The 32^nd Annual Southeast Recycling Conference and Trade Show (SERC) has teamed up with Recycle Florida Today Inc. (RFT), Ocala, Florida, to hold two events at the Rosen Centre Hotel in Orlando, Florida. SERC will take place Feb. 24-26, followed immediately by the RFT Winter Summit, which will take place starting in the afternoon of Feb. 26 and will run until 3 p.m. Feb. 27.

Each year the SERC and RFT events provide forums for informing the public and private sectors of the economic and environmental significance of recycling in the Southeast. Attendees will have networking opportunities and a chance to visit the exhibits to preview the newest advances in recycled products and services.

Tentative conference presentation topic areas include:

• advancing recycling markets;
• cleaning up contamination;
• funding solid waste and recycling services;
• recovered material market updates and prices for paper, old corrugated cardboard (OCC), plastic, aluminum, steel and glass;
• film collection and recycling;
• food waste and organics recycling;
• waste conversion technologies;
• recycling technology advances;
• social marketing and its role in recycling programs; and
• nontraditional recyclables markets and collection techniques.

SERC and RFT have issued a call for papers, exhibitors and sponsors. Interested individuals should contact Gene Jones at 850-386-6280 or by email at gene@swixusa.org for further details.

Trimet Aluminium SE invested in modernizing its recycling plants in Gelsenkirchen and Harzgerode, Germany, to improve its productivity, save resources and protect the environment. 

The company produces about 235,000 tons of recycled aluminum annually. In its recycling plants, Trimet says it focuses on new processes that improve productivity and energy efficiency. This year and next year, the family business plans to invest in the high single-digit million-euro range in both technical equipment and environmental protection measures.

In Gelsenkirchen, Trimet will install a new rotary drum furnace, which is expected to be put into operation by the end of 2018. With a capacity of around 40 tons, it will replace two existing furnaces. The new burner technology reduces the furnace’s energy requirements by 15 percent while also increasing the proportion of recovered metal. The intelligent loading technology also enables quicker filling, increasing the quantity of material per melting process. 

The Harzgerode recycling site will receive a new hearth shaft furnace in September 2018, which also features innovative burner technology. The furnace with a melting capacity of three tons per hour is more productive and requires less power than the previous generation of furnaces.

“Aluminum recycling is becoming increasingly important,” says Thomas Reuther, member of the management board of Trimet Aluminium SE. “It conserves natural resources and improves the energy balance of products. We are also making an important contribution through efficiency enhancements in aluminum processing.” 

In addition to production technology, Trimet says it plans to invest in further improvements to environmental and occupational safety at both locations. 

In Harzgerode, the storage bins for scrap metal will be completely covered by mid-2019. This protects the raw materials from atmospheric influences and eases the impact on the surrounding residential area. New extraction systems will further reduce dust emissions, which are already below the legal limits. In the spring of 2018, Trimet had already roofed over the storage areas of the Gelsenkirchen recycling plant and equipped them with a new exhaust system.

Trimet’s recycling plants are based in Gelsenkirchen and Harzgerode. Also, Trimet produces primary aluminum and die-casting products in Essen, Germany; Voerde, Germany; Hamburg, Germany; and Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, France. The company produces aluminum wires in Castelsarrasin, France.

The Solid Waste Association of North America’s (SWANA’s) International Board unanimously approved a new technical policy citing the need for entities to measure recycling progress and encouraging the development of a consistent methodology. 

Although the historic measure for recycling has been weight-based, SWANA, Silver Spring, Maryland, is encouraging the ongoing evaluation of different metrics in order to gain a wholistic and better view of the domestic recycling process, the organization says.

“As organizations throughout the United States begin utilizing the identified weight-based standard within the new technical policy, staff members will be able to review and determine how their programs compare to others at a clear and concise baseline starting point,” Robert Smouse, assistant director of solid waste for the city of Fort Worth, Texas, and the current director of SWANA’s Planning and Management Technical Division, says. “In addition, organizations can convert and interpret their recycling weights into additional beneficial attributes, such as economic influences, environment contributions, greenhouse gas generation, lifecycle impacts and energy comparisons.”

With increased quality requirements for recyclables in the wake of China’s waste import restrictions, some material in a limited number of states is temporarily being disposed in landfills. This is leading many industry leaders to take a fresh look at local recycling programs and requirements, including how we measure such programs. This issue was discussed at the MRF Summit that took place at Wastecon 2018 in Nashville, Tennessee.  

“Adoption of this policy represents the culmination of a collaborative, four-year process among a wide range of stakeholders,” Scott Pasternak, senior project manager at Kansas City, Missouri-based Burns & McDonnell, who led efforts to develop the policy as director of SWANA’s Planning and Management Technical Division. “A uniform recycling measurement standard is a great benefit to all in the solid waste and recycling industry.”

To download the full T-6.4 SWANA Technical Policy on Measuring Recycling, click here.

Cleveland-based Ardleigh Minerals, an industrial recycling company that works with the aerospace, automotive and catalyst industries, has hired Morgan L. Piper as a customer service representative, according to Ernest Q. Petrey Jr., the firm’s CEO.

“We are fortunate to add Morgan to our team,” says Petrey. “Her education and prior work experience in natural resource acquisition and environmental sciences makes her a perfect fit for our team.”

As a customer service representative, Piper will serve as a liaison between customers and Ardleigh Minerals. Her day-to-day tasks include serving as vendor liaison, coordinating sampling and monitoring approval processes for customers.

Piper previously worked as a survey research associate for the University of Alaska Fairbanks , interviewing with visitors and residents in the 222 million acres of federal public lands in Alaska. She also has been a lab technician at Cleveland-based Sherwin-Williams.

Ardleigh Minerals describes itself as providing one-stop recycling services for all aerospace, and automotive industries by recycling thermal spray plasma dust, grit, sludge, filters and high alloy metals The company offers a Zero Landfill Guarantee, through which materials recycled by Ardleigh are not placed into landfills, incinerated or otherwise released into the environment as potential contaminants.