Corona is accepting plastic collected in cities and on the coast as payment for beer during the week of World Oceans Day as a way to protect paradise from marine plastic pollution. Hundreds of locations around the world are involved in the initiative, which include recycling machines, or reverse vending machines, in key retailers and popular bars in Mexico, Brazil, Italy, Spain and Colombia that will collect used beverage containers (UBCs).

Adrianna Lauricella, senior director of lifestyle at Alison Brod Marketing and Communications, says the plastic collected in the machines can be from anywhere. “The intention is to intercept as much plastic as possible before it reaches the beach,” she says. “The mechanics vary by country. In the countries where we are using recycling machines, they take plastic bottles and the coupon supplied can be exchanged for a Corona at many bars and retailers. Parley for the Oceans is working with local partners to ensure the plastic is handled properly.”

Corona and Parley for the Oceans partnered on this initiative. The two groups, who have been working together since 2017, are also encouraging participants to avoid plastic altogether with educational messaging at the recycling machines. “Signage at the drop sites educates and encourages to avoid plastic altogether,” Lauricella says.

The “Pay With Plastic” program kicks off a full summer campaign from Corona and Parley dedicated to the cause, featuring new product packaging that gives even more consumers a way to be part of the solution. For every limited-edition pack purchased, Corona and Parley commit to cleaning one square meter of local beach. In total, nine countries are rolling out the limited-edition packaging between June and August, including Mexico, Canada, United Kingdom, Italy, Spain and Brazil. Already, Corona and Parley have worked with 25,000 volunteers to complete 537 cleanups in more than 23 countries, cleaning more than 3 million square meters of beach in the process. The goal this summer is to clean another 2 million square meters.

“When we first started working with Parley, our ambition was to raise awareness of the issue by shining a light on how plastic pollution is threatening even the most remote paradises,” says Corona Brand Director Evan Ellman. “Our consumers asked us how they could get involved, so this summer we’re bringing Corona x Parley to their beaches and giving them a variety of ways to be part of a global movement. Everything from attending a cleanup to buying the product itself. It all helps protect paradise.”

The Bayshore Family of Cs., Woodbridge Township, New Jersey, has been named the Environmental Sustainability and Energy Conservation Award Winner in the Distinguished Leadership Award category at the 2019 Jersey Shore Partnership Summer Celebration. Valerie and Frank Montecalvo, owners of the Bayshore Family of Cos., were presented with the award.  

The celebration took place on June 10 at Fort Hancock in Sandy Hook, New Jersey, with more than 500 people in attendance. The Jersey Shore Partnership Summer Celebration honors individuals and organizations that have made extraordinary contributions to the mission of shore protection and beach replenishment. The other Distinguished Leadership honorees include New Jersey Sen. Joseph Kyrillos and his wife Susan Kyrillos, PNC Bank and Weeks Marine Inc.

“It is such an honor for me to present this award to Valerie and Frank—longstanding friends who have contributed their time and resources tirelessly for decades to so many important causes beyond their most impressive work at Bayshore,” says New Jersey Assemblywoman Yvonne Lopez, who presented the award. “Bayshore’s diverse and extensive recycling companies define environmental sustainability, and their commitment to energy conservation through the use of renewable energy sources is a model for others to follow.”

“The recent passing of Jersey Shore Partnership founder and former chairman, New Jersey Sen. Tom Gagliano, makes us all stop and reflect on his vision for coastal protection in his 27 years of devotion to this cause,” Valerie Montecalvo said when receiving the award. “The 127 miles of sandy beaches which make up our Jersey Shore represent a priceless state and national treasure which drives New Jersey’s $43-billion annual tourism economy. Frank and I are deeply honored, along with our entire Bayshore team, for being recognized for our life’s work to advance sustainable materials management through recycling while seeking to operate 100 percent green businesses powered 100 percent by renewable energy.”

