What an exciting time. All right, I'm thrilled to be here with you today as we celebrate and unveil our investment in a state of the art recycling facility for the state of Texas. I'm Dominica Farmer. I'm the area vice president of WM of
Texas and I welcome you to our Fort Worth recycling facility. Now, as you can imagine, safety is a core value at WM. And as we kick off our program, it is paramount to review key safety information. So, joining me today is a
our area safety specialist, Ron Green. >> Thank you, Ludica. And welcome everyone. Well, just in case of an emergency today, we need to know what to do, right? So, first things first, restrooms are right in that door on the left hand
side. Okay. There's uh if we do have a weather event, the restrooms are also uh shelters. And if we have to if there is an emergency and we have to leave the building, we will muster out up out here at this corner. And
I bet there's a lot of people in here know CPR, don't you? Several of us. Yeah, we all do. We also have an AED at the very end of the hall down this hall. So, just remember if we have to evacuate, keep everybody together.
Everybody look out for someone. Okay. All right. Thank you. >> All right. >> Thank you, Ron. All right. This morning, uh, we have two guest speakers. We have Mr. Brent Bell, WM's vice president of recycling and our honorable mayor,
Maddie Parker from the city of Fort Worth. So, we also have several other elected officials. Please stand up so we can recognize you here today. Our elected officials, please stand. Look at that. Wonderful. Thank you for
being here today. So, I'd like to take a moment to recognize two individuals who play key roles in shaping Fort Worth's recycling success. former city manager Charles Boswell and community leader Christy
Wisman. >> Here we go. I'm going to tell you exactly why these two people are so special. Charles was instrumental in leading the city's transition from the old 18gallon bin system to the modern 65gallon park
recycling program that we use today. His leadership and commitment to transformation helped lay the foundation for what Fort Wart's recycling system has become. And then Christy chaired the citizen committee that helped design and
test the new cart system. Her vision and presence were vital in proving its success and securing the city council's support. Thanks to their foresight and dedication, Fort Worth set a new standard for recycling and we're proud to honor them today as we dedicate this
new state-of-the-art recycling facility. Please join me in thanking them for being here today. Please stand up. [Applause] So, I have been in the industry and with WM for over 30 years, and I can tell you
there's nothing greater for me than commemorating milestones like these. Not only are we celebrating the hard work and culmination of a very important project, but we're also making another step towards enabling a more sustainable
future in Texas. Today, we celebrate a $62 million investment in a state-of-the-art facility that's capable of processing 144,000 tons a year of material, potentially giving materials a second
life and providing greater opportunity for local solutions for single stream recycling. This part this project is part of WM's previously announced enterprisewide plan to invest over a billion dollars in recycling infrastructure, including
approximately 40 new or automated recycling facilities expected to add 2.8 million incremental tons managed by 2026. Fort Worth is also one of the two new recycling facilities we we've opened here in Texas. The other one is in New
Bron Falls. Both facilities use state-of-the-art technology to drive circularity and meet the growing demand for recycling content and recycling services. So, I'd like to just thank the WMT that helped us bring this new facility to
life. We're proud to contribute to a more sustainable future for the for the city of Fort Worth community and beyond and we look forward to many more years of collaboration. Now to talk about WM sustainability vision and the impact of the facility,
I'd like to invite WM's vice president of recycling services, Brett Bell, to the stage. [Applause] Thank Thank you, Dominica. You know, we often talk about the the communities that we uh we serve and how they helped build and nourish some of these
investments that you see here today. And I can tell you the Fort Worth story is above and beyond that. If you go back to a few years ago when this was first envisioned to where we are today, this is absolutely an amazing accomplishment of what we have came through over the
past few years. Um $60 million plus investment. As Domica mentioned, uh overall the company we've invested $ 1.5 billion in the recycling infrastructure. Um I've asked some of the the local folks if we could buy the property next door because look at this beautiful skyline of Fort Worth. you you can't
beat that, right? So, uh really appreciate all everyone's help uh to get us to where we are today. The facility you see here is the latest technology, state-of-the-art. It'll process more materials more efficiently than any other and uh it'll bring us a higher
