Recyclers of residential material collected in towns and cities often turn to sorting technology vendors to help ensure the materials they have collected are able to meet the quality standards of paper mills, plastics reprocessors and other end users.

That joint effort has become increasingly important in the past two years, as the People’s Republic of China has tightened its tolerances on accepted scrap materials, setting a quality bar even higher than is commonly found in Europe or North America.

The loss of a Chinese market that was often considered less rigorous (and with markets in Southeast Asian nations showing a similar pattern), recyclers and their machinery suppliers are communicating more than ever about the quality of outbound products, and the quality of what is collected by hauling fleets.

London calling

Germany-based recycling equipment firm Stadler Engineering has given its opinion that waste and recycling authorities in the United Kingdom should embrace London’s Environment Strategy if the U.K. wants to meet heightened recycling targets set out in its circular economy package. Following London’s lead could help form a new, consistent approach to curbside collections, according to Stadler.

Launched in early July, the London mayor’s Environment Strategy sets out a municipal recycling target of 65 percent by 2030, which will be achieved by taking what Stadler calls “a revolutionary approach to waste collection.” The London document calls for councils in the borough to offer collections for the six main dry recyclable materials, as well as separate bins for food waste.

Already, businesses and individuals have voiced their support for the strategy, recognizing its value in driving greater recycling rates, according to Stadler. The company further states that the entire country should adopt a similar approach (and replicate this separate collection model), to make a national difference.

“We should embrace separate collections nationwide for various fractions of both dry and organic waste,” states Ruben Maistry, sales manager at Stadler Engineering. “Commingling is not a long-term solution. It reduces recyclate quality and is often rife with contamination.

“Reprocessors are demanding ever higher quality, which means that clean, easy to separate, good quality recycling is key,” he continues. “For us, single source recycling collections, uniform across the country, is essential to achieving this, alongside better education for householders, as to what they can and can’t recycle, of course.”

Separate collections are often viewed as an additional cost for local authorities to incur, but Stadler points to regions such as Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland as examples where this practice has been adopted, and widespread financial savings have been achieved.

“Many countries are recouping collection investments elsewhere,” says Maistry. “With lower contamination rates, MRFs [material recovery facilities] can minimize capital equipment costs. What’s more, with U.K. households throwing away more than 7 billion metric tons of food every year, the nation is sitting on a potential energy gold mine through anaerobic digestion. But, if we aren’t collecting this individually, we risk losing out on valuable feedstock.”

Continues Mistry, “London’s Environment Strategy proposes a watertight approach for the capital. We need to replicate this nationwide. It is an opportunity we must not miss.”

The statements by Stadler Engineering might seem to move against the grain for a firm that engages in the planning, production and assembly of sorting systems and components for the waste disposal and recycling industry.

Chasing lofty recycling targets in Europe and other parts of the world, however, seems to show that mechanical and optical sorting can still play role even in more segregated collection systems.

PLASTIC’S MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES

Many plastic beverage, food and household cleaning product containers may be stamped with the same recycling code on the bottom, but that does not indicate complete uniformity. That is one of many challenges present even when “dry recyclables” are collected in a semi-segregated fashion.

Gleisdorf, Austria-based Redwave has supplied automated sorting equipment to a plastics recycling plant operated by Saubermacher Dienstleistungs AG in Graz, Austria, that has undergone €10 million ($11.7 million) in expansion projects in the last several years.

Saubermacher estimates the Graz facility is now the largest plastic sorting plant in Austria. Saubermacher sorts the material on behalf of Vienna-based collection and hauling firm Altstoff Recycling Austria (ARA). Most of the discarded packaging comes from households and businesses.

Aluminum cans and beverage cartons are now being separated at the facility, in addition to 14 different plastic fractions. The automatic plastic sorting plant processes around 32,000 metric tons of discarded packaging per year, mainly from Graz and surrounding areas. A residue fraction of about 40 percent is used as a substitute fuel in the cement industry.

