Glass Recycling Foundation certifies Republic MRF

The Republic Services Seattle Recycling Center has attained Gold Certification status from the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Glass Recycling Foundation (GRF).

The Republic material recovery facility (MRF) received recognition for its robust equipment line producing clean, high-value recycled glass, according to the GRF.

Republic Services’ Seattle facility, acquired from the former Rabanco Recycling, began operating in 1989 and has been retrofitted as needed.  

According to the GRF, the plant currently processes 200,000 tons of material per year, serving residential and commercial customers in and near Seattle as well as those in distant communities in Alaska, Idaho and Montana.

For glass processing, the facility deploys a glass breaker, vibrating table screen, air separator, secondary fines screen, vacuum system, magnets and eddy current separators, and lighting removal equipment to sort incoming glass bottles and jars into a clean, marketable material stream.

The prepared glass is sent to a beneficiation facility that further sorts and cleans the material to produce glass cullet used for making new bottles, fiberglass and other products.

“At Republic Services, we’re committed to partnering with customers to create a more sustainable world,” says Michael Alvarez, Republic Services general manager. “By keeping valuable materials like glass in the circular economy for the long term, we’re preserving natural resources, supporting a circular economy and helping Seattle area residents and businesses meet their diversion goals.”

The certification program offered at no charge by the GRF has been designed to recognize MRFs that deploy additional equipment and operational procedures to clean up glass in both single- and dual-stream systems, resulting in the production of higher-quality and marketable glass.

“Republic Services’ Seattle Recycling Center is the first facility in Washington state to receive glass certification,” says David Marcouiller, executive vice president of sales engineering at Canada-based recycling equipment provider Machinex and a member of the GRF’s MRF Certification Committee.

“We congratulate Republic on their leadership and dedication to recycling glass and hope they serve as an inspiration to other MRFs to improve their glass recycling processes and increase the amount of glass recycled into new products."

The MRF Glass Certification program was originally launched in 2019 and three years later the criteria were updated to prioritize end market consistency and more thorough glass cleaning prior to beneficiation.

Eligible applications are judged on their current MRF infrastructure and the results of a glass purity test that is aligned with a three-mix glass specification ISRI Specifications published by the Washington-based Recycled Materials Association.

An independent committee scores blind applications and awards MRFs with either gold, silver or bronze certification, adding such facilities will have a competitive advantage in the marketplace.