We are recyclers; operations is in our DNA. CP Group has evolved with the recycling industry and has consistently been at the forefront of innovation. This is due in part to our roots in owning and operating a material recovery facility (MRF) for over 25 years. We don’t just manufacture machines, we engineer solutions based on our firsthand experience. We understand commodity issues, we understand downtime and we understand ever-changing material streams. We relate to our customers because we live it every day in our MRF. That is the CP Group difference.

Beginning as a buyer and seller of scrap metals, Charles M. Davis founded the company in 1954. In 1977, he invented the world’s first aluminum can flattener. Since then, the company has engineered, installed and serviced more than 450 MRFs on six continents.

In today’s world of rapidly evolving material streams and increasingly stringent commodity specifications, CP Group provides confidence and security to customers. Owning and operating a MRF for more than 25 years, CP Group continues to advance MRF design, ensuring the highest possible recovery rates at the lowest possible cost.

A Future-Proof Approach

Our experience operating a MRF and developing them for customers navigates our future-proof system design. A core tenet to accomplishing that lies in our design principles to fractionate, liberate and separate.

By effectively accomplishing each of these phases, we can deliver higher recovery and stronger throughput with lower operating costs. Our machines have the latest technology, allowing for effective and profitable plant operation.

The CP Auger Screen is a game-changing tool for MRFs to fractionate material. Used as a primary separator, it cost-effectively reduces the presort load by at least 60 percent. This reduces the labor needed for presort and allows sorters to focus on the “big uglies”—large trash, rigid plastics, wrapping hazards and metals. It also enhances worker safety by reducing exposure to sharps and other hazards in the smaller fraction. The secondary Auger Screen is built with low-wear technology, and it maintains reliable sizing at high volumes. These machines are there to protect the people, not the other way around.

Through effectively segregating inbound streams into like fractions, our systems accelerate material liberation, allowing for more pure commodities. Our high-amplitude rubber and steel disc screens agitate materials at higher throughputs to remove the fluffy, high-volume 2D material from the rigid 3D material in the commingled middle stream. These machines are the lowest maintenance screens in the industry, with unmatched disc longevity. It’s not uncommon for our rubber CPScreen and AWScreen discs to run 2,000 or even 3,000 hours. Our steel GlassBreaker and OCCScreen discs run tens of thousands of hours.

From there, materials are presented downstream for separation that maximizes production levels and delivers higher recovery rates and superior purity. Our MSS optical sorters have the fastest belt speeds with the most square-feet scanned per second in the industry. These wider belts have high production with 96 percent typical purity rates. The MSS CIRRUS FiberMax™ optical sorter represents a true solution to increase recovered fiber quality. As our customers faced a changing market for recovered paper, we combined our top-of-the-line sensing capabilities with increased conveyor speeds to deliver high production and greater quality.

This systematic perspective ensures that greenfield plants and the most complex retrofit projects are managed, designed and installed in a way that boosts our customers’ return on investment. We manufacture machines that are extremely durable with low maintenance requirements.

In-House Reliability

As the industry has changed, CP Group has improved along the way to stay ahead of the curve. All our equipment is engineered and manufactured in-house. We have complete oversight from machinery design to production all under one roof. Our goal is to provide customers with high-quality, durable and low-maintenance equipment.

Additionally, our research and development team keeps CP Group at the forefront of technology as material streams evolve and the need for new equipment emerges. Our continuous advancements are rapidly integrated into our systems because of efficient testing on-site and in our MRF.

Delivering successful plants and retrofits that exceed customer expectations is core to our success. CP Group’s headquarters in San Diego, California, has 115,000 square feet of manufacturing space, and our MSS optical sorting division in Nashville, Tennessee, has 46,000 square feet. We have the capacity and flexibility to adjust our manufacturing to the speed of any project.

By using automation and state-of-the-art manufacturing, we consistently and cost-effectively deliver superior quality machines. We work to eliminate customer pain points and focus on lowest cost-per-ton solutions.

The investment in our shop is an investment in our customers and our future. We take pride in our work, and we stand by our solutions.

