Waste Management Company Waste Connections Buys Queens Plant for $27M

Looks like someone’s in a haste to make waste.

Waste Connections, a waste management service, has purchased Royal Waste Services’ privately operated waste plant in Queens for $26.5 million, according to city records made public Monday.

Waste Connections bought the property at 172-06 Douglas Avenue in Jamaica through the entity Royal Waste Property Holdings as part of its acquisition of Royal Waste earlier this month, in which it took on the trash hauler’s more than 120 vehicles, records show.

Ronald Mittelstaedt, CEO of Waste Connections, was listed as the signatory for the buyer, while Paul Reali of M&P Reali Enterprises, who’s also a president at Royal Waste, signed for the seller. The deed was signed Sept. 3, according to records.

Spokespeople for Waste Connections and Royal Waste did not immediately respond to requests for comment. It’s unclear if they were brokers involved in the deal.

Waste Connections’ acquisition of Royal Waste was one of the industry’s first major transactions in New York City since the Department of Sanitation awarded contracts for a new commercial waste zone system, as Waste Dive reported.

As part of the zone system, which was designed to prevent large companies from dominating the trash collection market, Waste Connections received 12 contracts and was one of 18 companies selected by the Sanitation Department to operate across 20 non-exclusive zones, according to Waste Dive.

“A zoned system will make routes drastically more efficient — this means a reduction in vehicle miles traveled, meaning less greenhouse gas emissions and improved pedestrian safety,” Antonio Reynoso, the current Brooklyn borough president who introduced the legislation while he was a City Council member in 2019, said in a statement at the time.

“In order to operate in one of these zones, companies must comply with stringent labor, safety and environmental standards,” Reynoso added. “A commercial waste zone system is a catchall solution that will finally transform this industry for the sake of workers, communities and the environment.”

But Waste Connections’ new property along Douglas Avenue comes with some dark history. In 2009, three workers died in an accident at the site after falling into a hole and ingesting toxic fumes, The New York Times reported.

The plant had been run by M&P at the time, doing business as the Regal Recycling Company, which was linked to Royal Waste, the Times reported.

Isabelle Durso can be reached at idurso@commercialobserver.com.