Pro Disposal MRF Upgrade Quadruples Sorting Capacity to 20 Tons per Hour
Closed Loop Partners is financing new optical sorting equipment at Pro Disposal's 40,000-square-foot Pennsylvania recycling facility as the regional operator expands processing capacity and targets higher-quality recovered material.
MONTREAL (RecyclingMonster): Closed Loop Partners has provided a multi-million-dollar loan to Pennsylvania-based Pro Disposal Inc. to finance sorting equipment at the waste and recycling company's new materials recovery facility in Ebensburg.
The financing was provided through Closed Loop Partners' Catalytic Capital & Private Credit Group and supports equipment at Pro Disposal's new 40,000-square-foot MRF.
The facility is designed to process up to 20 tons of recyclable material per hour, compared with the company's previous five-ton-per-hour system, which relied heavily on manual sorting.
Four Optical Sorters Replace More Manual Processing
The upgraded recycling line includes four optical sorters and other equipment designed to increase processing speed and improve material separation.
Optical sorting systems use sensors to identify targeted materials moving along a conveyor and can separate selected plastics and other commodities at significantly higher speeds than manual sorting alone.
Closed Loop Partners said the upgraded system is also intended to produce higher-quality bales, including recovered PET that can move into domestic recycled-plastic supply chains.
New MRF Expands Pro Disposal's Regional Recycling Capacity
Pro Disposal was founded in 2002 with a single collection truck and began recycling operations in 2010.
The company now operates more than 125 collection vehicles across nine Pennsylvania counties, with additional operations in Maryland and West Virginia, and serves more than 100,000 customers.
The company said increasing material volumes had outgrown its previous five-ton-per-hour, largely hand-sorted recycling system.
The Bigger Number Is Not the Loan. It Is the Fourfold Jump in Capacity.
The takeaway: Pro Disposal is moving from a five-ton-per-hour system to a MRF designed for 20 tons per hour. That is four times the rated throughput, or a 300% increase in processing capacity.
Why the upgrade mattersThe financing is targeting a common bottleneck in recycling: collection can grow faster than a facility's ability to separate the material efficiently. Pro Disposal already serves more than 100,000 customers, but its previous system still depended heavily on manual sorting.
Four optical sorters give the new line considerably more automated separation capacity. That does not eliminate the need for people, but it allows high-volume material streams to be identified and separated more consistently while workers focus on quality control, contamination and other tasks.
Why bale quality mattersProcessing more tons is only useful if the recovered commodities meet buyer specifications. Closed Loop Partners specifically tied the investment to higher-quality bales and greater domestic availability of recycled PET.
That connects a regional Pennsylvania MRF directly to a larger manufacturing issue: U.S. producers seeking dependable domestic supplies of recycled plastic need not only more collected material, but cleaner material that can actually move into downstream recycling and manufacturing markets.
A broader automation shiftRecyclingMonster's guide to how modern materials recovery facilities work explains how optical sorters, air jets, AI systems and human quality control increasingly work together to recover marketable commodities from mixed recycling streams.
Closed Loop Targets Domestic rPET Supply
Closed Loop Partners said the investment comes as recycling operators respond to changing global supply chains and growing U.S. demand for domestically processed recycled materials, including rPET.
The firm said its catalytic capital strategy provides financing to private companies, municipalities and other organizations investing in collection, sorting, processing and end-market infrastructure.
Pro Disposal President and CEO Michael Bellvia said the upgraded facility will allow the company to process more material while strengthening local recycling infrastructure and keeping recovered resources in productive use.
Pro Disposal MRF Upgrade: What to Know
How much did Closed Loop Partners lend Pro Disposal?
The financing was described as a multi-million-dollar loan, but an exact dollar amount was not publicly disclosed.
How much material can the new Pro Disposal MRF process?
The new Ebensburg facility is designed to process 20 tons per hour, compared with five tons per hour under the company's previous system.
How much larger is the new processing capacity?
The rated throughput is four times the previous level, increasing from five to 20 tons per hour. That equals a 300% increase.
What new sorting equipment was installed?
The MRF includes four new optical sorters along with other processing equipment intended to improve throughput and material quality.
Why is recycled PET important to the project?
Closed Loop Partners says the investment is intended in part to increase domestic supplies of higher-quality recycled PET for U.S. manufacturing markets.
