When it comes to making sure a product or a package is recyclable, there are many factors that come into play. During the session ‘Designing Products & Packaging for Recovery” on the third day of 2020 PPRCi, several industry experts shared their insight on the best strategies and methods to designing more sustainable products and packages for a more circular economy.

Following guidelines

First to speak during the session was CEO and President of the Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR) Steve Alexander. He sat down with Recycling Today editor DeAnne Toto to discuss the guidelines APR has in place for companies when it comes to designing for recycling.

“It’s really come about over time and it’s transitioned over time,” Alexander said. “We meet every week to review new packaging that’s in the marketplace, new innovations in the marketplace, to make sure the design guide is actually reflecting what’s in the market.”

Alexander said changes are constant and some companies may think they’re taking the right steps but may not be, so it’s important to reevaluate.

“You think you’re doing the right thing,” he said. “Years ago, you could not put orange juice in a PET package, so it was in glass and there was a lot of breakage and spillage. Then the technology created a nylon barrier that you could put into a PET container so you could then use it for orange juice. What they found is once that got into the stream, that nylon barrier actually caused the recycling stream to yellow.”

Alexander added that companies are making sustainability goals, but it’s important that policy matches what’s happening so companies have something more concrete to strive for.

“You don’t ban plastic products, you’re always going to have a plastic product you have to deal with,” Alexander said. “We have to make sure we have the infrastructure to handle it properly, recycle it properly, so it has a second use.”

Maintaining sustainability

Second to speak during this session was Scott Byrne, assistant director of global sustainability with Sonoco, who had just joined the company a few weeks before speaking during 2020 PPRCi.

“We have these different product streams and we’re working in different ways throughout all of them,’ Byrne said. “On the paper side, one of the things we’re looking at is increasing the fiber content in a lot of our products.”

Byrne added that making these changes, to both plastic and paper products and packages, could make consumers recognize items as more recyclable, which could improve sustainability as a whole.

“There’s certainly a lot of challenges facing packaging and recycling,” he said.

One innovation that Sonoco is working on is black PET trays that aren’t recognizable by optical sorters in Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs) and to look at how coloring and other factors could make those trays recognizable.

“Sustainability, is not, in and of itself, a term,” he said, adding that there are just attributes of packaging that make something more sustainable.

The benefits of designing for recycling

The last speaker during this session was Bret Biggers, an economist with the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI). He shared his thoughts on designing for recycling with Recycling Today senior editor Brian Taylor and how ISRI started that initiative a few decades ago.

ISRI hands out awards each year to companies that excel in designing their products or packaging for recycling and said it’s important to reward companies for making those steps to improve recyclability and sustainability.

“Samsung’s an award winner, Dell’s and award winner, and they’re creating products, electronic products, that meet this goal from the beginning,” Biggers said. “Whereas 35 years ago, many electronics were not recyclable, many components were not recyclable, but now it’s even more recyclable.”

Biggers added that it’s important to look at all commodities as well, not just paper or plastic, because all commodities have room to improve their recyclability.

“ISRI does believe in using the established recycling markets and recycling infrastructure, with innovations,” Biggers said, speaking about plastic. “There’s new coatings, there’s new adhesives, there’s new inks. There’s going to be new materials and as manufacturers start looking at recycling as a piece of their equation for their product or package, they can adjust from the beginning.”

The steel industry in India has entered 2021 with output figures that are showing healthy growth and production that has exceeded year-ago output.

New Delhi-based Steel Authority of India Ltd. (SAIL) says it “achieved the best ever quarterly production of hot metal, crude steel and saleable steel” in the quarter ending Dec. 31, 2020, which is the third quarter of its 2021 fiscal year.

The company says it produced 4.37 million metric tons of crude steel, representing 9 percent growth over the same time frame in 2019. SAIL’s 4.8 million metric tons of hot metal made in late 2020 was 12 percent more than it made in the comparable quarter in the 2019 calendar year.

“During this financial year, the company has continuously enhanced its production volumes,” says Smt. Soma Mondal, chair of SAIL. “The first quarter was impacted due to the onset of the pandemic but gradually we have scaled up our performance by enhancing the volumes. It is heartening that pre-COVID levels have already been reached and the production has grown over [the comparable quarter the previous fiscal year],” she adds.

“The consistent growth reflects that SAIL is poised to grow steadily in future," she continues. “The domestic steel consumption has a positive outlook as the economy is reviving and all sectors have started to pick up. We are confident of seizing the unfolding opportunities in the steel market.”

A Jan. 10 online article by the New Delhi-based Business Standard lists SAIL as one of four India-based producers—along with Jindal Steel and Power (JSPL), JSW Steel, SAIL and Tata Steel India—that “jointly produced 14.95 million metric tons of steel in the October-December quarter of the current fiscal year, registering a 6 percent year-on-year rise.”

