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Former PSI Chapter President Joel Litman, president and co-owner of Texas Recycling Inc. (Dallas), has been selected to receive the 2023 Israel Proler Award from the ISRI Gulf Coast Region. The award recognizes individuals for their outstanding leadership, achievements, and contributions to the recycling industry. Litman will receive the award on Thursday, June 22, at the Gulf Coast Region’s summer convention in Dallas.
“Joel Litman exemplifies what it means to be a leader in the recycling industry,” says Gulf Coast Region President Nidhi Turakhia of Allied Alloys (Houston). “Not only has he built a successful recycling company with his family members over the past four decades, but every day he sets an example of what it means to operate with integrity and dedication to his family, team members, community, and industry.”
Litman entered the recycling business in 1984 when he began working with his father Stan at his paper and rag recycling company, Daltex Waste Material Co. In 1992, Joel, his brother Craig, and father Stan joined forces to found Texas Recycling, a paper recycling company. Since then, Litman has helped Texas Recycling grow from the three founding family members to almost 70 employees while expanding the company’s focus to include metals and plastics. Along the way, he also helped establish a related company—Action Shred of Texas—in the document destruction sector.
Throughout his career, Litman has been an active member and leader within ISRI national as well as GCR and ISRI’s Paper Stock Industries Chapter. In addition to serving as a board member for ISRI national, PSI, the Gulf Coast Region, and the Global Recycling Standards Organization (which oversees the Recycling Industry Operating Standard, or RIOS), he was PSI president from 2012-2014 and ran as a candidate for the ISRI national secretary/treasurer position in 2022.
“I am humbled and honored to be recognized by my peers,” Litman says. “I’ve looked up to the current and past Gulf Coast Region officers as leaders in ISRI and the industry, and it is gratifying to have them honor me in this way.”
The Proler Award is named in memory of Israel Proler of Proler International Corp. (Houston), who served as Gulf Coast Chapter President of the Institute of Scrap Iron and Steel (an ISRI predecessor) from 1955-1956. Among his professional achievements, “Izzie” Proler helped develop the forerunner of today’s modern automobile shredder along with his brothers Sam, Jackie, and Herman “Hymie” Proler.
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