HOBI International Inc., an electronics recycling company based in Batavia, Illinois, says life span extension of personal electronics and mobile devices can best be achieved if e-recyclers receive the assistance and cooperation they need from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and legislators.

Mack Trucks, Greensboro, North Carolina, has announced it is the first original equipment manufacturer (OEM) to evaluate Wrightspeed technology with a Class 8 refuse vehicle. This follows Mack’s showcasing of a Mack LR model truck retrofitted with the Wrightspeed Route 1000 powertrain at WasteExpo 2016, June 7-9 in Las Vegas. 

Designed as an alternative driveline, the Wrightspeed Route is a range-extended electric vehicle powertrain designed to reduce fuel consumption and vehicle maintenance costs.

Photo: Sutterstock

The Container Recycling Institute (CRI), Culver City, California, says a new Australian beverage container recycling program in the state of New South Wales is the largest example to date of the increasing focus on such programs to address marine debris concerns. CRI says that, according to the data, recycling programs of this type can reduce beverage container litter by 50 percent or more, providing significant benefits to our ocean ecosystems.

“We’ve long known that beverage container deposit systems help mitigate litter and the volume of materials dumped in landfills, but this new program indicates a growing recognition among policymakers that container deposit returns are one of the few proven methods to reduce plastic ocean debris,” CRI President Susan V. Collins says.

She references data from Washington-based Ocean Conservancy, which she says shows that a container deposit law in Hawaii cut the beverage container component of litter in half.

“We now have so much more research, knowledge and awareness of marine debris that governments can connect the dots, see how harmful these littered beverage containers can be, and take action,” Collins says.

With this in mind, CRI says, an Australian Senate committee report issued in April 2016 recommends that the government encourage its states and territories to implement container deposit programs to address marine plastic pollution.

Such pollution, besides spoiling shorelines, can kill seabirds and marine life, which mistake plastic items for food, CRI says. For ocean species not killed by these materials, the toxins in plastic they ingest make their way up the food chain, creating a risk for human seafood consumption. The Australian Senate committee says it is “concerned that there may be a looming health crisis associated with seafood consumption.”

If the problem remains unchecked, oceans may contain more plastics than fish by weight by 2050, according to a report produced by the World Economic Forum, Switzerland, and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, London. (CRI’s Collins was among the individuals consulted for the report.)

New South Wales plans to launch its beverage container recycling program in 2017, giving a 10-cent refund to consumers who return eligible beverage containers—a key element of the state’s goal to reduce litter volume by 40 percent by 2020, CRI says. New South Wales Premier Mike Baird said, “We are moving ahead with a container deposit scheme that will get bottles and cans off our streets and beaches and out of our waterways.”

The New South Wales program will cover the state’s 7.5 million residents and is expected to double its beverage container recycling rate to roughly 80 percent, CRI says. A container deposit plan in the works in Queensland, Australia, would reach an additional 4.8 million people, the state’s current population.

CRI says the initiative, once implemented, will help beverage container recycling programs reach two key international milestones:

• The number of people with access to container deposit systems internationally will top 300 million for the first time.
• The number reached by new programs since 2000 will increase to more than 100 million.

Countries with bottle deposit programs include the United States, Canada, Australia, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Croatia and Lithuania. In the United States alone, 90 million people have access to beverage container deposit recycling programs, CRI says, representing 28 percent of the nation’s population. Moreover, that 28 percent of the population accounts for 46 percent of the nation’s beverage container recycling, the organization says.

In addition to the possibility of reducing litter, marine debris and landfill expansion, CRI says bottle deposit programs can create recycling industry jobs, enable charitable groups and schools to raise money by collecting and returning containers and improve greenhouse gas emissions reductions associated with greater levels of high-value recycling.

Ireland-based Smurfit Kappa Group says it has completed an investment programme in its national depot network in the United Kingdom. The programme is “designed to save energy, increase the efficiency of its operations, improve worker safety and enhance customer experience,” says the company.

The work has included development of a new depot in Snodland; the installation of new balers at its Snodland, Blackburn and Glasgow depots; and an additional weighbridge in Nottingham to ease traffic flow into and out of the depot there.

The new Snodland depot in Kent is processing locally sourced paper and cardboard for recycling at the new Smurfit Kappa Townsend Hook mill on the same site, which operates a paper machine producing approximately 250,000 tonnes of containerboard material per year. The depot will also supply recycled paper grades not used at Townsend Hook to other mills. Smurfit Kappa Recycling has constructed the new depot on part of the mill site freed up by its redevelopment, installing a new HBC 120 baler by Bollegraaf in a new building the company says is designed to operate efficiently and safely.

Smurfit Kappa also has installed a second Bollegraaf HBC 120 baler at its Glasgow depot and a larger HBC 140 baler in Blackburn. Each sits at the heart of paper recycling facilities that have been redesigned to provide more efficient and safer working conditions with improved material flows. Locally collected paper and cardboard is made into compacted bales that are then ready for transportation to paper mills for recycling.

When the new balers are idle and waiting for new material, they automatically enter a power save mode after 180 seconds while remaining ready to restart at any time, leading to substantial power savings. As well as being quieter and more efficient, the new balers and their installation have also been designed to be as safe as possible.

The company says it also has invested heavily in a number of other health and safety improvements across its depot network in order to improve pedestrian and transport segregation. This has included the installation of new gates, A-Safe barriers, improved lighting and signage.

Traffic flow into and out of Smurfit Kappa Recycling’s Nottingham depot has also been transformed after the installation of the additional weighbridge. A safer and quicker route for vehicles to move through the depot has been made possible by siting the new weighbridge and exit on one side of the site away from the existing entrance weighbridge. Previously all vehicles had to use one weighbridge and a single entrance and exit.

“At Smurfit Kappa Recycling we are committed to sustainable development as we strive to enhance environmental performance, safety and customer service. This round of investment in the facilities at our Snodland, Glasgow, Blackburn, Nottingham, Birmingham and Tamworth depots is further evidence of this commitment,” says Paul Clarke, the company’s managing director.

Smurfit Kappa owns two paper mills in the U.K., in Birmingham and Snodland, which in a typical year reprocess around 500,000 tonnes of paper and cardboard, enabling the company to recycle as much paper-based packaging as it produces.

Globally, Smurfit Kappa has around 45,000 employees in approximately 370 production sites across 34 countries and with revenue of €8.1 billion in 2015. Those sites are located in 21 countries in Europe and 13 in the Americas, including in Latin America.