Communities in the United States have used a variety of methods to increase curbside recycling rates. From incentive programs that reward recycling participation, to tracking containers with RFID and pay-as-you-throw programs, communities are seeing their efforts pay off.

During the Tennessee Symposium, hosted by the Southeast Recycling Development Council (SERDC) and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC), several major players in this field shared the results of these various programs.

Lauren Steele, vice president, government affairs for Cola-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated (CCBCC), Charlotte, N.C., talked about his company’s Coca-Cola Recycle & Win program in which residents are mailed a sticker to place on their recycling bin. If the sticker is placed properly on the bin and spotted by Recycle & Win Patrol, that resident wins a gift card to an area retailer.

“When you encourage them with a gift card and position enforcement, it works,” said Steele.

CCBCC has programs in several North Carolina communities, including Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, Kannapolis, Harrisburg, Concord, and Greenville.

Tony Romano, vice president of business development for Sonrai Systems,  an information technology company with a focus on retail backroom and building automation headquartered in Hanover Park, Ill., showed how accurate recycling data can be collected on carts with RFID tags. Collecting data from recycling carts can help cities identify areas within the community that are not recycling, he explained. Recycling can then be promoted to the areas of the community that have low recycling participation.

Romano also showed how census data can be overlaid on performance data from the RFID system to show the correlation between demographics such as income and recycling.

Les Evans, vice president, municipal partnerships for WasteZero, Raleigh, N.C., which has been implementing waste reduction programs for more than 20 years, discussed the pay-as-you-throw (PAYT) option that his company helps implement for municipalities.

He called garbage disposal, “the last unmetered utility,” adding, “Unmetered garbage is giving away a blank check to throw away whatever you want.”

With the WasteZero program, the more you recycle, the less you pay, he explained.

Finally, Matt Todd, senior consultant, Resource Recycling Systems, Ann Arbor, Mich., discussed the findings of a report his firm developed with assistance from SERDC and TDEC titled Characterization of Tennessee’s Recycling Economy, which provides insights into Tennessee’s current recycling economy, material flow and potential opportunities that could increase local government collection of key recyclable materials.

He told attendees that $180 million worth of recyclables are thrown away in Tennessee each year.

He discussed the state’s strategy around “hub and spoke,” which has identified the five population centers of Tennessee as the hubs with transfer stations within a 50-mile radius of the population centers serving as the spokes. The goal of this approach is to capture recyclables from rural areas and bring them to material recovery facilities in larger communities for processing.

It is a model that Todd said could serve as a model for other states.

Kristin Smith, a managing editor with the Recycling Today Media Group, moderated the session and fielded questions from the audience, many of which wanted to know if a combination of incentives and PAYT could further improve recycling rates. Steele and Evans agreed that it would.

 

The European-based paper company Norske Skog has announced that it will temporarily idle one of its paper machines at its Walsum paper mill in Germany by the second half of December. The company did not say how long it would idle the machine.

The company cites excess capacity in the coated mechanical paper market as the reason for the shutdown. The machine has an annual capacity of 225,000 metric tons. The mill’s second machine, which produces lightweight coated magazine paper, will continue to operate at the site. That machine has an annual capacity of 200,000 metric tons.

The company says the temporary idling of capacity is needed to bring supply and demand into balance, while avoiding unprofitable production at the mill. Sven Ombudstvedt, CEO and president of Norske Skog, says that despite years of great efforts of the staff to reduce costs, the decision is unfortunately unavoidable. The company adds that customers will be served from other Norske Skog mills and paper machines and all existing supply commitments will be honored.

Prices continue to be soft for most nonferrous metals, though lack of supply is a greater concern among scrap dealers.

After a fairly significant decline in pricing earlier this year for a number of nonferrous metals, including copper scrap and aluminum scrap, prices have stabilized as summer comes to a close. However, many scrap metal dealers say the bias in pricing is toward the downside during the next several months.

Market observers continue to look to the U.S. economy for clues as to which direction nonferrous metals markets may move through the end of 2013. The remaining uncertainty in the U.S. economy, particularly regarding the Federal Reserve’s next step, has kept prices from breaking out toward the upside.