“This investment means we can increase the proportion of material recycling to 40 percent and thus come one step closer to our vision of zero waste,” says Gerhard Ziehenberger, chief operating officer of Saubermacher AG.

Silvia Schweiger-Fuchs, managing director at Redwave, comments, “Zero waste is a very important endeavor to keep our environment worth living in for our children in the future. We will continue to strive to extend our leading technological position in recycling technology.”

At the plant, the Redwave sorting machines, deploying sensor-based sorting using near-infrared (NIR) and color detection technology, separate the plastic packaging by grade. “Banning plastic does not help,” says Hans Roth, chairman of the supervisory board at Saubermacher. “We must continue to improve recycling and accelerate the use of recycled materials in production processes.”

Changes in the contents of a yellow bag collection system made the investment in the sorting system necessary, according to the two companies. A new bag ripper to open the yellow bags works in conjunction with a new film separator to address separation of the film fraction from the 3D container fraction.

A Redwave sorter has been installed at the end of the sorting line to separate the aseptic packaging from aluminum cans. An additional Redwave NIR sorting machine separates PET (polyethylene terephthalate) from other plastics.

A “bottle flattener” is situated near 2D/3D separators. This Redwave device creates flattened and partially emptied PET bottles in an attempt to ensure better sorting results and quality.

PURITY ON THE PAPER SIDE

Paper may not come in quite as many varieties as plastic, but the numerous packaging and printing and writing grades are nonetheless diverted to different mill destinations after they are discarded. It is up to recycling plant operators (and their equipment) to sort this out.

Oslo, Norway-based Norsk Gjenvinning (NG), considered Norway’s largest waste management company, recently selected United States-based Bulk Handling Systems (BHS) to supply its new paper recycling system in Oslo.

Scheduled to be operational in the first quarter of 2019, the system will process 20 metric tons per hour (tph) and run three shifts to process approximately 120,000 metric tons annually. The NG system will include Max-AI VIS (Visual Identification System) units designed to monitor the quality of outbound paper. 

The Oslo facility also includes what BHS calls its latest technology designed to maximize NG’s paper quality and return on investment. Six National Recovery Technology (NRT) optical sorters and four Max-AI AQC (Autonomous Quality Control) robotic sorters contribute to a highly automated process, allowing NG to run multiple shifts with what BHS calls a minimal variable cost increase.

NG receives unsorted paper and cardboard from both residential and commercial customers from southern Norway. BHS says NG’s investment in a custom FiberPure system allows the company to take on more tonnage, create a highly marketable product and decrease labor costs.

The process begins with a BHS Metering Bin, OCC Separator and Debris Roll Screen to feed the system, recover cardboard and remove fines. A BHS NewSorter separates news and pams from smaller fiber and contamination. The news and pams are split into two material streams for purification, a process that begins with two NRT SpydIR-R optical sorters to remove and recover plastic film. The news and pams are then treated by two NRT ColorPlus optical sorters to remove and recover any remaining cardboard.

“Final paper purity is achieved completely autonomously by Max-AI AQC-2 robotic sorters,” says BHS, adding that NG also will recover aseptic containers and remove contamination from mixed paper with two NRT SpydIR-R units.

NG will be able to analyze product quality in real time with its two Max-AI VIS units and the Total Intelligence Platform. Those units are designed to allow NG to ensure the system is creating highly pure paper before it goes to market. BHS calls the Oslo installation “the world’s first system to commit to this level of intelligence.”

With both NRT and Max-AI technologies reporting material compositions and communicating together through the Total Intelligence Platform, NG’s operators will gain valuable analytics to track, analyze and share with customers, says BHS.

Residential material in North America is generally collected in a more commingled fashion compared to in Europe. Europe’s experience in meeting ambitious recycling goals—especially in the post-Chinese-open-market era—seems to show that even with more source separation, there is plenty of room for technology vendors to help meet quality standards.

