The Rubber Manufacturers Association (RMA), Washington, reports that scrap tire piles in the U.S. have declined by more than 93 percent in the past two decades.
In addition, RMA says nearly 9 out of 10 scrap tires today are consumed in several end markets annually.
The national trade association for tire manufacturers says of the more than 1 billion stockpiled scrap tires that existed in 1990, about 70 million tires remain to be cleaned up. Approximately 70 percent of the remaining tires are stockpiled in just two states, Colorado (31 million) and Texas (17 million). Seven other states—Arkansas, Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington—account for almost 12 million additional stockpiled tires combined.
RMA says cleaning up piles has taken on a new urgency with the threat of the mosquito-borne Zika virus. Abandoned tires can serve as mosquito breeding grounds because of their ability to collect water, retain heat and offer protection from predators.
“Effective state scrap tire management laws and programs advocated by RMA have produced a remarkable environmental success story,” says RMA President and CEO Anne Forristall Luke. “Equally impressive is that nearly 90 percent of annually generated scrap tires are consumed in an end use market.”
The top end use markets for tires include tire-derived fuel, or TDF, at 48 percent, ground rubber at 26 percent and civil engineering uses at 7 percent.
Forristall Luke says an ongoing challenge is to maintain the achievements in stockpile reduction and market development as states reassess priorities and budgets. States that become complacent after many years of successful scrap tire management and shift funds raised from state tire fees can risk an increase in illegal tire piles and reduced funding for cleanup of abandoned piles.
“States that have passed laws with dedicated funding need to remain vigilant and protect programs to prevent a resurgence of scrap tire problems,” Forristall Luke says.
Plastics
Departments - Newsworthy
Recent news from the various sectors of the recycling industry
Materials Recovery for the Future (MRFF), www.materialsrecoveryforthefuture.com, a research collaboration with the goal to improve recycling of flexible packaging, says its tests have shown that automated sorting technologies currently being used in material recovery facilities (MRFs) can capture flexible plastic packaging, “potentially creating a new stream of recovered materials while improving the quality of other recycling streams.”
The research is presented in a report from Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Resource Recycling Systems (RRS) titled “Flexible Packaging Sortation at Materials Recovery Facilities,” available at http://bit.ly/2cwDxVw.
MRFF collaborators say the report demonstrates that with adequate screening and optical sorting capacity, flexible plastic packaging can be captured efficiently in single-stream MRFs.
Common forms of flexible plastic packaging include snack bags, resealable food bags, laundry detergent pod pouches and pet food bags.
“Flexible packaging has many positive attributes—highly efficient, great product protection and low environmental impact,” says Brad Rodgers, foods packaging research and development director for discovery and sustainability at PepsiCo, Purchase, New York. “However, recovery has been one of its weak points. This study is shedding light on pathways that can be deployed to improve flexible packaging end-of-life options.”
PepsiCo, along with several other corporations and industry trade groups, is participating in MRFF. The collaboration brings together brand owners, manufacturers and packaging industry organizations that say they are committed to enhancing recovery solutions for flexible plastic packaging.
Larry Baner, senior packaging research scientist of global packaging and design for Nestlé Purina PetCare, St. Louis, says, “Although there is still a lot of work to be done to define the best way to separate flexibles from single-stream recyclables, this research moves us closer to solutions.”
This initial phase of the research included baseline testing, equipment testing and a series of MRF trials. RRS says it developed the test methodology and conducted the trials.
The research finds that existing optical sorting and MRF technology can be used to sort flexible plastic packaging at promising levels of efficiency. With some targeted equipment adjustments, identification and sorting of the seeded flexible plastic packaging improved dramatically.
Although the film quality levels generated were not optimal, it is expected that the technology can be optimized so fiber product quality is concurrently improved, RRS says.
Subsequent research will focus on further refinements to sorting technology, economic feasibility, assessing end markets for the material and developing a recovery facility demonstration project.
