The board of directors of France-based environmental services firm Suez says it has reviewed the takeover bid being made by fellow French company Veolia and has labeled it a “hostile approach” that is “against the best interests of Suez and all its stakeholders, and in particular its shareholders, its employees and its clients.”

In a news release issued by Suez, the company says its board has concluded that “the overall structure of the transaction contemplated by Veolia is questionable and exposes Suez and its shareholders to a long period of disruption for the group, with a risk of a takeover on an unacceptable basis.” Adds Suez “Veolia’s takeover project comes with major antitrust and regulatory issues in France and abroad.”

The Suez board, which says it “affirms its full support to the management team,” also is reviewing the company’s progress on the Suez 2030 plan, and “unanimously reiterates its full support for Suez’s standalone strategic plan and the management team delivering this highly value-creative plan.”

The board describes the Suez 2030 plan as reinforcing the company’s status as “a global leader in environmental services” that positions the company as “an agile, innovative and highly technological company. The plan, says the board, “is endorsed by clients, municipalities and employees.”

Veolia and Suez are the largest providers of waste and recycling collection services in France, and each also processes and trades significant volumes of recyclable materials in France and the rest of Europe. Both companies also have environmental services footprints that extend to Africa, Asia and the Americas.

Goudsmit Magnetics, Waalre, Netherlands, has upgraded its eddy current nonferrous separator enabling the control unit to be expanded with an IOT (internet of things) module that sends data to a dashboard through the internet. This allows operators to see machine performance graphically and in real-time, including how fast the rotor is turning, the degree of vibration and the belt speed. The internet connection also offers the option of remote assistance, the Goudsmit service team is available online to monitor, resolve any malfunctions and perform software updates. The Profinet connection also enables integration of the unit into a processing line, so everything works together and the line can be controlled centrally, Goudsmit says

Mechanical upgrades have also been made to the separator. For instance, the EddyXpert and EddyFines machine lines have been more closely aligned to enable the interchangeability of modules. For companies that want to expand their systems in the future with a drum magnetic separator or other separation system, can easily replace or exchange modules, the company says.

Goudsmit says its eddy current separator can be combined to address various applications. In glass recycling, for example, the unit is equipped with manganese steel wear plates on the vibratory chute, drum magnet and/or the separation plate and paired with a wear-resistant rubber conveyor belt.

For the small fraction of bottom ash recycling, Goudsmit uses a 38HI magnetic rotor in combination with a feed belt separator instead of a vibratory chute. This helps to prevent caking of the cement-like mass and results in the best possible separation, the company says.

Coarse wood is best processed using an eddy current separator with a 12-pole magnetic rotor featuring a deep and powerful field, Goudsmit says. To give the coarse pieces sufficient space, the company recommends installing an extra-large chute and a separation unit.

21st Century Programming, Long Beach, California, has announced the launch and immediate availability of the first product in the ROM Infinite suite of innovative solutions for the recycling and waste industries: ROM Infinite Dispatch.

According to the company, ROM Infinite Dispatch provides management and monitoring of dispatches, drivers, equipment and customer activity.

“Everything we’ve learned, all we’ve heard from our customers, all the mistakes we’ve made and successes we’ve had, we’ve poured into ROM Infinite. We’re immensely proud of how it’s come out and look forward to the infinite possibilities of our new platform,” said Dave Kane, president of 21st Century Programming.

ROM Infinite Dispatch features streamlined dispatch planning, real-time views of the dispatching operation at multiple levels, immediate detection of issues and deviations from the plan, smart alerts and resolutions, and built-in instantaneous communications between dispatchers, drivers and customers. It also integrates the new ROM Smart Asset-Tracking devices that were specifically designed for the recycling and waste industries.

The user interface is customer tested, easy to use, very powerful and requires little to no training, the company says. The underlying hybrid-cloud platform requires zero management by customers and provides instant cloud backup and synchronization, end-to-end encryption, optional on-premises servers that can keep things going when the internet goes down, and more.

21st Century Programming is celebrating their 20th year as a leader of technological solutions for the recycling industry. Their flagship product, the Recycling Operations Manager (ROM), is in operation at over 400 facilities in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

For more information on the ROM Infinite, visit www.rominfinite.com. 

Rumpke Waste & Recycling

The Glass Recycling Coalition, Ann Arbor, Michigan, has awarded a gold-level MRF Glass Certification to material recovery facilities (MRFs) operated by Rumpke Waste & Recycling, Cincinnati, and Sims Municipal Recycling (SMR), Brooklyn, New York. Two Sims MRFs and three Rumpke MRFs received this honor for their processes for cleaning up glass and integrated beneficiation, according to a news release from GRC.

“These MRFs are leading the way by not only cleaning up glass in the MRF, but their integrated glass beneficiation ensures a higher quality glass,” says Jim Nordmeyer, global vice president of sustainability at Ohio-based O-I Glass and a member of the GRC leadership committee.

GRC reports that SMR and Rumpke have a precleaning process to remove glass early. That MRF glass is then taken to company-owned glass processing sites for further cleanup, color sorting and marketability. End markets for these facilities include furnace-ready bottle-to-bottle options, fiberglass and roadbed.

“Environmental sustainability is a core pillar of our company mission,” says Bill Rumpke Jr., president and CEO of Rumpke. “We continue to invest in recycling and look for innovative ways to put material to good use. Over the last 10 years, we made significant investments to operate the most technologically advanced recycling systems in our service footprint.”

Family-owned and operated Rumpke operates a glass recycling beneficiation plant in Dayton, Ohio. The Dayton plant produces about 60,000 to 70,000 tons per year for glass insulation and bottle manufacturing. End markets are found in Ohio and neighboring Indiana at fiberglass and bottle manufacturers.

“It made financial sense to build our own glass beneficiation plant; however, that may not be the same for other facilities based on factors like volume and proximity to glass cullet customers,” says Tom Outerbridge, general manager of SMR. “In those instances, we encourage communities to remain committed to glass recycling and to reimagine how to best capture this resource given local and regional conditions.”  

SMR’s New Jersey location is home to SMR’s beneficiation facility for all of the curbside glass SMR produces at its New York and New Jersey MRFs. The glass plant includes optical sorters to color sort cullet for sale to glass furnaces and cleaning equipment to make glass aggregate from the glass that cannot be color sorted. SMR’s glass plant processes more than 100,000 tons per year and can ship by rail and barge in addition to trucks to extend its market reach for processed glass. 

The GRC MRF Glass Certification was launched in the fall of 2019. To date seven U.S. MRFs hold this certification. The free certification program recognizes MRFs with additional equipment and operational procedures to clean up glass in both single- and dual-stream systems. The glass certification criteria are judged on current infrastructure and a glass purity measure. An independent committee scores certification levels into gold, silver and bronze certifications. MRFs holding this certification will have a competitive advantage in the marketplace, the GRC says.

GRC’s website currently hosts an interactive map showing MRFs, glass processors and end markets across the country. GRC certified MRFs will be noted on this map along with public recognition of this certification.