Under subcontract, GBB was hired to perform a detailed review for the City of Chicago, Illinois, of the City collection vehicle traffic patterns and tonnage capacity limits pertaining to potential alternatives for the expansion of operations of the three City-owned Materials Recycling & Recovery Facilities (MRRFs) operated by Allied Waste under contract to the City. The three City owned plants, known as the 34th Street (Lawndale) MRRF, the Medill MRRF and the Northwest MRRF, receive and process municipal solid waste (MSW) and blue bag recyclables from the refuse trucks of the City Streets and Sanitation Department at design rates of 1,000-1,500 tons per day each. The traffic patterns for delivery and queuing before the scale house of over 100,000 truck deliveries per year, the processing equipment systems located inside each of the three facilities, and the backend transfer station space and interim storage and transfer capability were reviewed by GBB to identify opportunities for increasing the daily MSW capacity of each site.

GBB provided an independent opinion on the potential upside capacity of each MRRF/Transfer Station based on the ability to allow additional commercial waste garbage trucks from private haulers into the MRRFs, as a supplement to using them strictly for City municipal collections which provide less than design capacity to each facility. The GBB team generated a report which examined the near-term use of the MRRFs by City collection crews, reviewed the processing rates and tipping floor utilization parameters, considered the design parameters, and evaluated the traffic patterns and on-site collection vehicle activities within the confines of each site on an hour-to-basis. Due to demographic locations and available site space and building footprints, the unique differences and potential capacity of each MRRF were independently evaluated as part of the GBB project report presented to the prime contractor and, in turn, the City of Chicago.