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In the September/October 2014 issue of Recycling Today Global Edition, we produced and published our first European Auto Shredders List and Map. It was a large undertaking, and along with it, we also wrote a bit about the history of auto shredding in Europe in the article “Stacked Field.” I was made aware of a couple of errors in that story, which I would like to take this opportunity to correct. According to Anthony Bird, Europe’s first operating auto shredder was installed at Bird Fragmentation Limited of St. Helens in the U.K., not Sheppard Recycling as stated in the story. Additionally, the story incorrectly states that Europe’s larger auto shredders, those with at least 6,000 horsepower, were first installed after 2000. Bird of The Bird Group of Companies Ltd. reports that his company installed at least two such shredders in the mid-1990s and a third one in a joint venture in the late 1990s. And Scott Newell of The Shredder Company, based in the U.S., says other large shredders also were installed prior to 1990. Bird recently shared a few precious details about the history behind the installation of Europe’s first auto shredder at his company in St. Helens. He says he personally supervised the 1966 installation of the Lindemann Newell 3,000-horsepower shredder and afterburner. He also related the story of the much-publicised opening ceremony during which Duncan Sands, son-in-law of Sir Winston Churchill and one of Britain’s leading politicians at the time, officially opened the plant in St. Helens Lancashire. According to Bird, “the opening received national publicity and was on all the newsreels in U.K. cinemas at that time. The headquarters of the British Police, Scotland Yard, paid particular interest to this machine because of its capacity for the total destruction of motor cars and anyone or anything which might have been inside them.” I would like to thank Anthony Bird for sharing these corrections and details, and I offer my sincere regret for the errors. This month’s cover story company, PetStar of Mexico, is making the ideal of closed-loop recycling a reality. PetStar now collects nearly 3 billion postconsumer bottles in Mexico per year thanks to a grass-roots collection network that has been years in the making and spans hundreds of collection points throughout the nation. The company combines hand-sorting methods with some of the highest tech reprocessing innovations in the industry to end up with food-contact-grade resin to return to the local marketplace. You can read about this organisation here. |