The Seattle-based Basel Action Network (BAN) says it has determined that two non-working computer devices left at consumer take-back desks at Australia-based Officeworks Ltd. were exported to developing countries in Asia in what BAN calls a “likely contravention of international law.”

As part of a study titled “Illegal Export of e-Waste from Australia: a story as told by GPS trackers,” BAN delivered used computing equipment with GPS trackers to what the organization calls government-sanctioned consumer drop-off locations in Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth and Sydney. BAN then monitored the signals sent by the devices over the course of a year.

Most of the equipment ended up in the hands of recyclers or was shipped to landfills and stopped signaling. However, according to BAN, two LCD (liquid crystal display) monitors containing mercury back-lights that were handed over to a pair of Officeworks stores in Brisbane (presumably for domestic recycling) were instead exported. Both devices went to Hong Kong, with one moving next to Thailand.

According to BAN, the export of items containing mercury and other toxic substances should be strictly controlled under the terms of the Basel Convention, to which Australia is a signatory. China, including Hong Kong, is also a Basel party and has strictly forbidden the import of any obsolete device containing mercury, according to the organization.

“These exports should never have happened,” says Jim Puckett, BAN’s founder and director. “It stands to reason that this discovery represents far more volume than simply two devices. It is imperative that the Australian government conduct a full review of their consumer takeback programs, and prosecute any violators for criminal trafficking in hazardous waste.”

BAN followed the GPS signals to Hong Kong and on to Thailand. The site in Hong Kong had been cleaned out and was likely just a temporary staging area, according to the group. In Thailand, BAN says it found what it calls “a large ‘dioxin factory,’” where obsolete electronic items were broken apart, and the removed circuit boards were processed with “crude chemical and smelting techniques” in an effort to extract the gold and copper.

BAN assessed the operation as being “extremely polluting,” as plumes of smoke from the burning circuit boards would contain dioxins, furans, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and heavy metals. The smoke and its particles would eventually descend “over the observed local crops of rice, castor beans and mangos,” says BAN.

Additionally, sludge from the aqua-regia chemical acid stripping process was dumped into an on-site sludge pond and, combined with the open dumping of ashes and slags from the smelter, “was certain to contaminate the groundwater,” writes BAN.

In its report, BAN urges Australia to ratify an agreement known as the Basel Ban Amendment, designed to forbid the export of hazardous waste for any reason from developed to developing countries. The Ban Amendment needs three more countries as signatories before it enters into legal force, according to the U.S.-based group.

“We call on Australia to join the European Union in ratifying the Basel Ban Amendment,” says Puckett. “In so doing,” he continues, Australia would then “renounce using [its] global neighborhood as a dumping ground, and instead use Australian ingenuity and wealth to once and for all embrace national self-sufficiency in waste management, as called for by the Basel Convention.”

Australia-based BlueScope Steel Ltd. says it is considering expanding its North Star Steel mill, located in Delta, Ohio, thanks to what it labels a promising outlook for the North American steel sector. The steel mill is an electric arc furnace (EAF) operation with an annual capacity of 2.1 million tons per year of hot-rolled coil steel.

In an appendix to its most recent financial report, BlueScope says, “A comprehensive study has been initiated to evaluate adding between 600,000 to 900,000 metric tons per annum of steelmaking capacity [in Ohio], through the addition of a third electric arc furnace and a second caster.”

The steelmaker has given the project an initial estimated price tag of from $500 million to $700 million and adds, “The project is expected to take two or three years to develop if we proceed.” BlueScope says it expects to provide an update on the project assessment in about one year.

In BlueScope’s 2018 fiscal year, which ended June 30, the company says its North American mill generated 13 percent more sales revenue compared to the previous fiscal year and while the mill’s “underlaying EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization)” increased by 7.5 percent compared with the year before.

