MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The City of Montgomery and Infinitus Energy have been awarded the 2015 Alabama Innovation Award for Outstanding Public-Private Partnership by Alabama Launchpad, a program of the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama (EDPA).
The 2015 Alabama Innovation Awards are part of an annual program recognizing the state’s top innovators in the areas of job creation and technology that solves a local or global need.
The 81,992-square-foot Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) that represents a $35 million capital investment by Infinitus Energy is the most advanced recycling facility in the country. With the new system, city residents continue to throw away their garbage into a city-issued bin, but the waste will go to the recovery center to be sorted and then recycled.
The facility opened in April 2014 and has since created more than 100 local jobs, while diverting more than 60 percent of residents’ waste from the municipal landfill. The waste is collected and taken to the plant where high tech machinery sorts recyclable products from unrecyclable trash. The system features cutting edge technology able to separate up to 95 percent of available recyclables at a rate of 30 tons per hour.
“This partnership began out of necessity,” Montgomery Mayor Todd Strange said in a press release. “After seeing our landfill littered with orange ‘recycling’ bags, we quickly realized the system was not working and chose to find an alternative and innovative solution to address the challenge. Thanks to our partnership with Infinitus Energy, Montgomery is now on the cutting edge of green technology, which has allowed us to come close to achieving recycling rates that will be amongst the highest in the nation. What’s more – many Montgomery residents hardly realize they’re recycling since almost everything put in their green cans goes to the facility to be sorted and recycled.”
“The delivery of the Montgomery Advanced Mixed MRF is an example of how our company is redefining waste through this decade and beyond,” Infinitus CEO Kyle Mowitz said. “Our mission is to deliver an integrated waste model that benefits the residents of a community in two very important ways. First, we bring overall waste programming costs down with no capital investment required from the community. Secondly, we increase overall recovery rates, which in turn dramatically boosts landfill diversion rates.”
“We were impressed by the credentials of this year’s nominations across all categories,” EDPA Vice President Angela Wier said . “The innovators exemplify outstanding achievement, and we’re looking forward to showcasing the winners and their accomplishments at this year’s Alabama Innovation and Entrepreneurship Conference. The awards are not just a celebration for accomplishment, but they also help EDPA discover companies that contribute to the diversification of the economy and the creation of high-wage careers for Alabama.”
