Ingram Micro Commerce & Lifecycle Services, a provider of supply chain management based in Irving, California, has announced the opening of an information technology asset disposition (ITAD) processing center in Fairfield, New Jersey. The center is more than 100,000 square feet and replaces one of the company’s smaller operations in Pine Brook, New Jersey.

“We continue to grow alongside the needs of our clients, and opening a new facility of this size on the east coast is a big milestone,” says Todd Zegers, global vice president of ITAD and reverse logistics at Ingram Micro. “In addition to providing efficient, safe and secure technology disposition services, we look forward to serving clients in the region with depot and device lifecycle management services."

He continues, “Our clients continue to demand solutions that align to their corporate social responsibility goals. Investing in facilities that bring us closer to our clients reduces the environmental impact of logistics by shortening transportation miles.”

Ingram Micro’s ITAD and reverse logistics network spans 28 facilities globally, including North America, Central America, South America, Europe and Asia.

A new report from Ameripen, the American Institute for Packaging and the Environment, and sustainability and recycling consulting firm Resource Recycling Systems (RRS) is designed to help state governments and other stakeholders establish or improve recycling market development centers.

According to “Best Practices for State Recycling Market Development Centers,” such a center is an “agency-led or third-party-led entity or program typically established and funded by state governments focused on facilitating growth within the recycling industry through market development activities.”

Bryce Hesterman, a consultant with Ann Arbor, Michigan-based RRS, says, “The concept of recycling market development centers is not new. In the early 1990s, state-led programs existed in North and South Carolina, Minnesota, New York and Washington. Now, with restricted export markets, advancement in related technology, expanding requirements for recycled content and increasing focus on creating domestic circular economies, there is a renewed interest in developing more of these centers.”

The best practices guide expands on four primary topics for developing a state recycling market development center:

• establishment, or the formal framework for the center;

• funding sources for operating and implementing the center;

• operations, or how the center is directed, staffed and governed; and

• programming, or the center’s activities and the supportive tools and resources.

“Ameripen was established on the premise of supporting sustainable solutions for the packaging value chain, including driving a circular economy,” Dan Felton, executive director of the St. Paul, Minnesota-based organization, says. “With an increasing number of companies setting voluntary recycling and recycled content goals, ensuring we have the systems in place to support these goals is essential to our success. Developing recycling end markets is key to that effort.”

Felton continues, “Our goal for the best practices guide is to assist governments and other stakeholders to advance the discussion and take action toward developing recycling market development centers that benefit the economy, communities and the environment.”

Several existing recycling market development programs in the U.S. provided insights into the development of the report that is available for free download on the Ameripen website at www.ameripen.org/page/state-market-development.

Ameripen and RRS plan to host a free webinar Oct. 20 to present key findings, discuss the impact of the report and discuss the value of recycling market development with some of the organizations that contributed to the report. Interested parties can register here at www.ameripen.org/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=1563954. 

The Women in Recycling (WIR) Council of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) has partnered with a Charleston, South Carolina, nonprofit East Cooper Community Outreach (ECCO) to pack and donate Thanksgiving meal bags to the local community. The event is scheduled for the Charleston Marriot following the final ISRI board of directors meeting Wednesday, Oct. 20, from 3 to 5 p.m. The Southeast Region Fall Convention is taking place at the same venue Oct. 19-23.

The charitable event consists of two parts: paper bag decorating to add a personal touch to the donations and canned food packing.

A variety of items will be packed, per the ECCO:

• canned corn (two);
• canned green beans (two);
• canned sweet potatoes/yams (two);
• white rice;
• boxed instant potatoes;
• gravy packets;
• cranberry sauce;
• stuffing mix;
• canned pie filling; and
• pie crust mix.

ECCO is scheduled to pick up the packed bags at 6 p.m. and will collect $25 gift cards to Publix or Harris Teeter for each family to cover the cost of a turkey. 

Individuals who want to contribute to cover the cost of the turkeys can donate directly online at https://eccocharleston.charityproud.org/donate. Include "ISRIWIR" in the additional comments so donations can be tracked.   

Senbis Polymer Innovations B.V., a company based in the Netherlands that provides R&D services and produces sustainable polymers that are sold by Senbis Sustainable Products, has released a whitepaper that looks at how recycled PET (rPET) can be evaluated and modified into products that are fit for purpose.

The company notes that during PET production, product use and recycling, the quality of the polymer can deteriorate from thermal degradation, chemical and mechanical factors and the presence of contaminants.

The whitepaper describes mechanical and chemical recycling technologies and their associated challenges.

In mechanical recycling processes, rPET can contain solid and substance impurities that can affect quality, the company says. The whitepaper explains Senbis solutions to quantify the size distribution of solid particles in rPET by means of the Partisol (particles in solution) test, which dissolves the polymer matrix and flows it into a cuvette before using a microscope to detect particles can be detected down to 1 micrometer in size.

The Senbis filtration test enables PET converters to assess the effectiveness of removing solid impurities in rPET critical converting processes as the pressure increase from low-quality rPET could be twice that of high-quality rPET, the company says. In addition, Senbis says it can help to optimize rPET purification and polymer quality by solid-state polymerization.

Senbis also says it can perform fiber spinnability trials on rPET to compare virgin and rPET quality and spinning property performance on pilot and semi-industrial scales.

To request the white paper, email info@senbis.com.