The steelmaker says it sells approximately 90 percent of its Ohio mill output in the United States Midwest U.S., with its end customers consisting of “broadly 50 percent automotive, 35 percent construction, 5 five percent agricultural and 10 percent manufacturing/industrial applications.” The firm adds that the North Star mill “continues to benefit from strength in the automotive sector as well as in the construction sector.”

BlueScope also comments that “high capacity utilization rates” are in place at the mill, and “uncertainty around imports associated with Section 232 as well as improving world prices [have] helped support higher domestic [steel] prices” in the U.S.

In terms of its scrap feedstock, Waterloo, Indiana-based MetalX Inc. has been investing in a large scrap yard in Delta, across the road from the BlueScope mill.

At the November 2017 groundbreaking for that $35 million facility, MetalX President and CEO Danny Rifkin remarked of his company’s investment, “We truly appreciate the encouragement of the North Star BlueScope team,” as well as citing support from Ohio economic development officials. The new MetalX yard is scheduled to begin operating in the summer of 2018 and to be fully operational by the end of the year.

St. Louis-based Alter Trading Corp. has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase substantially all the assets of Tenenbaum Recycling Group (TRG) of Little Rock, Arkansas. The acquisition unites two scrap metal recycling companies that are both more than 120 years old and have very similar cultures and histories of success, Alter says in a news release regarding the purchase. The transaction is expected to close on or about Aug. 24.

Alter has operations in Alabama, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska and Wisconsin. Fifteen of those locations have auto shredders on-site, while TRG operates two auto shredders in North Little Rock and Rogers, Arkansas.

The addition of TRG's 10 locations—nine in Arkansas and one in Reeds Spring, Missouri—further expands Alter’s geographic reach and gives it more than 70 facilities total. Alter says it intends to continue to operate all of TRG’s existing locations and to maintain the company’s focus on safety, customer service and quality.

Bob Ellis, senior vice president and general counsel for Alter Trading Corp., says the TRG name will be retained because of the strong reputation it represents in the areas the company serves. In time, he says, “an Alter Co.” or similar wording will be added to the TRG name.  

“This acquisition is the next important milestone in our growth strategy, and we are pleased to add another premier, family-owned, scrap metal recycler to Alter,” says Robert Goldstein, chairman of Alter Trading. “We are committed to the seamless integration of these two exceptional companies, and we look forward to joining the business communities in Arkansas and southern Missouri.”

In late 2016, Alter acquired Illinois-based Behr Iron & Metal. Prior to that purchase, Alter acquired Wausau Scrap and Recycling Corp. (WSRC), Wausau, Wisconsin, in early 2015 and All Metals Recycling of Ottumwa, Iowa, as well as Columbus Metals Inc. (CMI) of Columbus, Nebraska, in 2013.

“We knew that someday we would take advantage of the right opportunity to exit the industry to pursue our individual passions and could not be more proud of the Tenenbaum team for their accomplishments to this point,” says Harold Tenenbaum, who serves as chairman of the TRG board. “The Tenenbaum and Goldstein families have been friends and business associates for decades, and now that relationship will help preserve everything the families have championed.”

He adds, “We are very excited to place our business and history in the Arkansas and Missouri communities in the hands of our friends at Alter Trading and are comfortable knowing that Alter, like TRG, will support the communities that have enabled our family business to flourish.”

Jay Robinovitz, Alter president and CEO, says, “The Tenenbaum family will be a tough act to follow. The company and its current leadership team, led by CEO Jack Grundfest, are held in high regard in the industry and have built a remarkable company. It is a privilege to have an opportunity to work closely with this team. I look forward to welcoming them to Alter and together extending the pattern of success.”

Ellis says the TRG executive team and managers will remain with the company following the acquisition.

Founded in 1898, Alter Trading Corp. is a privately owned, fifth-generation company. In addition to its 70 U.S. locations, the company also has sales offices in Hong Kong and Shanghai.