Innovation for the Future

From the earliest days of designing can flatteners and densifiers, CP Group learned that innovation must deliver operational efficiency to add value for plant owners. This disciplined approach has guided our research and development work. CP Group holds more than 50 patents, each one curated to deliver operational value.

The future of mechanical screening maximizes sorting efficiency while minimizing cost. Our latest development is the patented CP Elliptical Auger Screen that adds aggressive agitation to the sorting process, fractionates the stream and then liberates the material. This can be used for primary and secondary sorting. That dual action earlier in the process enhances downstream separation.

We make sure to stay on the pulse of ingenuity for our industry by enhancing and fine-tuning our solutions. Our real-world experience combined with our tribal knowledge guide the CP Group team in delivering advanced sorting systems that work hard for our customers.

Learn more about our design principles and technology. Contact Ashley Davis, director of sales & marketing at the CP Group, at ashley@cpgrp.com.

Photo courtesy of Grupo Gondi

Grupo Gondi ramps up containerboard mill

COVID-19 caused delays, but Mexico City-based Grupo Gondi has reported that its new 400,000-metric-tons-per-year containerboard mill, fed with scrap paper, began producing its first rolls in January.

An early February article by Fastmarkets RISI notes the firm produced its first reel Jan. 5. The new Grupo Gondi mill and paper machine will make “lightweight linerboard and medium,” according to RISI.

The article also quotes Grupo Gondi CEO Eduardo Posada as saying, “Despite the challenges we faced due to COVID-19, we are going to market in a very favorable moment, when we see increased demand and lack of supply.”

He says much of the board produced likely will be sold in Mexico, but exports to the U.S., South America and China have been explored.

In a late January news release announcing the mill’s startup, Posada says, “With this new paper mill, we will be [able to produce] more than 1 million tons of recycled paper per year, [adding] the component of lightweight paper, balancing the equation between paper and packaging to become totally integrated.”

On its website, Grupo Gondi says it has seven mills in total, including a large complex in Guadalajara.

Scrap policy reset in China part of 2021 metals pricing landscape

The People’s Republic of China churns out more steel, aluminum and copper than any other nation on Earth, so if its scrap consumption percentage rises in 2021, the ripple effects are likely to be noticed.

A late February online presentation by Ian Roper and Joyce Li of Shanghai Metals Market (SMM) touched on scrap use in several of China’s base metals markets, along with other trends affecting the nation’s output and use of steel, stainless steel, aluminum and copper.

© Christian Lagereek / dreamstime.com

For the past two years, China’s government was known for the barriers it was putting in place on imported scrap, with the clock ticking on a proposed outright ban for seemingly all types of metal and nonmetallic scrap Jan. 1 of this year.

The Chinese government ultimately decided against the self-imposed blockade. Instead, the nation set up a system that resulted in the return of considerable amounts of imported copper and aluminum scrap in the final two months of 2020, and the delivery of the first few shipments of ferrous scrap under a new “resource” classification.

Li said China is far from self-sufficient in copper, with its “self-sufficiency rate” having dropped from 40 percent in 2010 to 22 percent in 2019. The restrictions on imported scrap in 2019 and 2020 thus led to increased copper cathode and aluminum ingot imports into China by mid-2020.

Although scrap import volumes rebounded in November and December, Roper said red metal scrap imports into China dropped by about 300,000 metric tons in 2020. He said SMM expects a rebound in scrap imports in 2021, though it could be at the types of high prices that caused metals theft to become a problem in North America and Europe in 2012.

In the ferrous market, Chinese steel producers seem to be gravitating toward electric arc furnaces (EAFs) and other technology designed to lower emissions and to consume more scrap.

Even if Chinese producers import about 1 million metric tons of scrap in 2021, Roper said that is an amount that will make an impact in a region where mills in nations like Vietnam are bidding for the same scrap. The main effect, he said, could be “to lift global and regional steel scrap prices.”

Roper also said stainless steel, not electric vehicle (EV) batteries, was the biggest driver of nickel consumption in China in 2020. He said stainless producers in 2021 likely will be supplied by growing volumes of Indonesian nickel-pig iron and thus will have a limited appetite for scrap.

