CarbonLite starts Pennsylvania facility

Los Angeles-based CarbonLite Holdings LLC says it has begun production at its Reading, Pennsylvania, plant, which it describes as “the largest stand-alone bottle-to-bottle recycling facility in the world.” This is the company’s third plant, which it says will process 140 million pounds of postconsumer polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is the equivalent of 2.5 billion bottles, producing 90 million pounds of food-grade rPET pellets annually.

The $80 million, 270,000-square-foot Reading plant, about 30 miles from Allentown, Pennsylvania, in the eastern part of the state, is outfitted with robotics technology that is supplied by Bulk Handling Systems (BHS), Eugene, Oregon. The plant’s four robots will be used to remove non-PET resins from the incoming material stream. The bottle sorting system also features NRT optical sorters supplied by BHS.

This is the second CarbonLite facility to feature sorting technology supplied by BHS, CarbonLite CEO Leon Farahnik says, but it is the first one to incorporate robotics. CarbonLite’s Dallas plant also features a front-end system from BHS.

In addition to the optical sorters manufactured by Nashville, Tennessee-based NRT, a BHS company, that are deployed on the front-end of the system, CarbonLite uses flake sorters made by Tomra Sorting Recycling, headquartered in Germany, on the back end of the system.

The plant’s wash line was supplied by Italy-based Sorema. CarbonLite’s California plant also features a Sorema wash line.

All three of the company’s facilities have extruders supplied by Austria-based Starlinger, Farahnik says.

He adds that the plant’s flake and pellet handling systems were supplied by Pelletron Corp. of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which also supplied these systems for its other plants.

“Even with the pandemic and this spring’s constraints on recycling and industrial supply chains, we pushed forward so that we can help our customers expeditiously fulfill their growing commitments to recycled-plastic use,” Farahnik says. “We are proud to continue to help advance closed-loop, bottle-to-bottle recycling and a circular economy in a significant way.”

CarbonLite says all its long-standing customers, which each use substantial amounts of rPET in their beverage bottles, have facilities in Allentown, including Nestlé Waters North America, Coca- Cola, Keurig Dr Pepper, PepsiCo and other global beverage brands.

The company also provides rPET produced from ocean-bound plastic for use in ZenWTR bottles, which it says is an industry first, and for all types of PET packaging. CarbonLite’s PinnPACK Packaging subsidiary specializes in food packaging made from postconsumer recycled plastic.

CarbonLite has plans to open its fourth PET recycling plant near Orlando, Florida, in 2021.

The company also recently announced that it has developed a pelletized material made from the caps and labels recovered from the PET bottles it recycles. This material, a blend of polypropylene and polyethylene dubbed CaPOLabel, is being targeted to the injection molding industry, according to a news release from CarbonLite.

John Morris, executive vice president and chief operating officer (COO) of Houston-based Waste Management (WM), shared his perspectives on the waste and recycling industry and his insights into WM’s operations during an interview with Recycling Today Editor DeAnne Toto during the 2020 Paper & Plastics Recycling Conference International. The broadcast event, which was hosted by the Recycling Today Media Group, publisher of Recycling Today, aired Oct. 20-22.

Among the topics Morris addressed were how WM is working to create more value out of the material entering its material recovery facilities (MRFs) and the changes it has made to improve the sustainability of recycling.

Photo courtesy of Waste Management

Morris said that in the last four to five years, despite low commodity market prices, WM has invested in its recycling infrastructure, either upgrading technology in its existing plants or building new MRFs. He mentioned what WM has dubbed its “MRF of the future” in Chicago, saying that facility’s degree of automation is improving efficiency. Inside that plant, WM is positively sorting recyclables with the help of automation. He credited positive sorting for “building a much better product.”

Automation and mechanization also are reducing employees’ exposure to potentially dangerous items in the material stream, such as needles.

Additionally, the increased use of automation has helped WM address issues related to staffing at its MRFs. “Those are challenging jobs,” Morris said. “And to find people that you can get in there … has traditionally been a challenge.”

“The way we conduct business looks a little different today, especially when you’re inside one of our facilities, because we want to make sure we can keep people safe.” – John Morris, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Houston-based Waste Management

Morris said the pandemic has presented additional challenges for the company regarding worker safety. “But it’s been also an opportunity for us to really demonstrate how we can take care of our people.”

Read on for more detailed responses from Morris on these and other topics in the edited excerpt of the interview below.