Bayshore has previously received notable honors, including the Governor’s Environmental Excellence Award, a NJ Future Award for Innovative Industrial Sustainability, and EarthShare New Jersey’s Environmental Leadership Award. Valerie and Frank have also been inducted into the Construction & Demolition Recycling Association (CDRA) Hall of Fame, and Bayshore was named “2007 National Recycling Facility of the Year” from this same organization.

Additionally, the Montecalvo’s are champions of many major charities as well as numerous area hospitals, athletic teams, schools, clubs, art centers and veterans' organizations.

Leaders in the recycling and waste management industries discussed solutions to the problems posed by plastic scrap at the Tomra Leads Global Conference 2019 June 4-5 in Sofia, Bulgaria.

With the theme “Recycling in a Plastic World,” the two-day event focused on trends and innovations throughout the plastic value chain. More than 200 delegates from 31 countries were also given the opportunity to see how Germany-based Tomra Sorting Recycling's technologies recover reusable materials from household waste at Elin Pelin, Bulgaria-based Integra Plastics’ new 40-million-euro plastics recycling plant.

The third biannual Tomra Leads event was “designed to share knowledge and accelerate progress in recycling and waste management” through keynote speeches, presentations, discussions and networking opportunities, Tomra says in a news release.

“The Tomra Leads conferences are proving to be a useful and popular forum for the exchange of information and ideas,” says Tom Eng, senior vice president and head of Tomra Sorting Recycling. “The focus of this year’s event was something which deeply concerns hundreds of millions of people all over the world: What can be done to tackle the discarded plastic piling up at landfill sites, drifting in oceans and killing marine life. The conference showed how recycling plastic [scrap] has a vital role to play, and how, at the same time as benefiting the environment, this is also a commercial opportunity.”

On the second day of the conference, speakers shared expert insights into the direction of the recycling market, the circular economy and the role of virgin materials and financial investment models. Eng opened the conference with a welcome speech titled, “The future of recycling—Are you ready?”

Five presentations were given that morning. Volker Rehrmann, executive vice president and head of circular economy at Tomra, shared the company's perspective on the circular economy and the role Tomra will play. Andy Grant, technical director of local government of Eunomia research and consulting, talked about waste collection systems and the impact on recycling plastics.

Herman Van Roost, business development manager recycling at Total Refining and Petrochemicals, gave a presentation on circular plastics’ fundamentals and innovation challenges. Ed Kosior, managing director at the United Kingdom-based consulting firm Nextek, talked about the recyclability of plastics. In addition, Iilya Kardashliev, principal banker in the infrastructure department at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), explained financial models to support plastics recycling investments.

That afternoon, visitors had the choice of attending either the Plastic Recycling Conference or the Legislation Conference, which ran at the same time. Both conferences were followed by panel discussions.

Discussions at the Legislation Conference focused on exchanging information and ideas on how recycling and waste management businesses must respond to changing regulations.

Tina Adjic, a senior consultant with Brussels-based consulting firm ADS Insight, first provided an update on European Union (EU) legislation on waste. Giving an overview of the current state of affairs, Fabrizio Radice, vice president of global sales and marketing at Tomra, reviewed what is actually being recycled at present, how new legislation will affect current practices and what will be required of new designs from packaging manufacturers, as well as aligning legislation and business. The discussion involved Grant, Adjic, Radice and Roland Ramusch and was chaired by Thomas Morgenstern, vice president of governmental affairs at Tomra.

The other discussion focused on overcoming challenges in the plastics value chain. László Székely, head of new plastics economy at Tomra, opened the session before Graeme Smith, innovation and sustainability manager at Austria-based Mondi Group, gave a case study of a converter’s requirements. The discussion involved Székely, Van Roost, Rehrmann, Kosior and Smith and was chaired by Jim Keefe, executive vice president and group publisher of the Recycling Today Media Group, Valley View, Ohio.

