Despite supply chain issues, soaring shipping costs and trade confrontations between nations, the administrators of the Suez Canal in Egypt say the canal reached yielded record annual revenue of $6.3 billion in 2021.

According to AP News,  Admiral Ossama Rabei, head of the Suez Canal Authority, said revenue rose by 12.8 percent, compared with 2020. Rabei also said 20,649 vessels journeyed through the Suez in 2021, an increase of 10 percent compared with the 18,830 vessels that transited the canal in 2020.

The Suez Canal reached its record last year despite being out of commission for six days in March when a sizable container ship, the Ever Given, ran aground, completely blocking a single-lane section of the waterway.

In the Western Hemisphere, the operators of the Panama Canal announced a record number of annual transits in 2021, having surpassed the prior record by October of last year.

“We look forward to accommodating even more transits for our customers in the New Year, with containership, liquefied natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas transits already expected to drive growth in 2022,” lya Espino de Marotta, deputy administrator of the Panama Canal, told the Greece-based Hellenic Shipping News in late December 2021.

Traders of secondary commodities encountered numerous problems in 2021 tied to both availability of containers and bookings and the cost of shipping.

However, cross-border demand for scrap commodities remains vibrant, with the Indian subcontinent in particular being a growing destination that can be served by both major canals.

Residents and business owners in California will now be required to separate organic materials like food from recycling and trash after Senate Bill 1383 took effect Jan. 1. The bill was passed in 2016 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from landfills and slow climate change.

The bill requires residents and businesses to recycle organics and all jurisdictions must provide organics collection services by 2024. The organic scrap that must be separated includes food scraps, landscaping waste, wood, paper products, manure and organic textiles.

Each jurisdiction can choose its own method of collection so long as it can recycle the organic waste into usable products, including compost, biofuel and paper. This includes one-, two- or three-container systems.  

Penalties for noncompliance will be determined and enforced by each jurisdiction. However, the program will be rolled out slowly for homes and businesses in the coming months, with the actual start date varying depending on the location, reports the Los Angeles Times.

State officials hope to reduce organic waste disposal by 75 percent from the 2014 level by 2025 and recover 20 percent more edible food. The goal is to cut down on methane produced in landfills, which accounts for 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions globally, according to the EPA.

Two global aluminum producers have announced cutbacks at primary aluminum production sites in Europe, with rising energy costs listed as a factor in the cutbacks.

United States-based Alcoa Corp. in late December 2021 announced it had reached an agreement with workers’ representatives at its San Ciprián aluminum plant in Spain “aimed at resolving ongoing challenges that stem from exorbitant energy prices.”

The agreement calls for a two-year curtailment of the smelter’s 228,000 metric tons of annual capacity and a commitment by Alcoa to begin the restart of the smelter in January 2024.

“With this agreement, we now have a path to resolve the significant challenges that the facility has faced and can begin to build a stronger smelter in two years,” says Alcoa President and CEO Roy Harvey.

Curtailment activities started Jan. 1. During the curtailment period, Alcoa says it will seek to “secure as soon as possible long-term power purchase agreements beginning from 2024. Also, the company has committed $68 million for capital investments and $35 million for restart costs.

A few weeks earlier, Alcoa unveiled a roster of technologies designed to help it create the low-carbon “refinery of the future for aluminum.” That list included attention to finding new ways to use shredded aluminum scrap.

Also in late December, the board of directors of Norway-based Hydro announced “a further curtailment of primary aluminum production” at the Slovalco plant in Slovakia, of which it is a majority owner.

“The decision will bring production down to around 60 percent of capacity and comes in response to very high electricity prices showing no sign of improvement in the short term,” states Hydro.

Hydro also has indicated it expects to produce its first near-zero carbon aluminum in 2022. The company points to carbon capture and storage (CCS) and its “proprietary HalZero technology” for converting alumina into aluminum chloride in a closed-loop process as technologies that will make this possible.

The aluminum producer also writes, “A third pathway to carbon-free aluminum is by recycling postconsumer aluminum, reducing emissions all the way to zero. This will be made possible by Hydro’s aluminum sorting technology and alloying expertise, in combination with replacing natural gas with green hydrogen or electrical heating at recyclers and cast houses.”

Washington-based Delterra, an environmental nonprofit focused on building recycling systems in emerging economies, in collaboration with New York-based The Circulate Initiative, a nonprofit aimed at ending plastic pollution, has released a report examining how behavior impacts recycling. Called “Making ‘Cents’ of Recycling Behavior: The Return on Investment of Spreading the Recycling Habit,” the report highlights how recycling behavior impacts the economics of recycling.

The report looks at Delterra’s projects in three recycling environments in emerging markets, including an informal settlement in Buenos Aires, Argentina; a set of urban districts in Bali; and a midsized city in Argentina.

“Delterra’s programs on the ground reveal the power of behavioral interventions and the importance of having a holistic approach in dealing with waste management and recycling,” says Ellen Martin, director of impact and insights at The Circulate Initiative. “By investing in these interventions alongside infrastructure, we can improve the financial sustainability and efficiency of recycling and support a more circular economy.”

According to a joint news release, around 80 percent of postconsumer waste could be recycled or composted. However, when communities don’t separate waste from the source, most materials remain out of reach for the recycling industry.

The report states that boosting recycling behavior presents an opportunity to improve the business case for recycling overall. Recycling faces a supply shortage because of inaccurate waste segregation by consumers, according to the report. Driving change in recycling behavior can help recycling break the cycle of insufficient demand and supply by improving the yield and thus the recycling value chain’s economics. 

The report also says consumer behavior change can pay back initial costs in four years. Based on the sales value of new recyclables, additional savings from landfill fees and credit for environmental benefits, it would typically take Delterra’s projects to up to four years to earn back the cost of community engagement campaigns.

The Circulate Initiative and Delterra say behavior change costs less than technology-based alternatives for boosting recycling outcomes. Promoting change in recycling behavior costs between $50 and $150 for every additional ton of recyclables per year. This is compared with waste-sorting technology, which costs between $200 and $700 per ton to produce similar results.

“Because Delterra’s programs integrate community behavior change with waste management operations, we had the data to really look at the value that better recycling behavior generates for the rest of the system,” says Cynthia Shih, Delterra’s director of knowledge. “We would love to see more players in the circular economy investing in recycling behavior change and contributing insights on how best to deliver return on investment.”

The report's authors say they hope the report findings will help such organizations to avoid underinvesting in behavior change as more developed markets have in the past. For more information about this report click here.