Recycling Today (RT): What potential threats keep you up at night as the COO of Waste Management?

John Morris (JM): Well, you know there’s not a lot that keeps me up at night. I will tell you, though, obviously at the onset of this pandemic, we wanted to keep our people safe first and foremost. And, certainly, there were a few sleepless nights in the beginning of making sure that as a provider of essential services we were going to be able to do that. The way we conduct business looks a little different today, especially when you’re inside one of our facilities, because we want to make sure we can keep people safe.

The good news is, while we’ve certainly had some employees and their families who were impacted personally, by and large, we’ve kept our folks safe, and it hasn’t impacted any one of our facilities in a disproportionate way.

I wouldn’t say our recycling business keeps me up at night. Certainly, we’d like to be further along in really reinforcing the foundation of the business. We’ve spoken publicly about moving to a fee-for-service model, being less reliant on commodity prices to drive the sustainability of the business. You know, recycling has to be economically sustainable in order to be overall sustainable for our customers.

RT: The Advanced Disposal Services (ADS) acquisition was a significant step for the company. What about that acquisition made it attractive to WM?

JM: Well, you know, as a compliment to Richard [Burke, ADS CEO] and the team over at Advanced Disposal, they built a really strong company with strong assets, and we felt like those assets combined with the WM assets in those regions were going to make for a stronger company. Part of our evaluation aside from the physical assets was also the people and the culture there. And we felt like they would be a really good fit.

RT: What about your acquisition strategy over the next five years more broadly?

JM: We’re going to be focused in the real estate where Advanced had assets, and we’re going to work to combine those assets and those folks and make sure we take care of our customers.

I think outside of the real estate where Advanced exists, you’re going to see the same strategy. We’re going to continue to look for the right opportunities in the M&A space, but we’re going to continue to be disciplined about it.

RT: How might WM be looking to broaden its business?

JM: For the last decade-plus, we’ve always kept an eye on what was happening in certain areas of technology advancement, and we’ve been pretty public about the fact that if we can find ways to take elements of what is now the waste stream and create higher value materials out of that, that’s an area where we’re going to continue to look. There’s been certainly a lot of technology that has been tried and, interestingly, a lot of those technologies work, but whether they’re scalable and whether they’re economic, those are two really important bars. So, to the extent that the waste stream starts to migrate to different forms of a commodity stream, where we can convert elements of the waste stream into higher value materials and have a higher and better use, we’re going to continue to look to do that. When you think about investments outside of the traditional spaces, that’s the one area where we continue to keep an eye on that to make sure that we’re more at the tip of the spear, if you will.

RT: How do you see WM treating expansion in the recycling space?

Photo courtesy of Waste Management

JM: In the last four or five years, we’ve probably invested well over a quarter of a billion dollars in our recycling infrastructure, both in upgrading technology in existing plants and building out some new technology. And I think that the one that sticks out and we’ve talked about a lot is the MRF of the future in Chicago. We’re very, very pleased with that because it does a couple of things. One, it’s automating and making us more efficient. We’re doing positive sorting with that equipment. And the last piece really is, one of the struggles around recycling, at least for us, has been staffing those facilities. Those are challenging jobs.

What some of this technology advancement like the plant in Chicago does for us is it solves a few things. One, the quality coming out of the facilities is better, the efficiency of the facility is better, and it’s solving a real challenge we’ve had around keeping labor inside. When you look at investments going forward, over the next three or four years, we think we’ll have advanced technology to some degree in virtually every one of our facilities.

RT: Does that advanced technology center around artificial intelligence and robotics largely?

JM: Actually, the plant in Chicago does not; it relies more on optical sorting. We do have eight robots deployed around the country, and we’re continuing to look for opportunities to use robotics in the plant for a lot of those same reasons.

RT: You mentioned positive sorting and that you are finding that to be a much more effective method than the negative sorts. Why might that be?

JM: As single stream has become much more prevalent over the last decade and a half, while it’s promoted recycling, it’s also brought in a lot more contamination. That’s one of the things we struggle with both from a quality of material standpoint but actually also from a safety standpoint. A lot of what we see coming into the plant, not only is it not good for the outbound material, but in a lot of cases when it’s batteries, aerosol cans, those kind of things, it can present some safety issues for us.

When you look at positive sorting, like we’re doing in Chicago and a handful of other places, we’re building a much better product. Obviously, when you’re doing it through an automated or mechanized process, you’re not exposing folks to some of those other things.

