Dive Brief:

• Waste Management has decided to shutter two of its facilities, a plastics recycling plant in Portland, OR and a transfer station in Hillsdale, NJ.
• The plastics recycling plant will be shuttered until better technology is put into place. The facility transforms hard-to-recycle plastics into crude oil.
• The Brookside Place transfer station hasn't been in operation since February 2014, when heavy snow caused some of the roof to cave in. 

Dive Insight:

The recycling plant can process 50 tons of plastics per day, and produce 3.5 million gallons of crude every year. Nine pounds of plastics are needed to create one pound of crude.

Waste Management's decade-long contract with Hillsdale ended on July 31. The transfer station saved the town roughly $250,000 to $300,000 annually, as haulers were able to drop off waste free of charge per the agreement.

Waste Management recently announced the sale of its Wheelabrator Technologies, on the heels of releasing its second quarter results on July 29. Profits were down from a year ago; the waste and recycling company has been reducing expenses that are weighing the company down.