The ALBA Group, one of the largest waste and recycling industries in Europe, has come to an agreement with the Turkish company INCI to form a joint venture to be called ALBA INCI. The goal of the joint venture is to increase the collection and recycling of electronic scrap in northwest Turkey.

To implement the joint activities, ALBA has acquired a 50 percent shares in the INCI subsidiary Aten Atik, which already operates a highly modern intermediate storage facility for hazardous waste, an area that is going to be expanded further with the help of ALBA's expertise.

According to ALBA, each year around 1.35 million tons of hazardous waste accumulates in Turkey. According to current estimates, only 15 to 20 percent of this is currently treated properly in accordance with the law. Multinational companies with production centers in Turkey are increasingly requesting secure waste management and recycling services to the standard found in Western Europe.

In addition, the planned cooperation should involve the processing of the hazardous waste into high-energy substitute fuels. These substitute fuels are already highly in demand within the cement industry.

“With the introduction of the new regulations for the returning of electrical and electronic equipment, which have applied in Turkey since the beginning of this year, we wanted to jointly establish a business to recycle these devices in Muradiye – in the Izmir region. Through our services, we will offer our customers high-quality recycling as well as the fulfillment of all obligations and their documentation required by the new legislation” says Murat Bodur, General Manager for the region of Turkey within the ALBA Group.

INCI Holding is largely active within the areas of the automotive industry (production of steel and aluminum rims as well as production and distribution of car batteries), logistics, insurances, the production and distribution of mini bars and within the recycling industry (hazardous waste). From this 65 percent of the production is exported to 70 countries.

Canadian electronics recycling company FCM Recycling Inc. has announced that its newest facility in Toronto has completed the assessment under the Recycler Qualification Program (RQP).

Lavaltrie, Quebec-based FCM says its 40,000-square-foot Toronto facility is the sixth FCM electronics recycling facility in Canada and second in Ontario to be approved by the Recycler Qualification Office (RQO).

The RQO was established “by the industry-led end-of-life electronics stewardship programs to ensure that environmentally sound electronics reuse and recycling standards are established, met, maintained and continually improved upon,” according to the RQO website.

“This latest achievement demonstrates FCM’s continuous commitment to ensuring that all end-of-life electronics are handled and managed in a safe and environmentally sound manner that safeguards worker health and safety, the whole in accordance with the highest industry standards,” says Chris Karambatsos, FCM vice president of compliance.

“Through achieving, maintaining and operating FCM in accordance with the standards set forth under the Recycler Qualification Program, we are providing our partners and customers with the comfort that their end-of-life electronics are being properly handled and processed from the point of primary processing to the point of final disposition,” adds Karambatsos.

In addition to its two facilities in Ontario, FCM operates RQO verified plants in British Columbia, Québec, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.

IE Expo will take place from May 13 to 15, 2013, at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre. The event bills itself as Asia’s leading trade show for water, sewage, refuse, recycling, air pollution control and energy conservation.

IE Expo 2012 attracted 753 exhibitors from 25 countries and more than 24,000 visitors from 53 countries; the show occupied around 430,556 square feet of exhibition space, show organizers Messe München International say. Of the exhibitors, 67 percent were from China. IE Expo also featured seven joint pavilions from France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the U.S., as well as the CECC (China Environmental Chamber of Commerce) pavilion—all of which are confirmed for the 2013 show.

With China’s growing prosperity, awareness of environmental issues are on the rise. In the areas of emissions reduction, waste management, securing water supplies or waste-water treatment, the challenges facing China are enormous. Some $378 trillion in state funding has been earmarked for environmental protection between 2011 and 2015.

More information on IE Expo, including how to register, is available at www.ie-expo.com/en.

National Fiber, a Belchertown, Mass.-based manufacturer of Cel-Pak cellulose insulation, and Trex Co., a manufacturer of wood-alternative decking and railing based in Winchester, Va., have joined forces to launch a recycling program that will collect National Fiber’s cellulose packaging in the Northeast. The program is already in operation in Belchertown, Mass., and the two companies hope to expand the program over the next year to cover National Fiber’s entire distribution area.

National Fiber’s Cel-Pak cellulose insulation is composed of 85 percent recycled newspapers. The company is now looking to start more comprehensive recycling of its finished product.

“Our installers and their customers are very conscious of the environment, energy savings and doing everything they can to reduce waste,” says Chris White, National Fiber’s director of sales. “They want to be able to recycle everything they can. By partnering with Trex Company, we’ve found a way to not just recycle our packaging, but to ‘upcycle’ the bags into another high-quality, sustainable building product.”

National Fiber has established collection points for Cel-Pak bags throughout the central Massachusetts area, and is working with its distributor network throughout the Northeast to expand collections rapidly.

National Fiber has been manufacturing cellulose insulation in Belchertown since 1978. MacGregor Bay Corp. has owned the business since 1997. The company says all the old newspapers (ONP) the company uses to make its Cel-Pak product is hand sorted to remove magazines and inserts, which would result in a lower quality product because of the glossy, clay coating.

In a news release, National Fiber says it also does not purchase raw material from solid waste firms to further ensure the quality of the material it uses to make its insulation products.