The Canadian government has intervened to end a potential strike at the Port of Montreal, the country’s second largest port. A bill titled "An Act to provide for the resumption and continuation of operations at the Port of Montreal,” was introduced April 26 to resume operations if a strike proceeded.

Mediation between The Port of Montreal Longshoremans’ Union (CUPE 375) and the Maritime Employers Association (MTA) has resumed, according to CUPE 375 spokesperson Lisa Djevahirdjian.

CUPE 375 announced last week that it would begin unlimited general strike on April 26 to protest changes to their work schedule. The workers had refused to work weekends and nights after rejecting a March offer from the Maritime Employers Association, Reuters reports.

The union stated that these employees “have been without a collective agreement since December 2018.”

“The Port of Montreal is not the port of a single city or company or industry: it’s every resident in Eastern Canada’s port,” the Port of Montreal said April 12. “But at the turn of the first quarter of 2021, the port is being hit by a climate of uncertainty incompatible with a shipping industry that must choose to divert its vessels to provide a minimum of reliability despite the added delays and costs.”

The strike would have been the second at the Port of Montreal. The dockworkers’ last strike at the port in August 2020 lasted 19 days and had a ripple effect on supply chains across Canada, Reuters reports.

The Glass Packaging Institute (GPI), Arlington, Virginia, has announced that its new initiative, A Circular Future for Glass, provides a 10-year plan to raise the U.S. glass recycling rate to 50 percent and boost the average use of recycled content in domestically made glass containers.

According to a news release from GPI, the institute has partnered with the Boston Consulting Group for the study, design study solution sets in different regions and develop a set of options for achieving the 10-year goal. A Circular Future for Glass has three pillars:

• leave no bottle behind – this involves new or expanded bottle bill laws, clean collection options and expanded commercial recycling programs;
• transform the recycling system – this will involve investments and improvements in collection, separating and processing of glass; and
• drive collective action – this involves creating user-friendly deposit-return programs run by the private sector and other cooperative approaches.

“We are energized by this new national initiative and thankful for the opportunity to work with BCG on this project,” says GPI President Scott DeFife. “Increasing the U.S. glass recycling rate to 50 percent improves the supply of raw material for glass container manufacturing and would result in lower greenhouse gas emissions, create jobs and improve upon the already recognized sustainability performance of glass. It is an ambitious but achievable goal that can be accomplished with collaboration and cooperation within the glass manufacturing supply chain and with help from all levels of government. We are excited to begin this journey with the help of BCG, GPI member companies and other stakeholders in the industry.”

Elfrun Von Koeller, managing director and partner of BCG, adds, “Glass is an infinitely recyclable material, but unfortunately in the U.S. it mostly ends up in landfills. We partnered with GPI to design workable solutions to reach an ambitious 50 percent glass recycling goal. Setting the goal is not enough. We must all continue to work collectively to help transform the recycling system end to end.”

GPI reports that next steps on this new initiative include working to develop pilot projects. The institute is also focused on expanding its membership with a network of participants in the glass recycling sector that will work to achieve its goals.

California is investing $25 million to modernize recycling systems in local communities. The state says transitioning to a circular economy could create more than 100,000 new jobs.

“As the world’s fifth-largest economy, California can show the world how to rebuild into a self-sustaining, circular manufacturing system that reduces trash pollution and ensures products get recycled and remanufactured within our state,” California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle) Director Rachel Machi Wagoner says. “The investments also boost small businesses, create income and lower landfill pollutants that disproportionately impact the health of disadvantaged communities.”

The state says it will invest $10.4 million in six California businesses, allowing them to expand their facilities or purchase equipment to turn 27,570 tons of recycled plastic, glass and clothing into new products:

• Green Impact Manufacturing LLC, $3 million;
• Gallo Glass Co., $3 million;
• Suay Inc. $1.3 million;
• Strategic Materials Inc. $732,512;
• Global Plastics Recycling Inc. $1.55 million; and
• Innovive, LLC (partially funded) $862,940.

CalRecycle’s Recycled Fiber, Plastic and Glass Grant Program is part of California Climate Investments, a statewide initiative that puts Cap-and-Trade dollars to work reducing greenhouse gas emissions, strengthening the economy and improving public health and the environment—particularly in disadvantaged communities.

Four hundred California cities and counties will receive $9.5 million to increase local beverage container recycling and litter cleanup of the estimated 24 billion California Redemption Value (CRV) beverage containers sold in the state each year. CalRecycle’s Beverage Container Recycling City/County Payment Program is a population-based grant awarded yearly to cities and counties.

Twenty-one California communities will receive more than $3.7 million in infrastructure funding to repair local roads using some of the roughly 51 million end-of-life tires generated in the state each year. Lists of grant recipients are available here and here.

CalRecycle’s Rubberized Pavement Grant Program conserves resources and decreases environmental hazards created by illegal waste tire disposal and stockpiling, such as hard-to-extinguish tire fires that give off toxic smoke, according to the state.

Turning recycled tires into rubberized pavement reduces costs for local governments because the material usually can be applied half as thick as conventional asphalt overlays and last up to 50 percent longer.

Four California businesses and nonprofits received $2 million to prevent more than 13,000 tons of plastic, glass and wood waste from filling California landfills through increased manufacturing and use of refillable or reusable products. Find the list of grant recipients online.

Demand for Reuse Grant funding is high, according to the state. Nearly 40 organizations submitted applications in the four categories of Refillables, Food Service Ware, Transport Packaging and Wood.

To help customers determine and monitor how far mobile shears have worn from their original shape, Genesis, based in Superior, Wisconsin, has unveiled Processor Tooth Build-up Templates. The templates simplify maintenance by showing wear levels and help prevent attachment damage.

The templates are available for the Genesis GDR, GDT Razer, GRX Razer X, LXP, GMP and GCP demolition tools. Each template is sized and formed to that tooth’s original shape and features three lines that indicate wear levels. The template gets placed over the tooth to determine the amount of wear and build-up required or if replacement is needed.

Genesis Attachments, an NPK company, designs and manufactures shears, grapples, concrete processors and specialty attachments for the scrap processing, demolition, material handling and offshore decommissioning industries.