Tech Defenders, a Grand Rapids, Michigan-based company that focuses on repurposing and remarketing mobile devices, says it has partnered with a local company HealthBaar LLC, a team of certified nurses, to provide daily health screenings to the information technology asset disposition (ITAD) company’s employees. The screenings are among the measures Tech Defenders is taking to ensure the safety of its employees during the COVID-19 outbreak.  

“The health and safety of our employees and customers have always been our first priority, which is why we had started taking proactive COVID-targeted measures even before any shelter in place order, and now we are faced with this pandemic challenge in full swing,” says Tech Defenders CEO Garry VonMyhr. “Over time, we’ve chosen to add many other elements to our health and safety policy because, at the end of the day, you cannot put a price on safety.”

© Tech Defenders

Tech Defenders says it has remained in operation from the start of the outbreak and has been instituting new ways to keep its employees safe and healthy. All employees who can work remotely have been doing so since mid-March. For employees who must work on-site, all workstations have been moved 6 feet apart and are sanitized three times per day. HealthBaar also is performing daily health checks that include taking their temperatures and asking them screening questions. Gloves and masks are provided as well.

“The world is turned upside down right now, and we want to do our part in putting it back together,” HealthBaar owner Nathan Baar says.

Lisa Cooper, director of Human Resources at Tech Defenders, says the company also has collaborated with other health care professionals, safety consultants, employment attorneys and HR advisors “to ensure we stay on the cutting edge of the latest CDC workplace health standards and common-sense best practices.”

She adds that Tech Defenders is offering a free, confidential employee assistance program to provide virtual mental health consultations and support.

Tech Defenders says the company has had no COVID-19 cases among its employees during the outbreak. Its facilities and cleaning teams clean and sanitize the common areas twice daily, all work stations are sanitized after every break and lunch. Additionally, sanitizing fog is used throughout the facility, all packages are treated with sanitizing spray when they are received and conference rooms are wiped down after every meeting.

Sanitizing stations have been added throughout the facility, as well, and employees are encouraged to wipe down everything they touch and to sanitize their hands constantly, the company says.

In the past six years, The Recycling Partnership has helped to deliver recycling carts to more than 700,000 U.S. households and educate more than 77 million households in the U.S. on recycling. These were some findings the Falls Church, Virginia-based organization discovered and shared in its 2020 Impact Report, which shows how the organization activated change in communities since it started in 2014.

“As we navigate the impacts of COVID-19 as a nation, one of the tasks ahead is to rebuild a strong U.S. economy in a way that supports people and the planet,” says Keefe Harrison, CEO of The Recycling Partnership. “Recycling will have a central role to play in the process of rebuilding the U.S. economy. Our 2020 Impact Report shows how we’re working with communities, corporate brands and other industry-aligned organizations to move the U.S. from a linear economy to a circular economy.”

According to a news release from The Recycling Partnership, the report highlights how the organization is mission-focused on helping more than 1,500 U.S. communities overcome recycling challenges. Since the organization’s inception in 2014, it has leveraged more than $90 million in impact. 

The Recycling Partnership reports that some of the households reached were in Ohio where, over the last year, the partnership worked with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency to reduce contamination in five pilot communities. As a result of that work, those communities reduced contamination by 40 percent and increased the value of cleaner recyclables by about $20 per ton.

“We thank The Recycling Partnership and our pilot cities in Ohio for their efforts and partnership to improve how Ohioans recycle,” says Vlad Cica, the Ohio EPA Division of Materials and Waste Management chief. “Improving and increasing education, along with other interventions like working street-to-street help us all to recycle better and show our communities why recycling matters.” 

The Recycling Partnership states that its strategy for the next 18 months will focus on implementing smarter systems across the value chain, along with continuing to unlock supply of recyclable materials from communities, reducing contamination in local recycling systems, sparking innovation through material collaboratives to make more items commonly recycled, and working with elected leaders to ensure an even playing field for recycling and plans for improved infrastructure. 

The current global pandemic has shined a light on just how loosely connected but highly dependent our recycling system is in the United States and has made clear the next steps needed to move toward the recycling system of the future, the partnership reports. 

“One of the things I hope we all carry forward from this time of crisis is the perspective and heightened awareness of how we, as humans, collectively impact the earth—and the responsibility we have to lighten that burden,” Harrison says. “The good work of The Recycling Partnership, to create a circular economy and a healthy U.S. recycling system, is now more important than ever.”

Click here to read the full report.

The Bureau of International Recycling (BIR), Brussels, has notified its members that China’s Solid Waste & Chemicals Management Center of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment published the seventh batch of scrap import quotas of 2020 May 18. The list, which is in Chinese, can be translated using a web browser.

According to the list, 10,423 metric tons of copper scrap, 1,480 metric tons of aluminum scrap, 310 metric tons of steel scrap and 55,810 metric tons of paper scrap have been permitted to enter China.

Fourteen companies received permits to import copper scrap into the country, with volumes ranging from 90 metric tons for Taizhou Yize Metal Products Co. Ltd. and Fortune Environmental Protection (Qingyuan) Co. Ltd. to 4,700 metric tons for Dongying Fangyuan Nonferrous Metal Co. Ltd.

Four companies were issued aluminum scrap imports, while one company, Taizhou Yize Metal Products Co. Ltd., received a ferrous scrap import permit.

Eight companies received paper import permits, which ranged from 360 metric tons for Guangdong Tongli Custom Manufacturing Co. Ltd. to 28,600 tons for Shandong Century Sunshine Paper Group Co. Ltd.

Total permitted scrap imports for 2020 as of May 18 equal 540,184 metric tons of copper, 478,159 metric tons of aluminum, 11,540 metric tons of steel scrap and approximately 4.57 million metric tons of recovered fiber.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has released its hours-of-service final rule, making changes to the agency’s hours-of-service rules in Part 395 of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations.

According to the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), Washington, the final rule included language identical to comments ISRI submitted on behalf of the recycling industry that would increase route optimization and flexibility in pickups and deliveries while maintaining driver safety.

“The hours of service final rule provides a long-lasting positive impact for the recycling industry without adversely affecting transportation safety,” ISRI President Robin Wiener says. “As the voice of the recycling industry, ISRI appreciates the incorporation of our comments on this important issue, and we look forward to continuing to work with the FMCSA to improve safety on our nation’s roadways.”

ISRI notes a number of highlights from the final rule:

• The rule increased safety and flexibility for the 30-minute break rule by requiring a break after eight hours of consecutive driving and allowing the break to be satisfied by a driver using on-duty, not driving status, rather than off-duty status.
• The rule modified the sleeper-berth exception to allow drivers to split their required 10 hours off duty into two periods: an 8/2 split, or a 7/3 split, with neither period counting against the driver’s 14-hour driving window.
• The rule modified the adverse driving conditions exception by extending by two hours the maximum window during which driving is permitted.
• The rule changed the short-haul exception available to certain commercial drivers by lengthening the drivers’ maximum on-duty period from 12 to 14 hours and extending the distance limit in which the driver may operate from 100 air miles to 150 air miles.

The final rule revisions take effect 120 days after the date the rule is published in the Federal Register.