Best Process Solutions (BPS), Brunswick, Ohio, offers a complete line of shredder isolation mounts for the auto shredding and recycling industries. BPS shredder isolation mounts are designed to reduce vibration and shock from impact loading, which are the major causes of wear and fatigue. These heavy-duty units are located between the main shredder assembly and the concrete support foundation.

The units feature high-impact side guards and heavy-duty mechanical down stops. They do not require hydraulic dampening fluid and are virtually maintenance-free due the elastomeric isolation element.

BPS manufactures a complete line of custom-engineered recycling and bulk material-handling equipment. With more than 100 years’ combined experience, the company serves a wide variety of dry processing industries from chemicals and food to aggregates and recycling.

For more information, visit bpsvibes.com

The Paper Stock Industries (PSI) Chapter of the Washington-based Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) has provided an update to exporters on conditions in two nations that buy significant tonnages of recovered fiber: South Korea and India.

The government of South Korea has announced 100 percent inspection requirements for recovered paper imports, according to PSI. “Recently in Korea, the import of contaminated or improperly separated recyclable paper has become a social problem,” PSI quotes one ISRI contact in the South Korean government as saying. If the material is deemed legal, he says it will be cleared.

ISRI says it has learned the South Korean government notified the World Trade Organization (WTO) of its intent to put all pulp and recovered paper that is “contaminated with oil or contains foreign substances” under the prior informed consent procedures of the Basel Convention.

For recyclers, that means South Korea is removing a previous exemption and considering the contaminated material as hazardous. ISRI says it will seek a clarification on thresholds for oil contamination and a definition of “foreign substances.”

In India, meanwhile, the COVID-19 virus has caused Prime Minister Narendra Modi to institute a three-week national lockdown starting at midnight March 24.

The lockdown requires citizens to stay at home and allows only “essential” businesses to remain open. Most manufacturing segments outside of health care and food are not deemed essential. “Therefore,” writes PSI, “our recycling customers are closed.”

Seemingly contrary to that, India’s government has deemed “manufacturing units of packaging material for food items, drugs, pharmaceuticals and medical devices” as essential and allowed to remain open. Writes PSI, “It is not clear if this is packaging made from paper, plastic, metals, or a combination and how much of it is made from recovered materials.”

Seaports in India also have been deemed essential and are open, but many employees are not showing up for work out of fear of spreading the virus, says ISRI, citing Boston-based business information provider RISI as its source.

Some cargoes are going unclaimed, “so it is uncertain what will happen when containers that are already en route arrive at port, or what storage and demurrage charges might be incurred,” says PSI. ISRI says it is working through networks in the United States and India to track developments in India.

Concludes PSI, pointing to India’s population of 1.3 billion and its status as being at the front edge of its own possible COVID-19 epidemic, “We can all expect a significant decline in business to and from India during this time.”

Suez, a solid waste and recycling and water treatment company headquartered in Paris, says its board of directors met March 25 to review the actions the company has put in place to adjust to the COVID-19 outbreak and the outline the impacts on its business.

The company says its employees are fully focused on ensuring continuity of service in all the countries where it operates. “Whether we provide drinking water, wastewater or waste management for municipalities and individuals or high-quality water supply and treatment and waste management for vital industries, Suez can and will play a key role in ensuring public health protection,” the company states in a news release about its actions surrounding the outbreak.

While ensuring the safety of its employees, Suez says it has implemented continuity plans in partnership with governments and public sector and private sector clients, which have quickly set up support measures to help the company deliver its services.

Suez also outlined the impact the COVID-19 outbreak has had on its business:

• In China, Suez already noted impacts on its hazardous waste incinerators and its Macao water volumes Feb. 26. Given the gradual return of activity in that country, Suez confirms that the impacts specified Feb. 26 remain valid as of March 25: a decline of 30 million to 40 million euros on 2020 earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) to be seen mainly in the first quarter with a progressive return to normal expected in the second quarter.
• In Europe and the Americas, although government actions have been very recent, the company says it is starting to see the first impacts on volumes and commodity prices. This is not uniform, Suez says, and activity is normal within some geographic areas, industrial sectors and clients.
• While Suez says it is too early to quantify the impact on the company’s previously reported 2020 guidance, which it has suspended, and to issue new guidance, it is clear that Suez, like all industries, likely will be significantly affected in 2020 by the consequences of the outbreak and shelter-at-home orders. Suez says it is closely monitoring the situation and will update the market as patterns become clearer.

The company says it has engaged additional measures to optimize its activity and mitigate potential impacts on revenue and profitability and to increase the group’s liquidity while also ensuring service and the safety of its employees and clients.

Suez says it will take strong short-term measures to significantly reduce its expenses and costs beyond what was originally planned. The company also will constrain its total investments this year by around 15 percent compared with 2019 levels while recognizing that capex is necessary in some parts of its business to ensure service.

In line with previous announcements and given the strength and liquidity of its balance sheet, Suez says it will propose a 2019 dividend of 0.65 euro per share, payable in May as planned. The company says it also plans to hold its annual general meeting May 12 at 2:30 p.m. CET via a webcast on its website.

Suez CEO Bertrand Camus says, “At the time the situation is improving in China, the COVID-19 pandemic is spreading all over the world. The entire Suez Group is mobilized to keep operating its essential services in water and waste, which have a direct impact on health and quality of life of citizens. The board joins me to thank all the teams who are focused on a daily basis with professionalism and calm to accomplish their mission and further the transformation of our group."

A study by the Milwaukee-based Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) has found the sector its association represents contributes $288 billion to the United States economy and supports 2.8 million jobs. The study and its findings were announced at the 2020 ConExpo-Con/Agg event in Las Vegas in March.

Manufacturers of construction, mining, and agriculture equipment—some of which also is used in the demolition, recycling and waste sectors—remains “a critical part of the U.S. economy and represents 12 percent of all manufacturing jobs in the United States,” says AEM.

The study, titled “Market Size and Economic Contributions of the Off-Highway Industry,” was produced by IHS Markit.

“Every day, the 2.8 million men and women of our industry roll up their sleeves and go to work building state-of-the-art equipment in communities across the country,” says Dennis Slater, president of AEM. “This report tells the story of the people who make America by building the combine the farmer uses to harvest his corn and the excavator the construction worker uses to build our roads and bridges.”

For the period from 2017 to 2019, AEM says the report shows growth at a rate of nearly 10 percent, “fueled in part by historic tax reform and regulatory relief.” Adds the AEM, “However, tariffs on steel and other critical inputs, along with a protracted trade war with China, caused growth to slow to just 1.2 percent in 2019, with both the construction and agriculture equipment sectors contracting by 0.7 and 0.6 percent respectively.”

In a news release accompanying the study’s release, AEM says manufacturing remains important to Americans. The association points to a “recent national poll [that] shows that 91 percent of registered voters say manufacturing is critical or important to the U.S. economy.”

The same poll also shows that more than three quarters of registered voters “want to know how presidential candidates plan to support and grow manufacturing in the United States,” according to the AEM.