Concerns about the possibility of the Federal Reserve pulling back its bond buying have created apprehension in metals markets. In anticipation of the change in fiscal policy, industrial metals markets have further softened. However, more recent economic figures, including a lackluster employment report and soft retail sales, may delay the expected changes to the Federal Reserve’s bond-buying policy and give some life to nonferrous metals markets.

While federal macroeconomic policies have a longer-term effect on markets for copper, aluminum and nickel/stainless, in the short term the challenge of finding enough material to meet orders is top of mind with scrap dealers. During the past six months, scrap metal dealers have said the lack of available scrap has created significant challenges.

Along with the uncertainty about the U.S. economy, many scrap metal dealers continue to watch China, which consumes 40 percent of the world’s copper.

Getting a handle on the relative health of the Chinese market continues to be a challenge for many scrap metal exporters. One market watcher says improving copper scrap orders to China have less to do with increased demand than with buyers in China who are covering supply shortages.

However, recent signs indicate that the Chinese economy may be improving. One Chinese government report, filed in early September, notes that the country’s industrial production has increased sharply in August compared with August 2012. Another report, published by China’s General Administration and Accounting Office, shows China’s exports increased 5.1 percent in August, topping expectations.

The aluminum sector, which also has been struggling over the past several quarters, is being affected by the continued oversupply of the metal on the global market. Even with a number of mill capacity shutdowns in the last year, too much aluminum capacity remains on the market.

Reflecting the longer-term structural challenges affecting aluminum, stocks on the London Metal Exchange stand at 5.35 million metric tons. While the figure is down slightly from the 5.5 million metric tons this summer, it is still so high that it likely will keep a lid on pricing.

Demand for aluminum, however, remains fairly healthy. The automotive sector remains one of the strong areas in the U.S. economy and a considerable consumer of aluminum. Despite this healthy end market, scrap recyclers say they do not see an overall upswing in aluminum pricing.

Sarah Dolinar of the New York City Department of Sanitation (at podium) updates attendees of WasteCon 2013 on New York City’s selection of a waste conversion technology. Susan Raila (at left) and Joe Murdoch (center) of HDR Inc. also participated in the discussion.

As New York City looks at its future waste management needs, waste conversion technologies are part of the equation. During the Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA) 2013 WasteCon conference in Long Beach, Calif., a technical session titled “New York City’s Waste Conversion Technology Pilot- is the Technology Ripe Enough for the Big Apple?” addressed where the city is at in the evaluation of technologies to handle the estimated 50,000 tons of waste and recyclables the city generates each day.

Sarah Dolinar, director of environmental review for New York City Department of Sanitation (DSNY), along with Susan Raila, project manager with the consulting firm HDR Inc., Omaha, Neb., brought attendees up to speed on the city’s past, present and future waste management strategies. Dolinar discussed how in the 1980s the city’s waste was handled within the city with five landfills, eight marine transfer stations and five incinerators, along with many apartment incinerators.

Dolinar said a waste-to-energy (WTE) project that took 11 years to evaluate was once proposed but was never built. And a proposal to build WTE facilities in each of the five boroughs was waylaid, she added. By the time 1996 came around, only one landfill, Fresh Kills, remained and it was scheduled to close in 2001. The city needed to come up with a new solid waste management plan (SWMP) for its waste handling. The key goals for DSNY’s SWMP for 2006-2025 included:

• Increase recycling and build a recycling processing facility in Brooklyn;
• End long-haul trucking and maximize exporting waste out of state via rail and barge;
• Develop containerized facilities for DSNY-managed waste in each borough;
• Stabilize costs through 20-year contracts; and
• Evaluate and build pilot plants for alternative municipal solid waste (MSW) technologies.

“It has taken us some time, but we are going through the final throes of implementation now,” said Raila.

Regarding the evaluation of alternative technologies for municipal solid waste, the proposed technology needed to meet certain criteria, including that it could not be conventional mass-burn WTE or refuse-derived fuel combustion. The requirements for a reference facility included that it have a minimum processing capacity of 20 tons per day and that the preferred feedstock be MSW.

HDR is assisting the evaluation committee. DSNY is currently in negotiations with two different vendors, reported Dolinar. She did not identify the companies but said that one of the proposals is for anaerobic digestion (AD) and the other is for gasification.

WasteCon 2013 was Sept. 17-19 at the Long Beach Convention Center in Long Beach.