The New MRF

On December 1, 2021, Recycle Ann Arbor unveiled Ann Arbor’s revamped materials recovery facility (MRF). Their predecessor, ReCommunity, had trashed it back in 2016, and the upgrades came with a hefty price tag. RAA secured two grants but still had to take out $5.9 million in loans.

If city staff had had its way, these upgrades may never have happened. When the city issued a request for proposals to handle Ann Arbor’s recycling in 2019, staff recommended Emterra Environmental USA—a private company that wanted to truck the material to its own brand-new MRF in Lansing.

But RAA fought back. CEO Brian Ukena sent a fiery letter to the city purchasing manager arguing that RAA cared about the community, and that repairing a community asset would create local jobs and boost regional economies—not to mention avoid the greenhouse gas emissions of trucking tons of recyclables to Lansing.

A subsequent city council meeting saw an outpouring of support for RAA. Some staffers and councilmembers argued that Emterra, with its experience, capital, and large marketing team, would expose the city to less financial risk than a small nonprofit with no experience operating a MRF. But on December 2, 2019, council voted 9–2 to give RAA a chance.

“This little bitty nonprofit, Recycle Ann Arbor, we raised $8 million in capital to build a facility,” says Ukena. “And the community should be proud of that because the community showed up and said, ‘This is what we want.’”

Related: Rebuilding the MRF
The MRF Reboot

According to RAA’s website, “the driving motivation for this MRF is to support a more resilient community by protecting the health of all living beings, saving valuable resources, and mitigating climate change.” (Economic viability is, of course, still essential.) The revamp doubled the facility’s sorting capabilities, ensuring a higher quality end product.

And RAA is strict about end markets. While some MRFs owned by waste haulers “recycle” glass by using it to cover landfilled trash, RAA ensures it’s turned back into new glass. And while others market recycled materials globally, 98 percent of the material processed here is sold within a 200-mile radius.

Though RAA describes itself as “zero waste,” that phrase should be taken with a grain of salt. Some people still put nonrecyclables into their recycling bins, and those are still landfilled. To actually produce zero waste, community members, governments, and businesses (from local to multinational) would all have to commit fully to the goal. Although communities across the globe have implemented “zero waste” practices, none of them actually produces zero waste.

And puzzlingly, the amount of recycling processed at the MRF has actually been declining slightly in recent years. In 2024, the MRF processed 22,234 tons of recycling—664 tons less than 2023 and 1,847 tons less than 2022.

It’s not that more recyclable materials are ending up in the landfill. According to a 2024 study, Washtenaw County residents threw away $17.8 million worth of paper, cardboard, plastic, metal, and glass. But statewide, the total was estimated to be $500 to $676 million; Washtenaw County makes up 3.7 percent of Michigan’s population but only 2.6 percent of the state’s wasted recyclable materials.

Moreover, Michigan’s recycling rate—as a percentage of total waste generated—actually hit a record high of 23 percent in July 2024. In Ann Arbor, that number is 50 percent. Could the decline reflect people buying less overall or making more discerning purchases?

If that’s the case, Ukena counts it as a win. “The real goal is to reduce it in the first place,” he says. “To educate on reduction and to get reuse in place and put this MRF out of business, ultimately get us to a place where we are truly a circular, sustainable economy.”

There’s no recycling class in school, but there could be. Recycling regulations differ not just between states or counties, but between towns. Toss a Styrofoam egg carton in a Chelsea recycle bin, and you’re following the rules. Do it in Ann Arbor, and you’re not. (More on that later.)

Your recycling bin should have a label listing acceptable items, but it’s not comprehensive. On the other hand, you could get lost in the minutiae of RAA’s website while looking for a straight answer on which types of plastic they accept. (#1, #2, and #5; more on that later.)

With this in mind, how can you compare MRFs to gauge their performance?

Not just by looking at volume, Michael Csapo tells me. He’s the general manager of the Resource Recovery and Recycling Authority of Southwest Oakland County (RRRASOC) and one of Michigan’s leading recycling experts.

According to a 2020 Observer article, at its peak ReCommunity processed 75,000 tons annually, much of it brought in from communities as far away as Toledo. But in this case, more wasn’t better: those 75,000 tons were “force-fed [into] machines designed for 30,000 tons.”

The company did it, Ukena believes, because “they were positioning themselves to sell to Republic,” the national waste hauler. And they primarily marketed their cardboard and plastics to export markets—that is, China—disregarding the environmental impact of shipping recycling 7,000 miles.

Instead of tonnage, Csapo looks at the range of materials recycled and the residual rate—“how much of the material that was accepted ended up in the landfill.” ReCommunity claimed an 11 percent residual rate, but before China’s 2017 ban on the import of foreign recycling, Chinese companies would buy lower-quality, more contaminated materials—“closer to garbage than recyclable commodities,” says Daniel Schoonmaker, executive director of the West Michigan Sustainable Business Forum. Some of America’s “recycling” reportedly ended up in Chinese landfills.

Csapo explains that residual rates are unavoidable: there’s always some “nonrecyclable material that didn’t belong in the carts,” either because people misunderstand the rules or “followed misleading labels on product packaging,” he says. “Then there’s going to be some material that … got contaminated along the way, because, oh, I don’t know, somebody put a full bottle of ketchup in their recycling.”

Industry purity standards have risen, and residual rates now typically range from 17 to 25 percent. Against that backdrop, RAA’s rate of less than 15 percent shines.

One reason is advanced technology like the SamurAI sorting robot: a half-million-dollar square box with cameras looking for polyvinyl chloride plastics on the conveyor belt that its spiderlike arms remove faster than the eye can follow. In February, RAA received a state grant for a robotics system that will recover an additional 100 to 200 tons of recyclable materials per year. And when RAA’s contract is up, the MRF and all of its high-tech equipment will belong to the city of Ann Arbor.