RT: You mentioned safety around COVID-19 earlier. Can you talk a bit more about safety and how innovation could potentially change the industry?

JM: Some of the risks are to some of the folks on the sorting line. So, clearly, as we mechanize or automate some of the sorting and the exposure to some of those materials, we’re obviously going to reduce the risk. And what you see, for instance, in the plants, we’ve got more advanced technology that folks are not interacting with the material stream as much as they’re more quality control.

RT: Given the risks that are inherent in that incoming material, are you doing more at the front end to evaluate those incoming loads and just flat out reject certain materials or loads?

JM: As the scrutiny over commodity quality has risen over the last handful of years, making sure that we were equally as diligent on the front end, screening that material coming in, has certainly been an area of focus for us. We use technology to centralize a lot of the screening processes. So, what we’re doing is we’ve used some strategically placed camera technology in our facilities where we can get a better view without having to expose as many folks to being on an active tipping floor. We’ve seen some success from that as well.

RT: Do you believe legislation plays a role in strengthening recycling and what form might that take?

JM: Minimum content requirements would certainly be one area. Minimum content requirements, at least in my mind, provide a base for those markets.

RT: Where do you see WM in five years?

JM: This is a strong company. We’ve been a public company since 1971. I think you’re going to see a lot of technological advancements. We talked a little bit about what’s going on in the recycling space, about what technology is doing to change that business. I think technology and other parts outside the recycling space are going to continue to evolve our business.

And when we think about attracting the workforce of the future and what the future work looks like, you’re going to continue to see technology take a more prevalent role in defining those jobs. And I think that’s the fun part.

Look at what is happening now around material processing, around remotely operating heavy equipment in some of our sites. When you look at the advancements around fleet, whether it’s going to CNG (compressed natural gas) or pilots where we’re dealing with electric vehicles, or you look at automation of the roles, whether it’s in the MRF or in the collection side of the house, I just think the rate of change is obviously increasing everywhere, but specifically for our industry.

John Morris is the executive vice president and chief operating officer of Houston-based Waste Management. More information on the company is available online at www.wm.com.

Fall has been an apt name for that season in several previous years in the ferrous scrap market. The terms “October surprise” and “November surprise” have one meaning in the political world, but for scrap processors they can refer to an unwelcome plunge in prices.

The October and early November buying periods this year came and went without an unpleasant surprise, with Fastmarkets AMM calculating flat pricing in October and $6 to $10 per ton increases in November pricing based on its surveys of transactions.

“December already feels tight, and the price increases we have seen in the last 10 days on Turkish sales prove just that.” – Nathan Fruchter, Idoru Trading, Lawrence, New York

The flatness of October’s values was confirmed by the Raw Material Data Aggregation Service (RMDAS) pricing from Pittsburgh-based Management Science Associates Inc. (MSA).

Remarkably, MSA’s collected data show national averages for all three major grades (prompt, shredded and heavy melting steel, or HMS) that did not move by even $1. It is the first time since RMDAS began publishing figures in 2006 that pricing for all three major grades were static. “In the past, there may have been a ‘zero’ change on one of the [grades], but not all three,” says MSA Senior Account Manager Jeralyn Brown.

The flatness of October and the minor move upward in November stand in contrast to several previous years. In October of 2019, prices fell an average of $40 per ton, and that was after steep declines already had occurred in June and July last year.

In October 2017, AMM pricing indices pointed to a more than $40 per ton drop for prompt grades shipped to domestic mills, while shredded scrap dropped nearly $30 per ton.

In October 2015, pricing fell by $30 to $50 per ton, and all three benchmark AMM Midwest grades fell below $300 per ton. Prices fell yet more that year in November.

This year, recyclers concerned about a late-arriving December surprise might not have those fears realized, according to early indications. Fastmarkets AMM reports a mid-November export transaction that saw an overseas bidder paying an additional $9 per metric ton for scrap.

A Lawrence, New York-based trader and consultant Recycling Today contacted also does not see a December surprise looming. He points to diminishing supply. “October and November scrap arisings in the United States are below 2019 levels,” says Nathan Fruchter of Idoru Trading “Every recycler I speak to has the same complaint: ‘Less material is coming into the yard.’”

The reduction in manufacturing, construction and demolition activity in several states, related to subsequent waves of COVID-19, has been enough to affect tonnage available to export buyers who purchase key “swing tons” that influence pricing.