Visitors also watched the film “eXXpedition: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” which follows an all-woman crew as they sailed to the vast stretch of ocean known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, in collaboration with Tomra, to study the environmental impact and raise awareness of ocean litter.

On a tour of Integra Plastics, which opened February 2019, conference attendees learned the new plant employs 85 people and 14 Tomra Autosort machines. One Autosort is combined with the laser object direction (LOD) system and two were designed for the plant to sort out black film plastics. The facility has capacity to recycle 40,000 tons of mixed-color postconsumer film plastics per year.

Integra Plastics.

Integra’s specialty is the production of high-quality recycled low-density polyethylene (LDPE), high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and polypropylene (PP) granules. Attendees were shown Integra’s entire process for plastic recycling, which starts with plastic scrap arriving in bales and cut by a large shredder.

The shredded material moves along more than one kilometer of conveyor belts, where a magnet and a screen filter out unwanted materials, including metals. The material is then sorted by Tomra machines into six streams, by polyolefin type and color. After hot washing and drying, the plastic flakes are cleaned of any remaining impurities, colors and materials through additional Tomra units before being forwarded for regranulation, where plastics are compressed, melted, filtered, degassed, homogenized and made into pellets.

The pellets are packed into 1-ton bags, ready for reuse in a wide range of applications. At the facility, Integra produces customized resin qualities, including different material grades combined with different colors.

Ukrainian scrap collection volumes have fallen over the past year, dented by a decline in availability of obsolete scrap and a sharp fall in exports.

Total Ukrainian scrap collection fell by 7 percent on the year to 1.04 million metric tons from January to April, UAVtormet President Vladimir Boubley says. The trend continued in May amid extended holidays at the beginning of the month, reports Argus Media.

Ukrainian scrap collection stood at 3.67 million metric tons last year, a 1.3 percent year-on-year drop from 3.74 million metric tons in 2017, UAVtormet says.

Boubley says falling amounts of obsolete scrap is the main reason for the lower tonnage. Obsolete scrap accounts for 75 percent of Ukraine’s scrap generation, reports Argus Media.

The fall has also been caused by a duty on Ukrainian ferrous scrap exports that has resulted in export volumes plummeting.

Ukrainian steelmakers’ inflows of home-sourced scrap have increased but have not reached a level matching steelmakers’ requirements. Their ferrous scrap receipts totaled 1.36 million metric tons from January to May, up by 4.6 percent on the year but still 4 percent below demand, according to data from state-controlled metals association Ukrmetallurgprom.

In May, domestic supplies of ferrous scrap reached 350,000 metric tons, down by 5.7 percent on the month but up by 9.4 percent up on the year, Argus Media reports. This left steelmakers’ scrap stocks at 130,000 metric tons as of June 1, up by 30 percent on the year and by 18.2 percent on the month.

The rise in domestic supplies was largely underpinned by exports constantly falling since July 2018, when Ukraine raised its duty on ferrous scrap exports to €42 per metric ton ($47 per metric ton) from €30 per metric ton. The levy will stay at this level until September, when it will rise to €58 per metric ton until September 2021.

Ukraine exported about 36,500 metric tons of ferrous scrap from January to May, around seven times lower than in the same period of last year, according to data from the state fiscal service. The country shipped 8,086 metric tons in May, with dispatches standing at 8,791 metric tons in April, 8,246 metric tons in March, 8,242 metric tons in February and 3,140 metric tons in January.

Turkey remained the largest recipient of Ukrainian scrap from January to May, taking 88.8 percent of the total, followed by the Netherlands with 6.3 percent and Germany with 3.4 percent.

Ukraine’s revenue from scrap exports dropped sharply, to $9.98 million from January to May. A year earlier, it was at $83.48 million, which was additionally affected by pressure from lower scrap prices at export outlets.

Argus Media’s daily assessment for Ukrainian and Russian A3 grade scrap averaged $270.30 per metric ton FOB Black Sea from January to April, down by 11.6 percent on the year.