The electronics recycling company FCM Recycling Inc., headquartered in Lavaltrie, Quebec, has announced that all six of its Canadian operating units have been certified to the R2 (Responsible Recycling Practices) Standard. Orion Register Inc., a Denver-based full-service auditing company, conducting the audits.

R2 certification is a collaborative partnership between the public, private and nonprofit sectors and is administered by SERI, Boulder, Colorado. The R2 Standard is a set of voluntary principles and guidelines designed to promote and assess responsible practices for electronics recyclers.

FCM says it is the first national Canadian recycler to have all of its facilities R2 certified. The company’s electronics recycling facilities are in Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia.

“Completing the R2 certification is a major milestone for FCM. Our dedicated team of managers and employees did a great job in completing all the requirements of R2 and ISO in a relatively short time frame,” says Andrew Rubin, president of FCM Recycling. “Having both R2 and RQO (Recycler Qualification Program) certification along with ISO 14001 and OSHAS 18001 covering five facilities and six operating divisions, as well as ISO 9001 at our Quebec head office, is a clear indication of our dedication to responsible and ethical recycling in Canada.”

FCM Recycling was formed in 1994 as a metals recycling facility with a single location in Montreal. Over the years FCM Recycling shifted its focus to electronics recycling operations.

FCM also operates a plastic recycling facility to process the various plastics recovered in the electronics recycling process.

The Austria-based equipment company Andritz  has received an order from the Pro-Gest Group, an Italy-based paper company, to deliver a complete waste paper processing plant and approach system for its new paper machine in Mantova, Italy.

Andritz will deliver the old corrugated container (OCC) line for the top ply product; a mixed waste line for the back ply; a paper machine approach system including Shortflow Deaeration; and the broke handling, fiber recovery and reject handling systems. The scope of supply includes engineering, erection supervision, start-up, commissioning and training. Start-up is scheduled for September 2017.

An Andritz release notes that the equipment it is supplying fits perfectly with Pro-Gest’s requirements for high-speed paper production. When fully operational the paper machine is targeted to produce 550,000 metric tons of fluting per year, and the product will be made from 100 percent recovered fibre.

Pro-Gest is a vertically integrated producer of packaging in corrugated board, active in all fields, from the collection of raw materials to packaging production. The company has 22 production sites and employs more than 1,000 people. The group includes an integrated tissue manufacturing division, which features a full range of high quality products.

A new study by the environmental research group Trucost, London, commissioned by the American Chemistry Council  (ACC), Washington, D.C., finds that the environmental cost of using plastics in consumer goods and packaging is nearly four times less than it would be if plastics were replaced with alternative materials.

The Trucost study based its findings on natural capital accounting methods, which measure and value environmental impacts such as consumption of natural water and emissions to air, land and water, which are not typically factored into traditional financial accounting.

The study, titled Plastics and Sustainability: A Valuation of Environmental Benefits, Costs, and Opportunities for Continuous Improvement, builds on earlier research by comparing the environmental costs of using plastics to alternative materials and identifying opportunities to help lower the environmental costs of using plastics in consumer goods and packaging.

“Although alternative materials such as glass, tin, aluminum and paper are viable alternatives to plastic in many consumer goods applications, they have higher environmental costs in the quantities needed to replace plastic. Trucost estimates that substituting plastic in consumer products and packaging with alternatives that perform the same function would increase environmental costs from $139 billion to a total of $533 billion. In most cases the environmental cost per kilogram of alternative material is less than that of plastic. However, on average over four times more alternative material is needed (by weight) to perform the same function.

For example, a typical plastic soft drink bottle contains 30 grams of plastic. But if replaced by a weighted average mix of alternative materials currently used in the market, an equivalent capacity bottle would require 141 grams of alternative materials such as glass, tin or aluminum in the United States. Extrapolating to the entire consumer goods sector, more than 342 million metric tons of alternative material would be needed to replace the 84 million metric tons of plastic used in consumer products and packaging in 2015.

The study also concluded that the environmental costs of alternative materials can be lower per ton of production, but are greater in aggregate due to the much larger quantities of material needed to fulfill the same purposes as plastics.

In addition, the report’s authors recommend steps to help further reduce plastics’ overall environmental costs, such as by increasing the use of lower-carbon electricity in plastics production, adopting lower-emission transport modes, developing even more efficient plastic packaging and increasing recycling and energy conversion of post-use plastics to help curb ocean litter and conserve resources.

“We are very excited to present Plastics and Sustainability, the largest natural capital study ever conducted for the plastics manufacturing sector,” says Libby Bernick, senior vice president North America for Trucost. “This report provides the clearest picture to date of the relative costs and benefits of plastics compared to alternative materials as well as important opportunities to enhance the environmental performance of using plastics in consumer goods.”

“We now have a fuller picture of the environmental benefits of using plastics,” notes Steve Russell, vice president of plastics for the ACC, which commissioned the study. “From lighter, more fuel-efficient cars to smart packaging that helps our favorite foods last longer, our industry is committed to ongoing innovations that will advance sustainability across major market sectors and the globe.”

"Now is an exciting time for plastics and for sustainability. Emerging economies around the world are creating opportunities for more people to have access to health and hygiene products, good nutrition and the things that help us get more out of life. Making smart choices about what we produce and how we produce it will benefit people and the planet,” Russell adds.

“By leading in innovation and performance, the world’s plastics industry has demonstrated its ongoing commitment to help create a more sustainable future,” says Jeff Wooster, global sustainability director for Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics and chair of ACC’s Packaging Team. “This report provides a new tool to explore opportunities to further enhance plastics’ environmental performance with brand owners, shippers, recyclers and other value chain partners.”

The Temple (Texas) Daily Newsreports that the city of Temple has failed to meet certain criteria set by the its recycling contract with Austin-based Balcones Resources. 

The contract, enacted in 2014, requires the city to average 12.5 percent or less of nonrecyclables in the loads Balcones transports to its Austin material recovery facility (MRF) for processing by October 2015 or the revenue sharing between the two parties would have to be adjusted. The city has not maintained this percentage, according to Lisa Sebek, director of solid waste services for the city, who spoke with the newspaper.  

“The city has averaged 20 percent for nonrecycled materials,” Lisa Sebek told the newspaper. “The largest percentage of nonrecyclables includes glass, plastic bags and shrink wrap.” 

A new amendment to the contract adjusts the revenue share agreement, which will be retroactive to June 1, 2016, and requires the city to pay Balcones $79 for every ton received, the article says. The city would then receive 51 percent of the revenue from the sale of recyclables. Under the terms of the current agreement, The Temple Daily News reports, Balcones pays the city $5 for every ton of recyclables delivered to its facility.

Sebek told the Daily News neighborhood meetings were held and information brochures distributed prior to the program’s implementation.

“We have spoken to various groups and civic organizations and would like to implement more of this,” Sebek told the Daily News. “Education is a continual effort to help keep everyone informed.”

Temple City Manager Jonathan Graham adds that the amendment is only a temporary solution. 

“What [Balcones] is proposing long term is that they continue to transport the recyclables to their facility, but that we eventually take over the bailing of the material,” Graham told the newspaper. “They are hoping to remain here, and we are hoping to find a way to make this work for everybody.” 

“They set up a nice curbside recycling program, and are not getting some of the volumes they’d hoped for,” Balcones cofounder Kerry Getter said.  “It has impacted the situation a bit, but for the most part, I think both parties are okay with where it is.