Fruchter says, “The writing is on the wall when we see less bulk cargo available to the export markets. December already feels tight, and the price increases we have seen in the last 10 days on Turkish sales prove just that. Make no mistake, supply is tight out there.”

While parts of the U.S. and much of Europe are introducing restrictions to combat a rising COVID-19 caseload, the health situation in Asia has improved, and governments there are spending on steel-intensive infrastructure as economic stimulus measures. (See “Avoiding the worst,” starting on page 36 of the print edition.)

That as well, Fruchter says, will support higher prices. “Global steel production is up, and China is a big contributor.” China “reopened early” after its bout with COVID-19, he continues, “and had an enormous demand for steel, which saw to it that the Turkish mills had great order books.”

Heading into 2021, Fruchter says he is intrigued by the Chinese government’s effort to reclassify some ferrous scrap grades as “resources” so they can be imported after it enacts its “waste” import ban in January. The nation is increasing its electric arc furnace steelmaking capacity and could require higher grades of ferrous scrap.

Fruchter says, “I am bearish on scrap prices, and if China really starts buying in 2021, I’m thinking we could easily see a $50 to $100 per metric ton climb in scrap prices—and as a result a similar rise in steel prices.”

Despite rising COVID-19 infections in the U.S., steel output has maintained its slow but steady rise after the March and April plunge in production.

The Washington-based American Iron and Steel Institute reported a 1 percent rise in crude steel output in the U.S. during the week ending Oct. 31 compared with the week before. The mill capacity rate for the week ending Oct. 31 was 70.4 percent.

The rise in weekly steel production is part of an ongoing rebound since COVID-19-related impacts dropped the mill capacity rate in the U.S. to just 51.1 percent the week ending May 2.

Sources report tightening availability of copper and aluminum scrap, a situation that is amplified by transportation-related difficulties.

While aluminum supply and demand seemed to come into better balance earlier this fall, the opposite happened for red metals. As one trader for a processor with operations in the Upper Midwest and Southeast told Recycling Today in October, a number of copper consumers had outages scheduled as of mid-October or seemed to be drawing down inventories as 2021 nears.

However, as of mid-November, it appears that copper scrap is in tighter supply.

“[Aluminum] mills have had a lot of leverage for the last two to three years. We are seeing that trend switch a little bit to favor the scrap side.” – Andy McKee, president of materials trading at Kalamazoo, Michigan-based Schupan

A supplier of red metal scrap, particularly copper chops, who is based in the Midwest says, “We have seen a decline in some raw material to process, which I believe to be from the beginning of the pandemic.” He says wire supply has been reduced by the “abrupt halt” in construction projects, demolition activity and manufacturing early on in the pandemic. “I think we are feeling that lack of scrap currently.”

He says consuming mill demand is fluid. “Bottom line, demand domestically (and export as well) moves so quickly, it is hard to keep up. One month, domestic consumers cannot get enough material; the next month, they will push out your delivery a month or two.”

The copper processor says export demand has been soft lately, though some material has been moving to Europe. “I think that has been a new area of exploration for large amounts of different red metals.”

However, he says obtaining credit insurance for some overseas transactions has been more challenging in the pandemic. “Due to the pandemic, it appears credit insurance companies have downgraded many companies without any basis for doing so,” the copper processor says. “Regardless, [it’s] hard to sell to someone, especially in these tough financial times, if you do not have insurance on them.”

Aluminum scrap generation has been inconsistent across the various manufacturing sectors, Andy McKee, materials trading division president of Kalamazoo, Michigan-based processor Schupan, says. However, he adds, on balance, industrial generation as of mid-November is nearly consistent with the corresponding time in 2019 and up from the 50 percent volume reduction seen early in the pandemic.

Regarding contracted sales for 2021, he says, “We’ve seen a small uptick in overall interest in contract metals.” This has been particularly true of can sheet producers, McKee adds. “Mills have had a lot of leverage for the last two to three years. We are seeing that trend switch a little bit to favor the scrap side.”

McKee and the copper processor mention trucking-related challenges.

“The price to move material is almost double at this point on runs that we have been making all year,” the copper processor says. “The only way to secure a truck is to pay more.”

McKee says truck availability and pricing are relatively steady in lanes where Schupan has consistent monthly movement. “It’s when you are trying to increase capacity that it becomes very expensive.”