Pro Disposal has secured a multimillion-dollar loan from Closed Loop to outfit its new 20-ton-per-hour materials recovery facility in Ebensburg, Pennsylvania, the hauler and MRF operator confirmed.

The financing covered optical sorting equipment at the plant, replacing a hand-pick step the company said it once relied on for some material streams.

What does the loan cover?

Capital went to optical sorters at the Ebensburg MRF. Those systems — near-infrared cameras paired with air-ejector banks — are the workhorse of modern recovery. They separate PET, HDPE, mixed paper, cartons and residues by polymer and density at line speed, replacing the human eye with a sensor that does not tire between shifts. For an operator moving off manual picking, an optical installation is the single biggest step change in throughput consistency a regional MRF can make.

How big is 20 tons per hour?

The nameplate puts Ebensburg in the mid-scale band — large enough to absorb material from a regional hauler's own collection routes plus inbound tonnage, small enough that a single equipment addition visibly shifts the recovery curve. A 20-tph line on a typical operating schedule handles enough annually to anchor a mid-sized county's commingled program plus supplemental inbound streams — the kind of capacity most regional haulers a decade ago would have spread across two or three smaller plants.

Who is behind the financing?

Closed Loop is the lender. The fund has been one of the more active circular-economy financiers operating in North America, deploying both debt and equity into recycling infrastructure that commercial banks have underwritten thinly. A multimillion-dollar loan to a regional operator carries weight in this market — it covers the heaviest capex line items on an MRF buildout, optical sorters and supporting conveyors, while leaving the hauler's cash flow free for trucks, containers and route operations.

What does the upgrade change for Pro Disposal?

Three operational shifts matter to practitioners tracking the deal:

• Labor profile: removing hand sorters from the picking line reduces exposure to the tight sort-room labor pool that has thinned out across the Northeast.
• Throughput consistency: optical systems hold separation quality across shifts, cutting the contamination penalties that drag down commodity settlements.
• Commodity mix: cleaner sortation typically expands the share of material that meets the purity thresholds domestic and export end buyers increasingly require.

For Pro Disposal, the practical effect is a more uniform outbound bale stream.

Why move off hand sorting now?

Hand picking is not dead — it still catches oversize and residue that optical units miss — but staffing the picking room has grown harder and more expensive per ton. For a regional hauler mixing residential, commercial and industrial routes, the labor cost on a manual line now routinely outpaces the lease cost on a comparable optical bank over a five-year horizon. Pro Disposal's move tracks what several mid-tier operators in the Northeast have done in recent years: lock in financing, install the optics, run a leaner crew at the picking station.

What happens next?

The milestone is the ramp. A 20-tph MRF only earns its keep when it runs above design throughput without letting reject piles spike — a ratio that will surface in commodity settlements and, likely, in covenants tied to Closed Loop's loan. Every bale off the Ebensburg line from here is a data point on whether the bet on automation pays back in throughput, purity and labor savings per ton.