Pilot program seeks to increase automotive recycling
SPI: The Plastics Industry Trade Association, Washington, has introduced the Automotive End-of-Life Vehicles (ELV) Recycling Demonstration Project. SPI is partnering with the Automotive Recyclers Association (ARA), Manassas, Virginia; Automotive Recyclers of Canada (ARC), London, Ontario; Canadian Plastics Industry Association (CPIA), Mississauga, Ontario; and a number of independent plastics and automotive recyclers.
The project’s goals are to develop a technically and economically feasible method to collect and recover polypropylene (PP) and thermoplastic olefin (TPO) auto parts and to gather data to better guide design for recycling.
The partners will share project data and management practices with the auto and plastic recycling industries. The goal is to predict demand trends for recycled materials so recyclers can invest more confidently in processing capacity.
Closed Loop Foundation awards grants to two plastic film recyclers
The Closed Loop Foundation has awarded innovation grants to two companies that it says have developed methods to solve the challenges of plastic film recycling.
The Closed Loop Foundation is a partnership between the nonprofit Closed Loop Fund and the multinational consumer products company SC Johnson.
The recipients of the awards are Zzyzx, a Pennsylvania-based company that makes recycled plastic pellets from varying plastic waste streams, and Drought Diet Products, a California-based company that will use postconsumer plastic film in its irrigation piping products.
According to the foundation, both companies are examples of ways to drive end market value for postconsumer recycled plastic film. Zzyzx is expected to be able to process 7 million pounds of film per year per machine. Drought Diet Products estimates that it could consume 1.4 billion pounds of plastic film annually.
“We are invested in building the future of recycling and making sure that all of our products are recyclable,” says Kelly Semrau, senior vice president, global corporate affairs, communication and sustainability at SC Johnson. “These two companies help build value in recycled Ziploc bags and other film plastics. We need to build strong end markets in order to see innovation in how this material is collected and recycled.”
Zzyzx CEO Michael Janse says, “This grant will help us purchase the equipment needed to scale up our technology for testing in a plastic processing facility and will act as a stepping stone to large-scale recycling operations.”
Drought Diet Products says it will use the grant money to integrate postconsumer low-density polyethylene feedstock into its manufacturing operations.
North Carolina county joins WRAP campaign
The Flexible Film Recycling Group (FFRG) of the American Chemistry Council (ACC), Washington, has joined officials from Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, and Charlotte to introduce a campaign designed to increase recycling of plastic wraps and bags throughout the county. The campaign is part of WRAP (Wrap Recycling Action Program).
Nationwide, more than 18,000 grocery and retail stores collect flexible plastic wraps and bags (also known as film) for recycling—yet consumer awareness remains low, the ACC says.
A recent survey of Mecklenburg County residents found that only half are aware that certain plastic items should be brought to grocery or retail stores to ensure proper recycling. In addition, few residents are aware of the many types of plastic wraps and bags that can be recycled. ACC says the Mecklenburg County campaign is designed to change that.
At the kickoff event at the Harris Teeter store in the Ballantyne Commons East shopping center, local officials pointed out that although plastic wraps and bags are widely collected for recycling at many grocery and retail stores throughout the county, residents should not place these materials in curbside recycling bins because they can cause significant problems with machinery at the community recycling facility. Putting plastic bags or wraps in curbside bins makes recycling more difficult, time consuming and expensive, officials said.
Shari Jackson, director of film recycling for ACC, echoed these remarks at the event. “As you will hear time and again today, these plastic wraps and bags do not belong in your curbside recycling bins,” Jackson said. “Residents can simply gather their clean and dry plastic wraps and bags in a plastic shopping bag at home and then deposit that bag in a storefront recycling bin at participating Mecklenburg County grocery and retail stores.”
Mecklenburg County residents can learn where and what to recycle at www.RecycleTheWrap.com.
WRAP is a public-private partnership that includes the FFRG, GreenBlue/the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, the Association of Plastics Recyclers, brand companies, retailers, states, cities and others. The Mecklenburg County campaign is expected to serve as a model for other areas in North Carolina and eventually the entire state, ACC says.
