On Thursday, Oct. 3, WM announced that it opened a new, 45,000 square-foot recycling facility in Fort Walton Beach, FL. The state-of-the-art technology deployed in the new WM Fort Walton Beach Recycling Facility is expected to allow the facility to process up to approximately 76,000 tons per year of recyclable materials.
WM hosted a grand opening/ribbon cutting ceremony to recognize the occasion. Special guests in attendance included:
- Brandon Shaw, WM Gulf Coast Area Vice President
- Patt Maney, Florida State Representative, District 4
- Paul Mixon, Okaloosa County Board of County Commissioners, Chair
- Dick Rynearson, Mayor of City of Fort Walton Beach
“WM continues to execute on its investment plans in recycling infrastructure with the opening of our new WM Fort Walton Beach Recycling Facility,” said Brandon Shaw, WM Gulf Coast area vice president. “For decades, we’ve played an integral role in helping to keep Northwest Florida clean and safe. This new facility enables us to further our commitment to bringing sustainability-related solutions to the region by expanding access to recycling services to more communities across the Gulf Coast.”
WM’s planned investments in new and upgraded recycling facilities, including the WM Fort Walton Beach Recycling Facility, are intended to:
- Increase access to recycling, while increasing overall recycling capacity.
- Collect more types of plastics.
- Utilize intelligent sorting technologies, where conveyors and optical sorters communicate with each other, and with technicians, to improve material quality.
- Include an additional optical sort line that serves as a final quality control measure for any recyclables not initially captured.
This project is part of WM’s enterprise-wide plans to invest more than $1.4 billion in new and upgraded recycling facilities across North America from 2022 to 2026, which is expected to add approximately 2.8 million tons of incremental annual processing capacity by the end of 2026. With the demand for recycled content products anticipated to rise, these planned investments seek to enable WM to increase its ability to manage more recycled materials and potentially enhance access to recycling for its customers.
