© Al-Jon

C&C Manufacturing LLC, Ottumwa, Iowa, has hired Dave Reed as Northeast regional manager for its Al-Jon brand of car loggers, scrap metal balers and car crushers for the scrap and solid waste industries. Reed has experience in both markets, previously having worked for Caron Compactor, Al-Jon (prior to its acquisition by C&C in 2017) and LaBounty.

Al-Jon has been a leading brand among car loggers, scrap metal balers, car crushers and compactors in the scrap and solid waste industries since 1963. C&C says Al-jon continues to be committed to providing top quality products, in a timely cost-efficient manner, while exceeding customer expectations.

Santa Monica, California-based Consumer Watchdog is lining up legislative support in that state for bolstering producer responsibility aspects of California’s beverage container deposit law. The same mid-January day that proposal was being considered in a state legislative committee, a consortium of food, beverage and retailing trade associations announced their effort to “to build a public policy framework to fundamentally reimagine the United States’ recycling system.”

In California, Consumer Watchdog is calling on the state government to “make the beverage industry accountable for recycling and redemption of its containers.” The organization’s January 44-page report, titled “Trashed: How California recycling failed and how to fix it,” cites problems with the state’s California Redemption Value (CRV) bottle bill system that include a lack of funding, high contamination rates and a lack of retailer cooperation in accepting bottle and can returns.

The report’s author, Consumer Watchdog staff member Liza Tucker, says the group conducted a year-long investigation into the CRV system’s woes. It concluded, among other things, the state should “enforce the existing bottle deposit law by levying meaningful fines on retail stores for each day, including retroactively, that they shirk their current recycling responsibilities.”

Another producer responsibility aspect recommended by Consumer Watchdog is to “call for reform of the bottle law to shift responsibility for the recycling of containers to the beverage industry, with the legislature setting a 90 percent redemption target and CalRecycle enforcing the law.” The report also calls for wine and distilled spirits packaging to be added to the CRV system.

State agency CalRecycle’s ongoing role in California’s beverage container picture was one of the topics of conversation when the state senate’s Environment Quality Committee met Jan. 15. Legislators were scheduled to discuss a proposed bill that would enact several of Consumer Watchdog’s recommendations to overhaul the CRV system.

Retailers and brand owners have historically opposed packaging producer responsibility laws, and the new effort announced by the consortium of associations may continue that history. In a mid-January news release posted to the website of the Arlington, Virginia-based Consumer Brands Association (CBA), the consortium urges United States senators to bring together “a diverse group of stakeholders from consumer-facing industries, packaging companies and the recycling ecosystem, to build a public policy framework to fundamentally reimagine the U.S. recycling system.”

That reimagining would presumably replace producer responsibility obligations with what the CBA calls “big ideas to create modern and scalable solutions [that] maintain affordability, safety and reliability of consumer products.” These ideas, adds the CBA, would “seek uniformity of recycling rules and practices” on a national scale.

The CBA, formerly known as the Grocery Manufacturers Association, says its allies in the effort include the American Beverage Association, AMERIPEN, Closed Loop Partners, the Consumer Technology Association, the Distilled Spirits Council, the Food Marketing Institute, the Glass Packaging Institute, the Household & Commercial Products Association, the International Franchise Association, the National Restaurant Association, the National Retail Federation, The Recycling Partnership and the Wine Institute.

The consortium effort will operate under the name Recycling Leadership Council, and the CBA says the council will host regional roundtables throughout the U.S. in 2020. Those events will be designed to “bring together diverse stakeholders to discuss best practices in current industry action, technological innovation and public-private partnerships, as well as examine the challenges faced by local recycling systems.”

Miamisburg, Ohio-based papermaker Verso Corp., in a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing made in January 2020, says it is considering a dramatic increase in recycled-content board and kraft paper production at its mill in Duluth, Minnesota.

In the Verso SEC filing section on its mill strategy, the company says it has “started a conversion into recycled packaging and kraft paper grades, of which we will be producing 90,000 tons [per] year starting in January 2020. A full conversion to make 375,000 tons is being considered.”

In 2018, Verso undertook a mill conversion project in Jay, Maine, at its Androscoggin mill. In November 2019, however, Verso announced its intention to sell that mill, along with another in Wisconsin, to Pennsylvania-based Pixelle Specialty Solutions (the former Glatfelter Specialty Papers).

The conversion project in Maine and the sale of the two mills to Pixelle have led to a proxy fight for Verso’s current executive team and board of directors. New York-based Blue Wolf Capital Advisors and Connecticut-based Atlas Holdings LLC have been filing suits and issuing press releases calling for changes to Verso’s board of directors.

In one of those news releases, the two equity firms point to “concerns about the significant investment the [Verso] board approved in 2018 to convert the A3 paper machine at Androscoggin to enable it to produce containerboard and other packaging grades.” Atlas and Blue Wolf also refer to the Stevens Point, Wisconsin, mill being sold as the “crown jewel” of Verso.

Since that sale was announced, Verso has made changes to some executive positions and added new board members. The two capital firms, however, have continued to press their legal case.

Portland, Oregon-based Agilyx Corp., a leader in the chemical recycling of postuse plastics back into polymers, chemicals and low-carbon fuels, has announced that it secured growth financing from a set of European investors led by Carnegie Investment Bank as the sole advisor on the financing. As part of the financing, the company also has announced that it plans to set up offices in Oslo, Norway, as well as Boston that will support European market opportunities and expand its corporate and business development capabilities. The company had announced in November 2019 its plans to open an office in the Boston area as well as an office in Northern Europe. 

“This announcement is a major milestone for the company,” says Joe Vaillancourt, CEO of Agilyx. “We are excited to add such an impressive set of institutional, private equity and family office investors to the Agilyx team who share our vision and who are fully committed to supporting environmental solutions. Together with the exceptional support we received from Carnegie Investment Bank, we are well positioned to execute on our strategic goals.”

“We strongly believe that the world needs to start to improve current plastic recycling rates and treat plastic as a renewable resource, and that Agilyx has the solution, expertise and business model to be a leading player in this commercial transformation. We are excited to continue to support Agilyx going forward,” says Christian Begby, CEO of Carnegie Norway.