GM expands its Do Your Part recycling program
General Motors (GM), headquartered in Detroit, has announced that it is adding 2 million water bottles from Flint, Michigan, residents to its Do Your Part water bottle recycling initiative. The company partnered with Michigan-based Schupan Recycling to collect and process the bottles.
The collected plastic is washed, flaked and turned into fleece for three different products: Chevrolet Equinox V-6 engine covers, insulation that is used in coats for the homeless made by Detroit’s The Empowerment Plan and air filters that are used at 10 GM plants.
“We’re committed to proving to employers that formerly homeless people can be a skilled talent pool,” says Veronika Scott, founder and CEO of The Empowerment Plan, which seeks to educate, employ and empower homeless individuals to create better lives for themselves and their families while producing a product for those in need. “The end product is more than a coat: It empowers women to take control of their lives and provides the path to long-term, sustainable jobs.”
GM is donating enough insulation for The Empowerment Plan’s seamstresses—formerly homeless women—to make 6,500 coats that transform into sleeping bags. Each coat contains 31 water bottles.
The GM supplier Filtration Services Group, headquartered in Waterford, Michigan, involved the N.E.W. Life Center in Flint to make air filter panels from the 9,000 square feet of fleece created since Do Your Part launched in April of 2016.
After at-risk individuals participate in programs dedicated to employment preparation or life change, the nonprofit training center employs them to further their skills.
An estimated 1.2 million bottles from five GM facilities throughout metro Detroit and Flint supplemented the 2 million bottles coming from the Flint community.
GM recently added its Romulus Powertrain plant to the Do Your Part program.
John Bradburn, GM global waste reduction manager, says, “The Do Your Part recycling initiative is a way our employees and communities can connect their individual actions to broader social and environmental causes.”
Paper
Departments - Newsworthy
Recent news from the various sectors of the recycling industry
The Corrugated Packaging Alliance (CPA), Itasca, Illinois, says advancements in papermaking technology and the availability of high-quality recovered fiber have made it possible to reuse more old corrugated containers (OCC) in the manufacturing process while also maintaining the strength characteristics of new boxes.
The recovered paper utilization rate in containerboard has been stable this decade, but it increased from 27 percent in 1990 to 47.3 percent in 2000 and reached 48.4 percent in 2015, according to the CPA. The amount of recycled content in boxes varies for different applications, with recycled content being as high as 100 percent for packaging many consumer product goods and as low as 38.4 percent for direct-food-contact packaging, such as fresh produce.
Corrugated products can be made from 100-percent-new fiber, 100-percent-recycled fiber or a blend of these fibers. “The worldwide market needs both new and recycled fiber in order to produce the best quality of corrugated material and ensure a consistent and sustainable supply,” says the CPA.
The OCC recovery rate reached a record-high 92.9 percent in 2015. “Both high recovery rates and high reuse of fiber are examples of the corrugated industry’s commitment to producing sustainable packaging,” the group says.
The CPA is jointly sponsored by the American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA), AICC—the Independent Packaging Association, the Fibre Box Association (FBA) and TAPPI. The CPA says its mission is to foster growth and profitability of corrugated in applications where it can be demonstrated, based on credible and persuasive evidence, that corrugated should be the packaging material of choice and to provide a coordinated industry focus that effectively acts on industry matters that cannot be accomplished by individual members. CPA members include corrugated manufacturers and converters operating in North America.
SPC and The Recycling Partnership collaborate on ASTRX initiative
Nonprofit organizations The Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC), Charlottesville, Virginia, and The Recycling Partnership, Falls Church, Virginia, have teamed up to create an initiative called Applying Systems Thinking to Recycling (ASTRX).
The groups say they have drawn from their experience in packaging design and material recovery to create a system dedicated to “comprehensively mapping barriers and opportunities within the recycling landscape, then identifying tactics to advance the industry and deliver more high-quality recyclables to the supply chain.”
