The $22.9 million two-year budget blueprint that was approved by the North Carolina Senate May 11, 2017, would target 45 positions at the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality for elimination and also would eliminates the department’s Environmental Education Program and the Division of Environmental Assistance and Customer Service (DEACS) program, which leads the department’s waste-reduction and recycling efforts, cutting its more than 32 positions, according to a report from the Coastal Review Online.

The DEQ cuts proposed in the plan include the elimination of positions held by DEQ Chief Deputy Secretary John Nicholson and Senior Adviser for Policy and Innovation Mary Penny Kelley.

The proposal is counter to that proposed by North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, in which he and DEQ Secretary Michael Regan had asked for additional help at DEQ to address a backlog in permit applications, which now have a two-year turnaround time, the news service reports.

The Senate budget instead would cut 14 regional office positions—two each from the seven regional offices.

According to the Coastal Review Online, an email it received from DEQ spokesperson Jamie Kritzer states, “We have significant concerns that the Senate’s budget won’t provide the resources needed to balance the protection of North Carolina’s natural resources and economic competitiveness. The current proposal eliminates programs in our agency necessary to educate schoolchildren, enable environmental permitting to keep pace with economic development and help the business community navigate the regulatory process. We look forward to making our case to legislators during the budget negotiations.”

The North Carolina House will consider and pass its own version of the budget before conferencing with the Senate to pass a final state budget to submit to Cooper.

The Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR), Washington, notified its members of the proposed budget, saying, “DEACS is home to the recycling office, formally called the Recycling and Materials Management Section, which would also be eliminated in this action.”

The APR urges its members to take action: “We are asking you to contact the NC House to request that DEACS and the North Carolina state recycling program remain fully funded, and that the House adamantly support this funding in conference.”

The organization goes on to state, “North Carolina has long been a strong example of a successful state recycling program, including the investment of recycling carts that deliver more tons. Many recycling organizations, such as APR and The Recycling Partnership, also regularly use data and concepts pioneered by North Carolina. Collaboration with state recycling programs like North Carolina deliver tremendous benefits to hundreds of community programs that in turn provide recycling to millions of households.”

Among the talking points the APR mentions are:

• DEACS is a nonregulatory division in NC DEQ offering no-cost assistance to industry, businesses, local governments and individual citizens on a range of environmental concerns and complex regulations, helping them avoid noncompliance costs.
• DEACS studies have documented that 17,000 North Carolinians are employed directly by the state’s recycling industry. Many of the largest recycling manufacturers are in rural counties, employing thousands of people to support those local economies.
• This program has saved thousands of local governments, manufacturers, small businesses, nonprofits and state agencies money. DEACS helps find market solutions for discarded materials, saving on landfill tipping fees and solid waste costs. Its assistance helps manufacturers and other employers achieve their zero waste goals.
• DEACS technical assistance and grants create critical private investment in processing and manufacturing infrastructure for recyclables, providing markets for local government collection programs and vital feedstock for manufacturers.
• DEACS assistance to rural communities has streamlined drop-off programs, increasing material collection while lowering costs and helping rural counties avoid expensive disposal charges.
• With technical assistance and grants from DEACS, more than 300 municipal curbside programs serving 2 million household have transitioned to cost-efficient cart-based collection, delivering an annual increase of 100,000 tons of recyclable material to North Carolina processors and manufacturers.

The APR provides contact information for members of the North Carolina House and suggests contacting district representatives, whose information is available at www.ncleg.net/representation/WhoRepresentsMe.aspx:

Tim Moore
Speaker of the House
919-733-3451
Tim.Moore@ncleg.net
Represents: Cleveland County, District 111

Nelson Dollar
Senior Chair, House Appropriations
919-715-0795
Nelson.Dollar@ncleg.net
Represents: Wake County, District 36

Dean Arp
Chair, House Appropriations
919-715-3007
Dean.Arp@ncleg.net
Represents: Union County, District 69

Justin Burr
Chair, House Appropriations
919-733-5908
Justin.Burr@ncleg.net
Represents: Montgomery, Stanly Counties, District 67

John Faircloth
Chair, House Appropriations
919-733-5877
John.Faircloth@ncleg.net
Represents: Guilford County, District 61

Linda Johnson
Chair, House Appropriations
919-733-5861
Linda.Johnson2@ncleg.net
Represents: Cabarrus County, District 83

Donny Lambeth
Chair, House Appropriations
919-733-5747
Donny.Lambeth@ncleg.net
Represents: Forsyth County, District 75

Chuck McGrady
Chair, House Appropriations
919-733-5956
Chuck.McGrady@ncleg.net
Represents: Henderson County, District 117

PepsiCo, Purchase, New York, has announced it has joined the New Plastics Economy Initiative as a Core Partner. The global food and beverage company says this move signals its continued commitment to reduce packaging waste.

Led by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and launched in London in May 2016, the New Plastics Economy brings together industry, government, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), scientists, students and citizens to build a more sustainable global plastics value chain. 

