The California Department of Industrial Relations' (DIR) Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) has issued seven citations totaling $111,935 in penalties to EDCO Waste and Recycling Services, Lemon Grove, Calif. The agency says EDCO has a history of safety violations and worker injury.

In a Cal/OSHA release, Christine Baker, DIR’s director, says, "EDCO Waste and Recycling Services Inc. failed to provide vital safety training, leading to dangerous accidents and serious injury. Proper workplace safety training is critical because it reduces severity of harm following accidents and, more importantly, prevents accidents from occurring in the first place."

Cal/OSHA's citations include a serious and willful violation and serious accident-related violations that resulted in a severe injury to a worker at EDCO. Cal/OSHA had previously cited this company for the same problems that led to this recent worker injury.

The new citations resulted from an accident and serious worker injury on Dec. 31, 2011 while workers were connecting a hydraulic cylinder to the packer device in a garbage truck. The hydraulic system was activated to extend the cylinder outward to be connected to a packer truck. The injured worker was standing on a packer unit inside the truck body when the cylinder struck it, causing the worker to fall into an area between the packer and the truck body wall where he sustained crushing injuries.

Cal/OSHA had previously conducted an inspection at the company’s facility in Oct. 2011 following a refuse truck accident resulting in severe injuries to a mechanic. Cal/OSHA found that EDCO had not ensured that control levers were blocked as required, resulting in severe injuries to a mechanic. EDCO appealed Cal/OSHA's findings and citations.

Following the December accident, Cal/OSHA successfully petitioned the California Appeals Board to raise a citation category from serious accident related to willful. In 2003, EDCO also received a serious citation for not having employees use lockable controls on a compacter and failing to have adequate written safety procedures.

Cal/OSHA issued serious accident- related citations to EDCO for their failure to guard the pinch point in the garbage truck, failure to have a hazardous energy control plan and failure to implement procedures to control or lock movement of the equipment while workers are performing maintenance or repairs. Two general citations and one regulatory citation were also issued for not establishing an injury illness prevention program and a heat illness prevention program and for not developing or training to written operating rules for mobile collection/compactions equipment.

The European trade associations Petcore and EuPR have reported that European post-sorting PET collection reached 1.59 million metric tons in 2011, a 9.4 percent increase from 2010’s figures.

The two associations used the statistics from the recently released report Post Consumer PET Recycling in Europe 2011 and Prospects to 2016 was prepared for the two associations by PCI PET Packaging, Resin & Recycling Ltd.

For the 27 countries in the European Union, the collection rate increased by 2 percent, bringing the total PET recycling rate to a record 51 percent for 2011. At the same time, according to the report, for the third straight year PET exports declined.

All but three of the surveyed countries in the report have a collection rate greater than the 22.5 percent recovery goal mandated by the EU’s Packaging Waste Directive. The collection rate by country depends on the maturity and extent of their collection systems as well as economic instruments in place. At the same time, the report note that PET collection rates of more than 70 percent are being recorded by about a third of the countries surveyed.

Meanwhile, according to a release, it is estimated that there is a total mechanical reclamation capacity in the 27 EU countries plus Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey of around 1.9 million metric tons, meaning PET recyclers have capacity available to absorb a large increase in PET collection.

More than 50 percent of the PET collected in the EU was used to produce containers or sheet for new packaging applications in 2011. The 2011 share of fibers as an end use for recycled PET flake remained at 39 percent. The strapping market for rPET increased to slightly more than 100 kilotons.

In a release, Roberto Bertaggia, chairman of Petcore’s board, says, “I am delighted that the PET collection rate has broken the 50 percent barrier in Europe. The extra 140 kilotons collected in 2011 represents a further 5.6 billion bottles to be recycled. The PET industry chain has worked with compliance agencies, national bodies and European recyclers to achieve the record collection of nearly 1.6 million metric tons of PET bottles. We pledge to continue to develop and promote PET’s recyclability”.

Casper van den Dungen, chairman of EuPR’s PET Working Group, agrees. “Capacity utilization of our recycle plants is only 77 percent at present. This provides the challenge for municipalities, other collectors and industry to increase the current collection rate even further to load the recycling facilities already in place. Nevertheless, the new developments in PET collection must not jeopardize the sound, well-established and most recycled plastic: The PET Bottle.”

He continues, “Recycled PET is a reliable and sought-after feedstock in the PET value chain and sustainable, long life uses are being developed to utilize the growing supply of recycled PET."

Petcore (PET containers recycling Europe) is a nonprofit European trade association based in Brussels. Its mission focuses on sustainable growth for post consumer PET collection whilst supporting all PET recycling processes as a key integrated part of European Plastics Waste Management initiatives and by validating and supporting innovative PET solutions from a recycle perspective.

The David J. Joseph Co. (DJJ), the Cincinnati, Ohio-based scrap broker, recycler and logistics provider, has announced several organizational changes that will take place in August 2012.

Mark Schaefer, current president of U-Pull-&-Pay (UPAP), has been promoted to vice president of DJJ’s Recycling Group. Schaefer, a 27-year veteran of DJJ, will focus on business development in a newly created role. He began his career as a brokerage representative and has held various roles in brokerage services. Schaefer has been president of UPAP since 2007.

Tre Whitmore, current vice president of ferrous trading for DJJ’s brokerage group, has been promoted to president of UPAP.

U-Pull-&-Pay operates self-service used auto parts stores in Albuquerque, N.M.; Aurora, Denver and Colorado Springs, Co.; Cincinnati; Indianapolis, Ind.; Orlando and West Palm Beach, Fla.; and Phoenix. Whitmore joined DJJ in 1993 as a brokerage representative. He was later promoted to district manager, and has been a ferrous trading vice president since 2006.

Chris Stout, currently district manager of DJJ’s Birmingham, Ala., trading office, has been promoted to vice president, ferrous trading, succeeding Whitmore. Stout joined the company in 1995 as a buyer for Western Metals Recycling, then joined DJJ’s brokerage group where he has been district manager since 2001.

A scrap fragmentizer has been installed at Kurum Steel, Kombinati Metalurgijk, in Elbasan, Albania to improve the melt shop’s performance.

Kurum Steel, the Albanian producer of long products with a mini mill at Elbasan reaching a monthly capacity of 50,000 metric tons, and Sicon, a supplier of processing solutions for the scrap industry, have cooperated to install a scrap fragmentizer within a new scrapyard at Kurum’s premises at Elbasan.

Kurum identified the positive impact of cleaning the incoming scrap and using shredded scrap for its production. Besides the reduction of tap-to-tap times and energy consumption, the metallurgical yield has been improved. According to Kurum, the local available scrap as well as the imported materials are often dirty and need reprocessing to avoid the feeding of unwanted metallurgical ingredients to the furnace.

Sicon Germany has been working with Kurum for a couple of years within various projects. Sicon created the basic design of the new scrapyard including the logistic planning. Implementation was carried out by local companies.

Sicon also identified a suitable second-hand machine in Germany since Kurum was looking for a fast project execution. At Magdeburg, at a site of German scrap processor TSR, a suitable plant (Lindemann Kondirator) was for sale.  Within the project management, Sicon assisted Kurum in all steps of buying, dismantling, transporting, revamping and assembling of the plant.

The plant has been running for a couple of months and is viewed as an important milestone in Kurum’s continuous efforts to improve the steel plant’s performance and minimize environmental impacts.