“Recycling exists to deliver material feedstocks back into the manufacturing process,” comments Nina Goodrich, executive director of the SPC. “Through ASTRX we will analyze the entire system and identify the most effective areas for improvement and intervention. In turn, this will lay the strategic foundation for bolstering supply and reaping both the environmental and economic benefits.”
Understanding the interplay between the “series of public and private sector subindustries that work together to create a recovered feedstock supply chain” can help improve recovery levels, the two organizations say.
“Recycling is a loosely connected, highly dependent system,” says Keefe Harrison, executive director of The Recycling Partnership. “By looking within and between each link in that system, we can route a considerably more informed and robust course of intervention.”
To fully capture the perspective of the entire recycling landscape, the ASTRX effort will involve other industry groups.
“There’s no room for wishful thinking in this marketplace, and we expect this initiative to deliver real solutions,” says Steve Alexander, president of the Washington-based Association of Plastic Recyclers. “There are many companies and other entities operating in recycling today, and through ASTRX we can collaboratively create a comprehensive plan to shape the future of the U.S. recycling system.”
GIE Media announces launch of Waste Today magazine
In a continuing effort to best serve readers and advertising customers, Valley View, Ohio-based GIE Media Inc., publisher of Recycling Today, has announced the expansion of Renewable Energy from Waste (REW) magazine into a comprehensive waste and environmental services publication, Waste Today.
Chris Foster, president and CEO of GIE Media, says, “For 35 years we’ve been involved in a wide range of industries that serve America’s environment. Waste Today extends that coverage into the vital waste management industry. It’s an exciting development built around our readers’ and customers’ needs.”
The new publication, which will debut with a January/February 2017 issue, will have a six-time frequency in 2017. The magazine will be delivered in print and digital platforms and will be complemented by a dedicated website, www.WasteTodayMagazine.com, and a weekly e-newsletter.
Jim Keefe, group publisher, says, “REW has been very successful, and we plan to continue covering conversion technologies as part of Waste Today. However, through reader and supplier feedback it’s become clear that many industry professionals have felt underserved in other market areas. Waste Today will be a vehicle to provide broader coverage of this huge and vital industry.”
Upstate Shredding plans heavy media plant addition
Upstate Shredding – Weitsman Recycling, headquartered in Owego, New York, has announced plans to build a heavy media plant at a recently purchased 3.5-acre site in Owego.
The site will include a complete dry media plant supplied by Florida-based SGM Magnetics to upgrade metal ranging from ¾ inch to 5 inches in size. The system is designed to process up to 15 tons of zorba per hour and can separate aluminum from copper, brass, zinc and stainless.
Upstate Shredding – Weitsman Recycling will feed the media plant with its two company-owned shredders—one located in Owego and the other in New Castle, Pennsylvania. The company says it also will purchase material from other shredder operators in North America.
The new plant, which will be enclosed in a new 20,000-square-foot building, is scheduled to be fully staffed and operational by the end of 2016, Upstate Shredding says.
Additionally, Upstate Shredding says it is installing a separate media plant at the new Owego location to sort the ¾-inch-and-under fraction of zorba using an alternate technology.
The project, which received a $1 million grant from Empire State Development, will cost $7.5 million, the company says.
LME nears final step on warehousing reform
The London Metal Exchange (LME) has announced its intention to introduce caps on maximum rates charged by LME-registered warehouses. The announcement follows what the LME calls “a marketwide consultation” and represents the final part of a three-year-long warehouse reform program “designed to enhance the LME’s warehouse network and to ensure that it fully serves the requirements of the global metals market,” the metals trading and warehousing organization says.
“We would like to thank all those who took part in discussions and consultations over the last three years, which have been invaluable in ensuring that we took the most informed and balanced action in refining our physical delivery network,” says Garry Jones, LME chief executive. “The LME has a duty to the entire metals community to run a fair and orderly market, and the action we have taken over the last three years has strengthened our ability to carry out this responsibility.”
As the final part of the reforms program, the LME says it will introduce an initial schedule of maximum rates for warehouse rents and free-on-truck (FOT) charges by calculating the average of the highest published charges for the years 2015-16 and 2016-17 on a per-metal and per-country basis. This schedule of charge caps will be frozen for five years, during which time “real-world” prices are expected to converge closer to the frozen published rates. After that, the maximum prices will be updated annually based on the per-country consumer price index.
