Recycle Coach, Re-Trac and Prairie Robotics will operate together under newly formed parent company Kanopy Technology, consolidating resident communication, data reporting and AI-enabled contamination monitoring into a single structure serving municipalities, haulers and state agencies across North America.

Jeff Galad, Recycle Coach's president and CEO, will lead Kanopy as CEO. Re-Trac's current CEO, Josh Reid, continues to head that company under the new structure. Prairie Robotics joins as a strategic partner rather than an acquired brand.

What does each brand cover?

The three companies address distinct points in the material stream, according to Jessica Fantauzzo, Recycle Coach's head of marketing:

• Recycle Coach communicates with residents before collection, covering local disposal, drop-off and curbside rules.
• Re-Trac collects and manages recycling data, reporting and compliance for agencies.
• Prairie Robotics mounts AI-powered cameras on collection trucks to identify contamination in recycling carts at the point of collection and conducts household outreach based on that data.

Recycle Coach and Prairie Robotics already run an integrated system that sends push notifications alerting residents to contamination or sorting issues. Fantauzzo said the formalized partnership aims "to grow and evolve what that integration does, and how it brings value and impact to communities."

Why consolidate now?

Recycle Coach said in a statement that responsibility for managing recycling services is "increasingly fragmented, spread across cities, haulers, and agencies, and no single tool covers all of it."

Launching Kanopy is an effort to consolidate and streamline different recycling technologies, making it easier for partners to find the right tool, Fantauzzo said.

Toronto-based Recycle Coach, established 25 years ago, has offered its app for the last decade as a tool for communicating local disposal rules. The company has worked with municipalities including East Lansing, Michigan; Olympia, Washington; and Aurora, Ontario.

Recycle Coach will not change its app-based services under Kanopy, but the company plans to expand how it connects with municipalities and other partners to cut contamination and keep recycling information easy to find, Fantauzzo said.

Re-Trac brings 13 state agency clients into the group, including the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, along with numerous local governments across North America. Kanopy views Re-Trac's reporting and compliance capability as increasingly important as state and local agencies face tighter obligations to track granular recycling data under new EPR and recycled content laws.

What is Curb Coach?

Kanopy plans to roll out Curb Coach, a new tool that helps residents find collection information and updates for garbage, yard waste and other non-recycling services.

The app responds to a shift driven by extended producer responsibility laws. In states and provinces that have adopted EPR, "a growing number of municipalities no longer oversee curbside recycling," Fantauzzo said — yet many still coordinate garbage, yard waste and household hazardous waste services.

Curb Coach will offer clear answers on those waste-related services, mirroring how Recycle Coach handles recycling information. Fantauzzo said the parent structure "is what makes it possible to now serve those municipalities properly, instead of something that possibly adds more confusion for residents."

Galad framed the consolidation as continuity for the sector's shifting roles. "Kanopy is how we bring the best of it together and keep building, for municipalities, haulers, and everyone responsible for this work, however their role changes," he said in a statement.

The rollout of Curb Coach and the deepened Prairie Robotics integration are the near-term milestones to watch as Kanopy positions its combined platform for jurisdictions navigating EPR-driven data and contamination requirements.