On the EV front, Roper said lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) batteries are beginning to gain market share in passenger vehicles in China compared with ternary nickel, manganese and cobalt (NMC) battery packs. It is one reason, he said, SMM thinks nickel pricing EV euphoria “could be overdone at the moment.”

A question underlying all 2021 scrap purchase levels in China is the fate of that nation’s overall metals consumption strength in 2021. While China’s government spent money in 2020 to roar back from COVID-19, by August it was meeting with property developers to deliver a message about “three red lines” (debt-to-cash, debt-to-assets and debt-to-equity ratios deemed too high to cross).

Roper, who is based in Singapore, cited the “three red lines” policy on property loans as a potential barrier to steel consumption. Li, while considering copper’s consumption outlook in 2021, said China may have ended its “golden decade” of rampant apartment construction.

In both sectors, infrastructure spending could provide an alternative pathway to more metals consumption. However, Roper said he does not see “big infrastructure spending” as likely in China in 2021, though one “pocket of [metals] consumption” will involve urban subway and metro system build-outs.

Sims buys US aluminum processor

Alumisource provides raw material inputs to the aluminum industry in the form of custom shredded and blended aluminum scrap, according to its website, www.alumisource.net. “Through careful sourcing, inspection and processing, we are able to provide a unique aluminum scrap alternative that can be used as feedstock in either reverb or rotary furnaces,” the website says.

The company also supplies the steel industry with raw materials for artificial slag conditioners, deoxidation and desulphurization products.

Alumisource is based in Monessen, Pennsylvania, which is 30 miles south of Pittsburgh, and operates a plant in Richmond, Kentucky, about 30 miles south of Lexington, Kentucky. Both plants have rail access, multiple truck loading docks and certified 70-foot truck scales, according to the company’s website.

The net increase in Sims’ North American metal division’s nonferrous retail sales volumes is forecast to be approximately 33,000 metric tons as a result of the purchase. Sims Metals’ nonferrous retail volumes were 140,000 metric tons in the 2020 fiscal year.

Alistair Field, CEO and managing director of Sims, says, “I’m pleased to achieve this key milestone toward delivering our strategic targets and growing nonferrous retail volumes in North America. Major aluminum customers in the United States continue to seek product that is suitable for direct charging. Alumisource meets these needs by providing ‘in-spec’ furnace-ready product in an automated and safe manner.”

Field says Alumisource’s founder and CEO Gabe Hudock will continue to manage the acquired company for a minimum of three to five years. He adds, “Sims has a longstanding relationship with Alumisource, and I know the culture that Gabe has cultivated around safety and sustainability fits well with our overall culture and our focus on safety.”

According to a transcript prepared by Seeking Alpha of Sims’ Q2 2021 earnings call, Field said the purchase “is a great step forward to increasing our volumes of processed nonferrous products.” He added that the purchase gives Sims the ability to directly supply its aluminum smelting customers. “And that’s a really key step for us. So, I think, the processing skill set that we’ve acquired but also the growth potential is really what we’ve been seeking.”

M.A.R.S. celebrates 50 years of recycling and demolition activity

Dwight “Butch” Caton Sr., the founder and sole owner of Louisiana-based Modern American Recycling Services Inc. (M.A.R.S.), says he is proud to be celebrating both 50 years in business and his five appearances on Inc. magazine’s list of fastest-growing privately held companies since 2009.

Photo courtesy of M.A.R.S.

M.A.R.S. was founded in 1971 with a mission to provide quality demolition and recycling services to customers seeking oil rig decommissioning and dismantling and large-scale recycling “of all types of vessels” while protecting the environment, according to the company.

M.A.R.S. says it has recycled nearly 10 million tons of offshore oil and gas structures and salvaged more than 10,000 barges, plus “hundreds of ships of various sizes,” since it was established.

The company has grown from five people based in Ohio and Alabama to 350 associates in the Gulf Coast region, where it has had its headquarters in Gibson, Louisiana, for the past 30 years.

In addition to its Gibson headquarters, M.A.R.S. has facilities in Mobile, Alabama; Jacksonville, Florida; Houma and Waggaman, Louisiana; Pascagoula, Mississippi; and its first overseas facility in Frederikshavn, Denmark.