PepsiCo says its participation in the initiative supports the company’s previously announced goals to strive for 100 percent of its packaging to be recoverable or recyclable by 2025 and to partner to increase packaging recovery and recycling rates. These goals are part of PepsiCo’s Performance with Purpose vision to deliver top-tier financial performance over the long run by integrating sustainability into its business strategy.

“PepsiCo is committed to taking aggressive action to promote sustainability within our direct operations, while also acting far beyond our own walls through collaboration with others,” says Mehmood Khan, PepsiCo’s vice chairman and chief scientific officer of global research and development. “Unlocking new packaging material innovation and increasing consumer recycling rates requires strong partnership across the public and private sectors. The New Plastics Economy initiative is an important step towards creating a more sustainable packaging ecosystem and we are delighted to be a core partner.”

PepsiCo says its involvement in the New Plastics Economy is one of a series of collaborations the company is already undertaking to tackle packaging waste:

• PepsiCo announced an agreement with biotechnology leader, Danimer Scientific, in March 2017, on the development of biodegradable film resins for thin film packaging. 
• PepsiCo, through the PepsiCo Foundation, was a founding member of the Closed Loop Fund, which is investing $100 million to raise recycling rates in the United States, including through improved curbside recycling and materials processing. 
• PepsiCo Recycling works with schools K-12, college and university campuses and local communities in the United States through various programs and initiatives to boost recycling infrastructure and raise awareness. In the almost 4,000 schools that PepsiCo Recycling has partnered with since 2010, 93 million cans and bottles have been recycled and over $1 million in prizes and incentives has been distributed to participating schools.

Beerse, Belgium-based Metallo Group has rebranded its two smelting facilities, the company has announced. Calling it “a new milestone in our long-standing history,” the company says the Metallo-Chimique N.V. smelter and scrap trading operation based in Beerse will now be known as Metallo Belgium while the Elmet S.L.U. facility in Vizcaya, Spain, will become Metallo Spain.

Jurgen Van Gorp, a senior buyer and business development and area manager with the company, says adopting the Metallo name companywide was a logical step for the firm, and that it is being well-received by customers.

“Our team of associates has worked hard for many years to establish Metallo Group as a global presence in the metals refining and scrap recycling industries,” says Van Gorp. “Recyclers around the world now know about us and our capabilities.”

Van Gorp says, informally, many customers would refer to the company by the Metallo portion of its name and that the two new names simply reinforce the emergence of the Metallo brand in the scrap recycling community.

“The brand unity reassures our customers that we are one company with two facilities, aiming to be the preferred recycling and refining partner,” Van Gorp says.

Metallo Group says it recycles up to 450,000 tonnes of secondary raw materials per year, focusing mainly on what it calls “complex low-grade scrap streams.”

The company produces up to 10,000 tonnes of copper anodes, 3,000 tonnes of copper cathodes and about 2,000 tonnes of soft and hard lead ingots monthly at the plant in Beerse. It also produces up to 1,000 tonnes of low lead, conflict-free tin ingots monthly, making Metallo Group the largest secondary tin producer in the world, according to information it submitted for a 2016 Recycling Today Global Edition feature article.

Watsonville, California-based FlexSweep Industries is offering a life-long guarantee on its aero-aluminum and engineered elastomer push broom handles and a discount to recyclers who purchase FlexSweep’s Flex-Power products.

FlexSweep founder and CEO Simon Cassar says recyclers have shown an affinity for his products because of their durability and their sustainability aspects. Cassar says the 16-year-old company sells its patented Flex-Power unbreakable handles for many different cleaning tools used by a wide cross-section of industrial and commercial companies.

Cassar says the Flex-Power concept involves answering the question: “Why replace the handle when just the brush or cleaning heads wear out?” He continues, “If you own a saw and your blade wears out, do you replace the whole saw? No, just the blade.” Cassar says he has adopted that mentality with his product line. The company’s aero-aluminum and elastomer broom handle is guaranteed to be replaced if a user breaks it. “If it breaks, we’ll send a replacement with your next order, but we have only done that a handful of times out of tens of thousands of brooms sold.”

Cassar says breaking the broom handle is not easy, and the company’s website features a video demonstrating the point. In the video, a large wheel loader rolls over a FlexSweep broom handle that emerges unscathed. “One broom even got stuck in a large shredder, and amazingly it was shaken and still was not broken,” states Cassar.

“The handle is guaranteed for life, and seeing how recyclers already have that mindset of sustainability and reusability, it has just been a terrific fit,” he says. “Recyclers are in a tough environment, and some have told me they have accidentally run over their FlexSweep brooms with a forklift, and the broom comes through it just fine.”

Cassar says he also emphasizes using American materials and components in his brooms, including wooden broom blocks procured from Northeast Ohio’s Amish country and the American-sourced aluminum broom handle.

“Sweeping the floor may not be glamorous,” Cassar says, but he adds that he nonetheless gets feedback from users who appreciate the ergonomic aspects of his product line. He says an elastomeric engineered material is used for the broom’s grip, and combined with the aero-aluminum alloy it creates a “shock absorber” quality that minimizes impacts.

Cassar says he is offering a promotional code that recyclers can use to receive a discount when ordering from the FlexSweep website, and that details on the offer can be obtained by e-mailing him at scassar@flexsweep.com.