The revised policy will take effect following the 90-day notice period required under the LME Warehouse Agreement, which means by Dec. 28, 2016.
Commerce Department finds China dumping stainless steel
The U.S. Department of Commerce has reached a preliminary determination that imports of stainless steel sheet and strip from China are being sold at less-than-fair value in the U.S. As a result, it says it will instruct U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to require U.S. importers of stainless steel sheet and strip from China to deposit estimated anti-dumping duties at the time of importation.
Further, based on its previously announced preliminary affirmative critical circumstances determination, the Commerce Department will instruct CBP to require U.S. importers to post security equal to the preliminary anti-dumping rates on entries of stainless steel sheet and strip from China that were imported 90 days prior to the date of publication in the Federal Register of the affirmative preliminary anti-dumping duty determination.
The Commerce Department assigned a preliminary anti-dumping margin of 76.6 percent of the value of the imported stainless steel sheet and strip to Shanxi Taigang Stainless Steel Co. Ltd., the sole Chinese respondent that was subject to mandatory investigation. The Commerce Department established a preliminary anti-dumping margin of 63.9 percent for two Chinese entities with operations that the agency determined are not controlled by the government of China and, thus, were preliminarily determined to be eligible for a company-specific separate rate. In addition, the Commerce Department established a preliminary anti-dumping duty margin of 76.6 percent on imports of stainless steel sheet and strip from all other Chinese entities.
The Commerce Department’s determinations follow the filing Feb. 12, 2016, of anti-dumping and countervailing (or subsidy) duty petitions by domestic stainless steel sheet and strip producers AK Steel Corp., Allegheny Ludlum, North American Stainless and Outokumpu USA LLC.
Next the Commerce Department must verify the factual information submitted by the Chinese producer participating in the investigations and the Government of China. Parties will have the opportunity to submit case and rebuttal briefs to the Commerce Department and to participate in a hearing. Following these events, the Commerce Department will issue its final anti-dumping and countervailing determinations. The current deadline for the announcement of these final determinations is late November 2016, though it could be extended to late January 2017.
FPT buys two Sims yards
Detroit-based Ferrous Processing and Trading Co. (FPT) has announced its purchase of Sims Metal Management Detroit and Sims Metal Management Toledo in Ohio.
“Our purchase of these assets reflects our commitment to continued business growth in the Midwest region,” says Howard Sherman, CEO of FPT. “We are excited about these acquisitions and are happy to welcome our new employees in Detroit and Toledo to the Ferrous Processing and Trading team.”
The Sims Metal Management website describes the Detroit facility as having baling, shearing and torch-cutting processing capabilities while also offering truck loading, container loading, overseas container loading and rail car loading abilities.
The Toledo location is described as offering shearing and truck loading services with a concentration on industrial, obsolete and demolition scrap processing.
The sale marks the second recent selloff of United States assets by Sims Metal Management, which maintains executive offices in New York and Sydney. In mid-August 2016, Sims sold six facilities in Mississippi and Tennessee to the OmniSource Corp. subsidiary of Fort Wayne, Indiana-based steelmaker Steel Dynamics Inc. (SDI).
Two Chinese state-owned steelmakers to merge
The merger of two state-owned enterprise (SOE) steelmakers in China, which has been negotiated since June 2016, officially has been announced by the two companies after receiving approval from China’s State Council.
Shanghai-based Baosteel, the larger of the two firms and considered more profitable, is to take over Wuhan Iron and Steel (WISCO), according to an online report from BBC News.
The report says the merged firm will operate under the name China Baowu Iron and Steel Group, and its combined capacity of 60 million metric tons per year of steel output, if left intact, would make it the world’s second largest steel producer behind Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal.
China’s central government has indicated that it sees mergers within its steel industry as a way to address the twin problems of excess capacity and red ink within the steel sector.