M.A.R.S. says its European business unit employs 85 people with the potential to grow to more than 300 employees with the help of an international sales team based in the Netherlands.

“While the company’s services and operations have expanded, our underlying principles have remained constant,” M.A.R.S. says.

Looking back at its 50 years in business and its motto, “Recyclers Who Care About Your Future,” the company says its management team and employees “are committed to quality, safety and preserving the natural environment.”

Butch Caton adds that he and his wife, Kristi Caton, would like to thank all the company’s associates and clients “for trusting them with their recycling needs over the past 50 years.”

Photo courtesy of Coca-Cola Co.

Coca-Cola debuts 100 percent rPET bottles in North America

The Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Co. says several of its “trademark brands,” including Coke, Diet Coke and Coke Zero Sugar, debuted a 13.2-ounce bottle made from 100-percent-recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) in the United States in February. The bottles are available initially in California, Florida and select states in the Northeast, “with other sparkling beverage brands following this summer,” the soft drinks producer says.

“Challenges around plastic packaging waste and recycling continue to be top of mind for our consumers, customers and our system,” says Alpa Sutaria, vice president and general manager of sustainability for Coca-Cola’s North America operating unit. “Introducing 100-percent-recycled PET bottles is a big proof point of how recycling can help create a circular economy.”

The global company has introduced 100-percent-rPET bottles in other parts of the world, including in Norway in 2020 and the Netherlands. The U.S. is the 19th market to use rPET in bottles, Coca-Cola says.

In North America, Coca-Cola says it has additional plans to use rPET that include 20-ounce bottles that began to be distributed in California, New York and Texas in February; the debut of 100-percent-rPET Dasani and Smartwater water bottles in select states beginning in March and July, respectively; and the launch of a 13.2-ounce fully rPET clear bottle for Sprite in select regions that started in February.

“All Sprite packaging will transition to clear packaging, which is easier to be recycled and remade into new bottles, by the end of 2022,” the company has announced.

Combined, the efforts represent a 20 percent reduction in Coca-Cola’s use of new plastic within its North American portfolio compared with 2018.

The company at times has been singled out by anti-plastic waste advocates as having its brand attached to considerable volumes of improperly discarded plastic packaging. The February announcement about the rPET bottles was met with skepticism by Washington-based Greenpeace.

“While transitioning to recycled content helps to eliminate the need for some new fossil fuel plastic, it does not do nearly enough to end the cycle of plastic production and pollution,” says Greenpeace USA Senior Plastics Campaigner Kate Melges. “Since the 1970s, these consumer goods giants have joined with the fossil fuel industry to use recycling as justification to continue relying on polluting plastics. If Coke wants to make real news, it should announce that it is finally ending its reliance on plastics altogether.”

Visit www.RecyclingToday.com/article/coca-cola-recycled-content-initiatives-us to hear more from Sutaria on the initiative.

APR reports growth in PCR demand

The Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR), Washington, says its Recycling Demand Champions Campaign has generated more than 175 million pounds, or 87,500 tons, of new demand for postconsumer resin (PCR) in its third year.

When the Recycling Demand Champions Campaign launched in 2018, it increased PCR demand by 6.8 million pounds. In its second year, it increased PCR demand by 25.9 million pounds, the association says.

“We are thrilled with the growth we have experienced over the past year, particularly during the challenges the world faced in 2020,” Ali Briggs- Ungerer, APR director of market development, says. “While the crisis caused by the pandemic rages on, many big name-brand companies that had previously announced great initiatives to use more PCR in their products scaled back their sustainability goals. The companies participating in the APR Recycling Demand Champions Campaign are true leaders,” she adds.

The APR says the level of demand increase seen in 2020 resulted in major economic and environmental benefits, including the prevention of greenhouse gas emissions that are equal to driving 45,494 passenger vehicles for one year, the creation of 2,000 jobs in plastics recycling and providing a new life for a year’s worth of all of the plastic recyclables collected from a city the size of Chicago.

“Creating new market demand, which is essential to the success of plastics recycling, is a key focus for APR,” says Steve Alexander, APR president and CEO. “Even in these rapidly changing times, some facts remain—a strong and effective recycling chain is of paramount importance to protecting the environment and achieving climate and economic sustainability.”