The Denver East facility will have a yearly capacity of 168,000 tons. | Ken Wolter/Shutterstock
WM’s $100 million Denver, Colorado, MRF campus will come online just in time to capture an anticipated increase in recyclable materials, buoyed by the state’s new extended producer responsibility law for packaging.
The law is currently in the implementation phase and will be fully rolled out by January 2026. Through the EPR system, a producer responsibility organization will fund and manage a statewide recycling system funded by packaging producers through dues.
The recently-announced 84,400-square-foot Denver East MRF will have the capacity to handle 168,000 tons annually, using 12 optical sorters, auger screens, air jets, eddy currents and a glass benediction system. It will have an “advanced plastic film recovery system,” a WM spokesperson told Resource Recycling, and only about six manual sort employees will be working at a time, focused on removing contamination from the miles of conveyor belts.
The spokesperson said the Denver East recycling facilities and hauling site will be co-located on a new WM campus in Arapahoe County, using approximately 50 acres of a 160-acre parcel adjacent to the Denver Arapahoe Disposal Site, which WM also manages.
Jason Chan, WM director of planning development, told the Colorado Sun that dozens of acres on the Denver East site are available to expand current recycling and reuse businesses and to potentially attract other reuse partners.
WM plans to complete the MRF by the second quarter of 2026. The project is one of several WM is rolling out over the next several years, part of the $1.4 billion it intends to invest in about 40 new and upgraded recycling facilities from 2022 through 2026. It has recently completed upgrades in Germantown, Wisconsin and is building a new facility in Portland, Oregon.
Gov. Jared Polis said in a press release that Colorado is “focused on building a more sustainable future, and efforts like this one can help us reach that goal.”
“I am excited to see businesses such as Waste Management finding innovative ways to reduce waste and recycle efficiently, while helping Colorado continue leading in clean energy and sustainability,” he said.
WM is one of the bigger haulers in Colorado, last year recycling 21,700 tons of plastic, 94,000 tons of paper and 6,550 tons of aluminum cans in the state.
This facility will not handle residential recycling from the city of Denver but will take some commercial material, the Colorado Sun reported.