For a contemporary comparison, I looked at Emterra’s Lansing MRF, which would have processed Ann Arbor’s recycling if city staff had gotten their way. Emterra area process improvement manager Derrick Peterson initially provided an astonishingly low 9 percent residual rate. It took four follow-up emails, five phone calls, and two texts to find out how they achieved such a noteworthy feat: “When I say 9 percent, that doesn’t include all the glass residuals,” Peterson eventually admitted. “If we included glass, residuals probably would be around 15 percent”—about the same as Ann Arbor’s.

“Many MRFs owned by national companies don’t report glass used as cover in landfills as a residual, so they hide the actual number,” explains RAA director of special projects Susan Hubbard. All 453 tons of glass collected by RAA in 2024 was recycled into bottles.

Csapo’s other measure of a MRF’s efficacy is what materials it accepts. For RAA, that’s aerosol cans, aluminum, cardboard, glass bottles and jars, metal cans and lids, mixed paper, and rigid plastic #1, #2, and #5. They’re the same items processed at Michigan’s other single-stream MRFs—with the exception of plastics. Emterra Lansing accepts plastics #1–#7, and so do the Kent County MRF, GFL Traverse City, and the Western Washtenaw Recycling Authority (WWRA).

But once again, this is a case of more not necessarily meaning better. Just because these MRFs accept these plastics doesn’t guarantee they recycle them.

According to Schoonmaker, “lower-value plastic grades are much more challenging to recycle.” And Csapo notes that some communities publish “a wish-cycling, politically-driven list of recyclables.”

Less scrupulous MRFs may just roll these lower-quality plastics into their residuals. Others are simply streamlining the process for their users.

“Sometimes WWRA will have to pay to recycle 3, 4, 5, and 7,” explains WWRA facility manager Marc Williams. “Sometimes the market is more robust and allows us to sell the material for a profit. It is easier for WWRA to try and find a market rather than reeducate the public with every month’s pricing index.”

Its accommodating attitude also won WWRA the U-M’s recycling contract—2,207 tons in FY2024. Alison Richardson of the Office of Campus Sustainability explains that many of its recyclables are collected in plastic bags, which RAA does not accept.

“Foremost is due to the safety danger to our employees,” explains RAA marketing and communications manager Megan Lunsford. Plastic bags can get tangled in equipment, which is dangerous for the machinery and the workers who must remove it.

RAA also opposes plastic bags in principle. “Because we are a zero-waste MRF,” Lunsford adds, “we also review accepting any material through the lens of not encouraging the use of single-use items.”

How has running a MRF worked out for RAA? “The number of tons is just one small benchmark of whether we’re profitable, quote unquote, ’cause we measure profit more from a triple bottom line,” Ukena says. “Our benchmark of success and what we consider profit is how we invest back in the community, how well we’ve done with bringing that material to its highest and best use, how we treat our employees. … And so we rock it, man.”

Which is fine for a nonprofit organization whose goal is “zero waste.” But how is it working financially for the city?

Ann Arbor city pays RAA a per-ton fee to process its recycling—$161.28 in FY2025—offset by a 100 percent revenue share from the sale of recycled materials, up to the entire processing fee. (That’s never happened, but if it did, the city would continue to receive 55 percent of the sales income.) RAA also pays the city a “host fee” of $13.50 per ton for recycling processed from outside Ann Arbor.

“The City’s agreement with RAA for recycling processing ensures that the City has the best processing rate that can be offered,” emails Ann Arbor city administrator Milton Dohoney Jr.

In 2022, the city paid RAA $1.93 million in processing fees, offset by $913,148 in revenue share and $151,558 in host fees. That left the city on the hook for $865,294. 

The recycling industry is notoriously volatile, and market values impact all recycling facilities. During his eighteen years with WWRA, Williams says he’s seen annual revenues fluctuate from $400,000 to $1.2 million. In 2023, recycling market values dropped by a staggering 56 percent; even after revenue shares and host fees, the city’s bill jumped by half, to $1.3 million. Fortunately, last year the market recovered, and Ann Arbor’s net cost dropped back down to $870,633, or about $39 a ton. 

Would the city have gotten a better deal with Emterra? Probably not. Emterra’s total fees were comparable to RAA’s but included a transport fee, around $35 per ton, which wouldn’t have been eligible for revenue-share payback.

In any case, emails city public services communication specialist Robert Kellar, the “city does not operate on a ‘profit’ model. The city’s goal is to provide services to the community, as directed by City Council.”

Because the city shoulders the risk of market fluctuations, RAA was profitable even in FY2023, when recycling values tanked: it reported a net income of $183,179 after expenses of just over $9 million. So that $5.9 million in debt should be manageable.

“The loan should be paid off in about 10 years,” writes Lunsford. “How quickly we pay off the loan depends on the market conditions for the materials we sell, the amount of material that goes through the MRF, and other internal decisions about where to apply our resources.”

And how does the city feel about its decision?

“Broadly speaking, we’re pleased with [RAA],” emails Dohoney. “It’s certainly possible that we could extend or renegotiate their arrangement with us.”

Ann Arbor residents also seem pleased. In a 2024 survey, residents gave RAA an 87 percent approval rating. And in a 2019 survey in which Ann Arbor residents were asked why recycling is important, the vast majority cited its positive environmental impact—reducing waste, making landfills last longer, and conserving natural resources. No one’s answer had anything to do with money.

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Calls & Letters June 2025: Less recycling

In “The New MRF,” we reported that Ann Arbor’s recycling rate is 50 percent. The actual figure last year was 15.3 percent. On a tour of the MRF, cowriter  James Leonard misheard “fifteen” as “fifty.” Our apologies to Recycle Ann Arbor for the error.