SAIL exceeded that average with its 9 percent growth, while Mumbai-based Tata Steel India was the single-largest producer in the timeframe, with 4.6 million metric tons of output in the quarter.

Fort Mill, South Carolina-based Domtar Corp. says it has entered into an agreement to sell its Personal Care business unit to New York-based American Industrial Partners (AIP) for $920 million. Domtar says the sale is a way of “reinforcing its focus on building an industry-leading paper, pulp and packaging company.”

In a press release announcing the sale, Domtar refers to it as the “culmination of a process announced on Aug. 7, 2020, during which the company undertook a comprehensive strategic review of value-creating alternatives for the business.” The company’s Personal Care Unit focuses on “designing and manufacturing high-quality absorbent hygiene products for adults, babies and children,” according to the Domtar website.

“The sale is an important component of our strategic plan and will provide us with additional capital and resources to strengthen and invest in the future of Domtar, leading to a more focused business portfolio,” says John D. Williams, president and CEO of Domtar. “We are making solid progress with the conversion of the Kingsport, Tennessee mill, and are excited about the prospects for building a large, value-added packaging business. We expect construction to officially begin at Kingsport in the second quarter of 2021, setting the stage for the completion of North America’s premier lightweight containerboard facility, with the ability to produce and market approximately 600,000 tons of high-quality recycled linerboard and corrugated medium, by the end of 2022.”

Domtar, which also has an executive office in Montreal, says it is executing a strategic plan to enter the containerboard market “with highly competitive assets and a differentiated go-to-market strategy.” The Kingsport conversion provides the company with what it calls “a strategic entry point” to build up to a 2.5 million tons-per-year business and become a long-term strategic supplier to the packaging industry.

The company says its containerboard growth plans will coincide with maintaining what it calls “secure and stable cash flow” through its paper and pulp businesses. Domtar makes office, printing and specialty paper at what it calls low-cost mills that generate “attractive returns even in the most challenging environments.” The company says it intends to continue to produce pulp focused on “segments with the highest growth profiles, including the hygiene, tissue and towel markets.”

Morgan Stanley & Co. is acting as financial advisor and New York-based Debevoise & Plimpton LLP as legal advisor to Domtar. Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. and Barclays are acting as financial advisors and Ropes & Gray LLP and Baker Botts LLP are acting as legal advisors to AIP.

Excavators and hydraulic material handler attachments used by demolition contractors and recyclers have always had a variety of functions, but this century has witnessed an increase in attachments that can serve as “mini” processing plants.

At the 2020 ConExpo-Con/Agg event held in Las Vegas in March, several existing and newly introduced attachments with processing capabilities were on display.

Several exhibiting companies also focused on product features designed to help hydraulic material handler users change out their attachments more easily, or upgrade the hydraulic systems that provide power to processing and cutting attachments.

As project managers and contractors consider how to cost-effectively crush, grind, screen and chew through material on-site, they increasingly have options that allow them to do so using only an excavator, its operator and a custom-designed processing attachment.

Attention, very much wanted

At ConExpo 2020, Engcon, a Swedish company with American headquarters in North Haven, Connecticut, said the display of its tiltrotator technology for excavator attachments attracted some 10,000 visitors.

The company says its tiltrotator is a component often described as a flexible wrist between the arm of the excavator and its attachments, enabling an excavator to rotate a bucket or other attachment 360 degrees and tilt it up to 45 degrees.

The Engcon technology also was featured at other OEM booths, including those of Doosan, Hyundai, John Deere and Kobelco. The tiltrotator was attached to a variety of excavation equipment, enabling attendees to see the technology live in action or demo it themselves at the Engcon exhibit area.

“Thousands of ConExpo attendees were able to demo the Engcon tiltrotator,” says Krister Blomgren, CEO of Engcon. “We have received a lot of praise for letting customers test drive an excavator with our tiltrotator technology—a fun element for the visitors and a great way to get a deeper understanding of how the tiltrotator is changing the world of digging.”

In addition to digging with buckets, the Engcon tiltrotator also can be outfitted with grapples, rippers, asphalt cutters, pallet forks and sweeping brooms, says the company.

McDonough, Georgia-based HydrauliCircuit Technology (HCT) is focusing on the hydraulic power needed to efficiently operate the world’s growing fleet of attachments.

Greg Hickman of HCT says the company manufactures extreme-duty auxiliary hydraulic kits (also known as “wet kits”) to operate virtually any attachment on excavators ranging between 8 to 120 metric tons in size.

Hickman cites shears and multi-function processors (with or without rotate motors), including crushers and breakers, as the types of attachments that can see operating benefits with a wet kit. “Other attachments may include grapples (with or without rotate motors), thumbs and quick couplers,” he comments.