quality uh to sell into the marketplace. Oftent times we get asked about where materials go uh when folks put it into their curbside bins. Uh and for the most part, it's kept domestically here. this facility at Fort Worth. There's a lot of great paper mills locally. Uh there's um
mixed paper and the cardboard that you see today that comes through this facility uh will get turned into new cardboard boxes. Most of those boxes, if my wife has anything to do with it, will end up on my doorstep in a few few months now. Um the the amount of uh cardboard and mixed paper that you see
in the streams today is above and beyond. You know, 20 years ago, it was newspapers that you saw. Now, what you just place that it's pretty much cardboard boxes. We get over 50% of the material you see coming today is mixed paper or cardboard boxes. Plastics also has a lot of attention. A lot of the
plastics that leave this facility will turn back into a bottle, maybe a water bottle, maybe detergent bottle, but also could turn back into uniforms for our frontline employees. Uh it could also turn into agricultural piping also. Uh American Jobs domestically source
plastics material. Uh and then there's a lot of other facilities close by that actually uh your glass from this facility could turn back into new beer wine glass bottle. It also could turn into fiberglass. Uh so I I know we got a lot of good beer and wine drinkers here
today. They can support that recycling u and so and that's that's located in loc so it's only 20 miles away. So really this facility a lot of the materials you see leave here will actually go in and support and help uh create jobs here locally as well. So, we are really proud about that. Uh, a lot of folks to thank
a lot of folks in the in the in the orange high in the yellow high biz vest behind us. They're really the hard work and soul behind us, the the WM employees, and we couldn't do it without them. I'd like to give them a round of applause. In in much most important, I know the the person you came to see, it's my
honor to um to announce the the next speaker, which is the honorable Maddie Parker, mayor of Fort Worth. So, thank you all. [Applause] I'm glad Brick brought the specifics of this amazing facility because that's not what I came here to do. Um, first of
all, I think it's very important that those those from the non-waste management team members there, most of you here, you probably don't know the whole story that you were supposed to have this beautiful facility in the forward stockyards on land that waste management owned. And thanks to all of your executive team for being willing to
pause and listen. Cody shaking his head. I'm sure the first few phone calls took a lot of heads scratching. You want us to do what? You want us to land swap and be right here on this site. Um but because of the partnership, and it truly is a partnership we had with waste management. Um you saw that to fruition
and today we're now opening this beautiful facility and for that we're incredibly thankful. Um I often joke that that being mayor and city issues are not sexy issues. Um and trash is technically not sexy, but if you work for waste management, maybe you believe
it is. I'm not sure. Um, but this is the brass tax of running a great city. I'm so glad that Charles and Christy are here because this took a tremendous amount of fortified to be explored into the future. What a facility like this meant and what trash collection you
we're really grappling now with um landfill use here in the city of Fort that looks like you know 10 years in the future. And let me give you an illustration and we're not going to hang on New York City today, but I do think it's worth talking about. But do you remember last year when Mayor Adams had a huge press conference and a whole
stunt and it was all about trash cans in the city of New York and they were for the very first time were going to have largecale trash cans um on the streets of New York City to put their trash in because of their rat problem. And I was just asking Christie how long ago was
that process just focused on recycling bins um and the upscale in Fort Worth and that was in the late 90s early 2000s. And here we are in 2025. Um, we really are on the forefront of that across our Texas. This is a topic every major city should be grappling with.
We're now home to 8.3 million people. We're soon to pass Chicago Metro as a as a third largest metro region in the entire country. >> And because of our partnership with waste management, we act like it. Um, we could not do the work we do here in the city of Fort without you. Um, unfortunately for Steve Keller and
others, you're just a phone call away when we need you. Um, but as our environmental services team can tell you, we're really proud to work with each of you um to make this possible for the city of Fort Worth. So, be proud. I know I certainly am. Um, I I'm probably that creaky person that waves really big
at the waste management trucks every morning on the streets of Fort Worth. You have an amazing workforce that show up to work every single day um to perform great service for the citizens. So, as your mayor, I'm just really proud to be here and this is sexy business to the city of Fort Worth and our city management team and to our council. So,
God bless all of you. Thanks so much. Three, two, one. [Applause]