Waste Management continues expansion with two new recycling plants

Waste Management (WM) has opened two recycling plants in Pennsylvania and Oregon as part of its plan to build and upgrade 39 facilities across North America through 2026.

The company’s $47 million facility in Portland, OR, can process 38 tons (t) of recyclables per hour. The Houston-based WM operates four facilities in the Pacific Northwest, collectively processing about 260,000t of material annually, the company said.

In Pennsylvania, the $48 million Grand Central facility in Pen Argyl is designed to handle up to 10,000t of post-consumer metal, paper, plastic, and glass each month. This project is part of the company’s $108 million investment in improving recycling in Pennsylvania this year, which also includes $23 million in upgrades to its Pittsburgh plant and $40 million for improvements to its Philadelphia facility.

Both of the plants use optical sorters powered by artificial intelligence.

WM is among the companies expanding recycling infrastructure as landfill space shrinks and tipping fees rise. The company has projected that 400 landfills will close in the next 15 years, eliminating 150 million short tons of capacity.

The company plans to invest more than $1.4 billion in building and upgrading 39 recycling facilities across North America between 2022 through 2026, the company told AMU. As of Q2 ’25, WM has completed 29 recycling automation and growth market projects out of the 39 planned. The company’s goal is to increase the amount of material recovered annually from 16 million tons in 2024 to 25 million tons by 2030.