar NA), based in Houston, has been one of the more active for NTR thanks to several acquisitions in the past 18 months:

According to Ragiel, Greenstar NA now handles more than 1 million tons of recyclables per year at its 15 facilities.

The strategy being employed by Greenstar NA is narrow in one sense: The company is focusing on processing, as opposed to collecting or hauling residential or commercial material.

But it is broad in another sense, in that it is investing in facilities and technology to allow it to handle a wide variety of materials, including the sometimes troublesome glass stream and many grades of post-consumer plastic. ("We’re happy to collect tubs and lids and No. 3 through No. 7 bottles," says Ragiel.)

With its narrow focus on processing only, Ragiel says Greenstar can play the role of a neutral party when serving the competitive residential and commercial hauling service arena. "Some of our haulers like to refer to us as Switzerland," says Ragiel. "We’re out there providing a good service and good value rebates, and we can provide that to a number of haulers in the same market and not compete with them at the same time. We’re not competing with them on the hauling or the landfill side."

A division of Greenstar NA known as Recycle-Led Waste Management helps direct more material both to hauling service providers and to Greenstar processing facilities. Working with multi-location retailers such as Target and Tractor Supply Co., the Greenstar subsidiary "helps them manage that part of their businesses, including helping them recover and market the recycled commodities," according to Ragiel.

At the same time it is staying within that narrow strip of neutral territory by concentrating on processing and marketing secondary commodities, Greenstar is investing deeply and widely into its processing systems. "From both a technological point of view and a focus on recycling as a core business, we are bringing a European model over here," Ragiel says of Greenstar NA’s approach.

Ragiel refers to "strong automation and optical sort technologies" as being indicative of the European approach. "Our primary front-line facilities will be single-stream MRFs with highly automated equipment with optical sorting," says Ragiel of Greenstar’s ongoing plan for North America. "We’ve spent a lot of time integrating European screens and optical sorting equipment," he adds.

He notes that Greenstar is particularly proud of its plants in Pittsburgh and Allentown, Pa. "They are two of the most highly automated plants in the U.S." Ragiel continues, "We’re very pleased with the quality of the material from those two plants, as well as the yield. There is not much in the way of recoverable recyclables going to the landfill from those sites."

In addition to diligent sorting, Greenstar NA is also following a model it has established in Europe to invest in technology to upgrade and add value to material it collects. Ragiel points to "taking recycled glass and melting it slightly to make glass beads used in reflective strips in highways" as an example.

"The long-term trend for us is upgrading more and more of our volume of materials handled," says Ragiel.

He also points to an example set by Greenstar UK. "Our sister company in England has started a bottle-to-bottle natural HDPE (No. 2 plastic) facility," says Ragiel. "They extrude and compound that material, and they also take mixed films and grind and extrude those. We’re taking a close look at replicating those processes over here."

Such investments may not seem necessary when commodities are in high demand globally, but they may prove vital later. "We think the bull market in commodities can last another five to eight years," says Ragiel. "But the high prices now will lead to lower prices later because of increased supply networks. That’s why we’re focusing on technology and adding value to the commodities."

In its two years in North America, Greenstar NA has quickly set up model facilities and operations deploying the processing and material upgrading techniques in which it sees promise.

But with less than 20 facilities operating in only a handful of states, clearly there is room for a great deal of growth.

When asked how many MRFs on the scale of its Pittsburgh facility that Greenstar might be able to support, Ragiel replies, "I imagine that as we get to a national footprint that could get to the range of 45 facilities."

The company can grow in a number of ways, although Ragiel says the most important step is to bring good people on board. "We’re seeking out a team that has an entrepreneurial mind-set," says Ragiel, "with a strong focus on making money in the recycling sector. Part of what I’m doing is finding good people out there and building a world-class team."

Team members may be added, or they could come aboard as part of an acquisition. "We certainly are looking at organic growth, such as setting up new facilities," Ragiel says. "And certainly, there is a wide spectrum of companies we’re speaking with about acquisition. So far, we’re focused on entrepreneurial, mid-sized regional companies that are market leaders," he offers.

Other growth avenues also exist. "We are also working on projects where Greenstar is a private-label processor for hauling companies that ask us to operate facilities for them," Ragiel notes. "The hauling company owns the plant and it has their sign on the door, but we provide the processing and marketing."

And finally, the company is likely to continue to invest in facilities and technologies that allow Greenstar to maximize the value of the plastic, glass or other commodities that enter its MRFs.

Greenstar NA and its managers do not see the future as restricted, but rather as open to a number of possibilities related to recycling, and even waste-to-energy opportunities.

"A number of things from municipal solid waste processing to RDF (refuse-derived fuel) may be on their way to the United States," says Ragiel. "Energy recovery, it seems to me, will be a very strong trend in the U.S. over the next five to 10 years."

With its array of operating subsidiaries on both sides of the Atlantic, Ragiel is optimistic that Greenstar is positioned to take advantage of the market’s opportunities as they present themselves.

The author is editor in chief of Recycling Today and can be contacted at btaylor@gie.net.