GFL wins Recycling Facility of the Year award

GFL Environmental Inc. has been awarded the National Waste & Recycling Association 2026 Recycling Facility of the Year for its Montreal-East material recovery facility in Montreal, Quebec.

The award recognizes MRFs across North America based on key factors such as innovation, partnership, public education, and environmental impact.

Inside GFL's Montreal-East MRF

GFL's Montreal-East MRF anchors a 23-acre eco-hub, co-locating the new 120,000-square-foot single-stream residential MRF alongside GFL's construction and demolition materials recovery facility, creating a centralized, multi-stream recovery hub. The new MRF has the capacity to process up to 220,000 tons of single-stream residential materials using Machinex technology, which would represent approximately half of Montreal's households and 25 percent of Quebec's total curbside recycling volume. The facility's strategic central location significantly reduces hauling emissions while keeping valuable materials within the local circular economy.

Engineered to meet regulatory requirements for the recovery of recyclable materials, the MRF can process diverse material streams into high-quality commodities for North American end-markets. Built with cutting-edge automation and designed for workplace safety, the facility features climate-controlled quality control cabins and an advanced automated fire suppression system.

Through its significant scale, technological innovation, and worker-centric design, the Montreal-East MRF sets a new benchmark for modern resource recovery operations across North America.

"We are proud to receive the NWRA 2026 Recycling Facility of the Year award," said Patrick Dovigi, founder and chief executive officer of GFL. "This marks the third time since 2020 that one of our MRFs has received this honour. We have consistently invested heavily in technology to deliver sustainable solutions for our customers, and our teams continue to push the envelope in this effort. This award reinforces our vision of combining entrepreneurial spirit with state-of-the-art technology to provide industry-leading resource recovery services."