Cereplast Inc., headquartered in Seymour, Ind., which manufactures compostable bioplastics, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Indiana. The company says it has taken this action to strengthen its balance sheet, cleanup its capitalization structure and gain financial flexibility as it looks to realign its operations. Cereplast says it plans to continue to operate during the reorganization process.

"We intend to use the reorganization process to help implement our plan to lower costs, stabilize our businesses, grow revenue and diversify our product lines," says CEO Frederic Scheer.

 

Scheer continues, "We have taken a number of steps to improve our operations over the past few months, and we were making great progress; however, the lack of traction of bioplastics demand in the United States, the repetitive delays in implementation of the bioplastic regulation in Europe and especially in Italy combined with the legal problems created by several of our lenders made clear to our board that reorganization was the proper path forward. We believe that this reorganization will enable us to reduce our debt and implement operational changes while maintaining our commitment to the environment."

He adds, "We appreciate the ongoing dedication of our employees, whose hard work is critical to our success and the future of our company. Regrettably, as a result of this reorganization, jobs will be impacted during the transition period."

In conjunction with its reorganization, Cereplast says it is negotiating debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing from several interested parties.

 

The date for the second annual Recycling Innovators Forum has been set. The forum will be held in New Orleans Sept. 15, 2014, at the Hilton Riverside. The one-day event is designed to elevate and support ideas that will generate real returns for recycling companies and stakeholders, according to organizers.

The Forum, sponsored by Alcoa, the American Chemistry Council, Coca-Cola Recycling, Resource Recycling‎ and Waste Management, will be held the day before the official start of the annual Resource Recycling Conference.

Last year, a proposal from Earth911 designed  to more effectively communicate the recyclability of products through smartphone apps beat out nearly 50 other proposals and nine finalists to take home the grand prize.

The event has been structured to bring together 10 finalists to present their ideas to a panel of judges and an audience of recycling professionals, venture capitalists and clean-tech investors. Prizes of $20,000 each will be awarded to the top idea backed by an enterprise or institution and to the top idea backed by a single inventor or startup team. 

The Recycling Innovators Forum is currently seeking proposals  and suggests topics that focus on improving recycling collection, changing consumer behavior, sorting and processing technologies, market development for different material types, reducing capital costs and other ideas to improve and advance recycling.

More information on the 2014 Recycling Innovators Forum, including full rules on entering the competition, is available at www.recyclinginnovators.com. 

 

Elkhart Plastics Inc., Elkhart, Ind., has purchased the assets of El Monte Plastics of Ohio LLC, based in Ohio City, Ohio. The newly acquired facility will operate under the Elkhart Plastics name. Elkhart provides rotational molding capabilities at five plants scattered throughout the country.

“El Monte has been a strong supplier to the RV industry since they were founded and will complement our overall business mix,” says Jack Welter, CEO of Elkhart Plastics. “We will work diligently with former El Monte personnel to fill all current and future orders.”

El Monte’s assets include two facilities totaling more than 70,000 square feet and seven rotational molding machines.

 

 

The Miami-based research group Compliance Standards has released a report that addresses the changing landscape of the electronics recycling industry. The report, titled The ITAD and Electronic Recycling Competitive Landscape: The Momentary Vanishing of the Pure-Play ITAD Companies, forecasts that the electronics recycling and IT sectors are in the middle of a mergers and acquisitions (M&A) wave. The M&A push will be driven by large corporations and investors looking to take advantage of expected solid growth prospects in the broad environmental sector, Compliance Standards says. 

The report notes that small, independent companies that are active in the market are being acquired, leaving a vacuum in this space. This move is creating longer-term potential for mergers among smaller entities that will remain active in the market and will seek to be competitive, the report states.

“Despite investor interest in the ITAD (IT asset disposition) and e-cycling companies, ongoing challenges are the same we’ve seen in the recent past, including the need to aggregate aging and soon-to-be obsolete assets for decommissioning purposes in manners that make economic sense,” says Alec Gordon, an analyst with Compliance Standards overseeing M&A activity and the competitive landscape.

Budgetary pressures have put a strain on many large organizations that consume IT equipment. As such, a growing number of IT executives and procurement managers have been looking for creative ways to extract value where none existed before, largely to contain recycling cost and, when possible, generate a return if decommissioned assets can be remarketed, according to the report.

“Our report looks at the most active companies on the M&A front, what they are looking for, and profiles those involved in electronics recycling and ITAD,” says David Daoud, managing director and principal analyst at Compliance Standards.

The report segments the type of companies looking at a competitive position for long-term growth, from OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) to distributors and retailers, and from reverse logistics firms to contract manufacturers. Non-IT firms vary from freight and transportation companies to waste collection firms.

More information on the full report is available at compliancestandards.com.