HCT technology is based on the company’s modular design. Hickman adds, “We can add or subtract certain kit functions that the customer may or may not be interested in.”

He continues, “HCT consults with the excavator and attachment manufacturers and distributors on a regular basis to keep up with the many excavator models and machine series [on the market]. Our measure of success is providing our customers with well-fitted kits that are easy to install, and where the customer gets the maximum allowable performance that the machine and attachment was designed [for].”

Wet kits from HCT are designed to make field installation not only possible, but seamless, says Hickman. He says, “Most HCT kits are based on actual in-house installations performed at our 35,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in McDonough.” Hickman adds that “HCT has professionally trained product support technicians that provide best-in-class after-sale support to our customers who are installing or servicing our kits.”

Atlanta-based Geith is another manufacturer of excavator and material handler attachments that focused on coupler technology at ConExpo 2020, where it debuted its G4 quick coupler.

“Geith’s design and manufacturing teams produce couplers that work extremely well with excavators,” says Adrian Kelly, sales manager for Geith. “We brought 60 years of experience and expertise to this new coupler, and the result is one of the safest, most productive couplers on the market, with superior durability.”

The G4 includes a variable pin center design created to allow operators to easily pick up and swap a wide range of OEM attachments. Additionally, the coupler can reverse buckets to allow the operator to excavate against walls and under pipes.

Geith says the G4’s multi-pin pickup system has been designed to provide easy pickup of attachments with different pin diameters, creating efficiencies when changing attachments. The configuration also allows operators to change attachments without leaving their cabs.

“As always, we’re focused on safety,” says Kelly. “As we design new products, we look for ways Geith attachments can make a job site safer. The G4 continues that tradition.”

Versatility on display

Among the processing attachments new or emerging in 2020 are bucket crushers from Sweden-based Epiroc, which has a U.S. office in Broomfield, Colorado.

The company says its bucket crushers “combine low maintenance and high performance while processing a wide range of materials, including aggregate, asphalt and concrete.” Bucket crushers allow contractors to increase the versatility of carriers, especially on demolition, recycling and road construction applications, according to Epiroc.

“The attachments feature powerful components that allow carrier operators to crush as much as 110 tons of material per hour,” states the firm, pointing to a drive system that contains two hydraulic motors and a timing belt designed to “generate the high torque needed for powering the crushing jaw.”

Epiroc also says its internally mounted drive system eliminates protruding components to minimize the risk of dust entering the hydraulic system and to protect key components from flying debris. “Additionally, operators can control the diameter of the crushed materials by easily adjusting the jaw outlet without any special tools,” states the firm.

Another Sweden-based firm focusing on versatility is Brokk Inc., which has a North American office in Monroe, Washington. Brokk, which manufactures remote-controlled demolition machines, also has introduced the BCP planer attachment for what it calls “controlled material removal on walls, floors and ceilings for cleaning, renovation and restoration applications.”

The three models in the BCP series are designed to work with the company’s remote-control demolition machines “and offer up to seven times the speed of handheld options while providing greater precision and safety for grinding, brushing or removing concrete, glue, carpet, tile and other materials,” Brokk says.

“With the BCP planer, our customers can tackle more jobs in more industries with confidence,” says Lars Lindgren, president of Brokk. “The attachment streamlines removal applications by eliminating the need for bulky scaffolding and additional manpower and offers a degree of precision that handheld options just can’t match.”

The Finland-based Allu Group, which has a North American office in East Brunswick, New Jersey, displayed its new Transformer line of screener crusher attachments, which feature the company’s new TS blade structure designed to “transform unusable dirt, construction waste and green waste into valuable material, ultimately transforming the way contractors and producers work.”

According to Allu, the TS blades inside an Allu TS drum “spin between screening combs.” The resulting end product size is defined by the space between those combs, says the company, “and now an updated Allu TS blade structure has been developed that delivers increased levels of versatility, efficiency and productivity.”

The new TS assembly enables a greater number of fragment sizes from the same unit, says the company. “The single-blade setup positions two or three blades in a single position, with a screening comb between every blade. Operators can now double or even triple the blades and combs, allowing up to three times more fragment size variations from 8 millimeters up to 105 millimeters.”

Allu says its Transformer line of attachments works with wheel loaders, excavators, skid steers and backhoes “to screen, crush, pulverize, aerate, blend, mix, separate, feed and load materials all in one stage—increasing an operation’s efficiency and profitability.”

The number of companies devoting research and investment into making attachments more productive is likely to convince demo contractors and materials recyclers that their industry is gaining the right kind of attention.

This article originally ran in the Nov. Dec. issue of Construction & Demolition Recycling. The author is a senior editor with the Recycling Today Media Group and can be contacted at btaylor@gie.net.