Cleveland-based InterGroup International Ltd., the flexible packaging and multilayer film recycler, has announced a program to help companies advance their “landfill-free” initiatives.

The Landfill-free in Three program sets targeted goals to bring flexible packaging converters and printers to landfill-free status within three years, according to InterGroup.

InterGroup International CEO Neil Gloger says, “Many companies have a sustainability goal or vision. It is good for everyone. Without a plan though, it is only a wish. What InterGroup does is turn this dream into a measurable reality.”

Gloger says InterGroup’s Landfill-free in Three brings all of a company’s stakeholders—brand owners; corporate management’ operations; finance; environmental, health and safety; and production staff—together to establish a baseline before implementing a plan designed to change behavior and report measurable results.

He says, “Working with a converter based in the Fox Valley in northeast Wisconsin, we were able, within 15 months, to bring them from sending three to four roll-off dumpsters per week to the landfill to only two in all of 2013.” Gloger adds, “The plant could not believe how much of what was going to the landfill could be recovered for value, and, frankly, we were surprised too.”

In another instance, for a convertor based in the mid-South, InterGroup diverted 2.5 million pounds per month from landfill. “That plant is not quite landfill free,” Gloger says. “We’ve been working with them for 30 months, and due to the sheer volume, we’ve gone one stream at a time but are well on track to hit our goal within the next six months.

“We’re asking people to change their behavior, to do something different, to get out of their comfort zone. The program can be sabotaged if buy-in is not achieved,” he says.

In some cases, there is a net cost to going landfill-free, InterGroup notes.

“Market conditions and mix of material have a big impact on value generation,” Gloger says. In certain instances, brand owners demand secure destruction of their packaging or the collection of material results in a commingled state that cannot be recovered for value. “We have resources to keep this material out of landfill,’ Gloger says, “but there is a cost.”

InterGroup provides an online dashboard to track waste and recyclables throughout a client’s locations. “This level of granularity is key to our approach,” Gloger says. “We believe it will not only help companies in their landfill-free scorecard reporting, but will also cause a higher level of efficiency within the plant.”

Founded in 2006, InterGroup International buys, reprocesses and sells more than 16 million pounds per month of postindustrial material.
 

Scrap Metal Services (SMS), a Chicago-based metals recycling firm, has acquired Paul’s Auto Yard Inc. and Shafer’s Auto Yard Inc. Following the acquisitions, SMS created a new division called SMS Paul’s Auto Yard.

The new division has eight self-service auto parts yards that include retail sales operations. The yards also purchase ferrous and nonferrous scrap.

SMS says the purchase of the auto recycling facilities will allow the company to expand its geographic reach in the Midwest into northern Indiana and southern Michigan. The aut parts division locations are in South Bend, Gary, Westville, Lake Station, Elkhart and Demotte, Ind.; and Coloma, Mich.

“This is a new retail service business for SMS, which allows our company to further diversify and strategically expand our recycling operations in the Midwest," says Jeffry Gertler, CEO of SMS.

Paul Shafer, president of Paul’s Auto Yard Inc., says, “We are pleased to be able to join SMS at this time and look forward to continued growth of our auto parts and recycling business as an important new segment for SMS.”

With the purchase, SMS now operates 20 scrap processing, steel mill support services, ship breaking and oil rig dismantling, intermodal/truck/railcar dismantling and auto parts sales facilities in the United States. The company also has two scrap processing facilities in Mexico.

SMS provides full-service scrap management, consulting and purchasing services to industrial scrap generators and demolition contractors on a local and national basis.

William Guptail, a 46-year employee of General Kinematics Corp. (GK), Crystal Lake, Ill., has officially announced his retirement.

William Guptail

Guptail, who spent much of his career focusing on the scrap and C&D recycling sectors, was inducted into Construction & Demolition Recycling Association's (CDRA's ) C&D Recycling Hall of Fame in 2013.

According to GK, Guptail started his involvement in the recycling industry in the early 1980s. “His involvement in construction and demolition [recycling] was an outgrowth of his work in the waste-to-energy industry, where companies were looking for opportunities to recover various commodities from the construction and demolition waste stream,” the company states in a news release.

Guptail started his career with GK as an engineer, but his “innate mechanical curiosity, hands-on approach and amiable personality helped him to move along to positions of sales engineer, industry sales manager and his most recent position of director of recycling,” says GK.

Guptail pioneered and patented several innovations into C&D sorting systems, according to GK, including:

• The primary Finger-ScreenTM for size separation designed to provide recovery rates of from 40 to 60 percent;
• The secondary B-line for fines, which could improve recovery rates to beyond 70 percent;
• The vibratory Destoner® for density separation, designed to bring recovery rates beyond 80 percent;
• Modified internal design changes of the Destoner® for enhanced separation; and
• Near Zero Dust Control using recirculating air to minimize dust emissions.
   

Much of Guptail’s other work and research focused on mechanical sorting techniques for use in downstream automobile shredding applications.

“The General Kinematics core philosophy of combining innovative technologies with production process insight and creativity to deliver the highest quality equipment and solutions in the industry is demonstrated by Bill’s career and commitment to seek improvements through design changes in more than 50 C&D sorting facilities across the United States, Canada and Europe,” says GK.

General Kinematics manufactures vibratory equipment for the processing of bulk materials for the foundry, mining and bulk processing industries.