Where Business Gets Done

It’s that time of year again: The 2008 Paper Recycling Conference & Trade Show returns to Chicago June 22-24 at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare. The venue also hosts the colocated Recycling Today’s Plastics Recycling Conference & Trade Show and the Electronics Recycling Conference & Trade Show.

The Recycling Today Events June conferences bring together professionals in some of the fastest growing sectors of the global recycling industry, allowing them to focus on their niche markets, while also providing opportunities to learn about and network with attendees from related recycling markets.

Attendance for this year’s events is expected to top 600 people.

"The show is an important one to be in attendance at because most of the U.S. recycled-based consumers are in attendance as well as a number of international consumers," Pete Grogan, market development manager, Weyerhaeuser Co., Federal Way, Wash., says.

This year all three conferences feature the theme "Where Business Gets Done." This theme reflects the conferences’ history of not only providing participants with up-to-date information on what’s happening in each of these recycling industry sectors, but also of providing a venue where processors, traders and consumers can meet, make deals and form relationships that generate future business for their firms.

"I attend the conference to make new connections, strengthen old connections and look for trends and new technologies," Robert Render, president of Maine Plastics Inc., Zion, Ill., says. "It is important to be part of the community."

The conferences also feature a combined exhibit hall featuring nearly 60 exhibitors showcasing the newest products, services and technology to assist those looking to improve production efficiencies and material quality as well as those seeking to increase processing capacity. The exhibit hall is an integral part of the conference, as it provides a venue for additional networking opportunities in the form of receptions.

"The venue includes a number of publicized activities aimed at enabling conference attendees to network—receptions, lunches, exhibit hall functions—that provide an excellent opportunity for attendees to meet and talk with one another," Darren Arola, global product development and sales for MBA Polymers Inc., Richmond, Calif., says.

The conferences’ cross-registration opportunities enable attendees to make the most of the events’ programming. By paying an additional $75 dollars to the base registration fee of $425, attendees can sit in on sessions from one of the other conference tracks. For an additional $125, registrants can attend sessions in all three of the programming tracks. Base registration discounts are also available for multiple registrants from the same company and for members of the Paper Stock Industries (PSI) Chapter of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc. (ISRI), a sponsor of the show.

The workshops scheduled for Sunday, June 22, are open to attendees of all three conferences. The management workshops cover topics such as the legal obligations when hiring non-native workers, which features panelist Amy Nice, an immigration practice attorney with Dickstein Shapiro LLP, as well as a discussion about business valuation and accessing capital markets, which features panelists Bill O’Shields of Vercor Advisors and David Griest of SJF Ventures.

The operations workshop on transportation provides insight into how to turn shipping, backhauling and reverse logistics into a manageable process. Guest speakers include Tim Donnelly of Pacer Global Logistics and Galen Vick of the Reverse Logistics Association. The "Tale of three MRFs" operations workshop includes a panel featuring three material recovery facility (MRF) operators who discuss the logic behind the purchasing and plant layout decisions involved in their recent facility upgrade or expansion projects.

The ninth annual Paper Recycling Conference & Trade Show offers a program that includes panel discussions featuring prominent industry speakers sharing the latest business and operational trends and their effects on the domestic and international secondary fiber markets.

"I have attended all of the conferences from the beginning," says Gary Sexton, vice president of Metro Waste Paper Recovery Inc., Toronto,

The sessions scheduled for this year touch upon issues and topics that are currently affecting the industry, including escalating export costs, competition in the North American market and the green marketing movement.

The programming begins Monday, June 23, with "Opposing Forces," a session that gives attendees a close-up look at trends regarding paper usage in the media and packaging as well as the office sector. Also on Monday, ISRI’s PSI Chapter hosts an open meeting featuring a speaker on the topic of mergers and acquisitions.

Tuesday, June 24, attendees can sit in on a session titled "How Green is My Footprint." Guest speaker Kerry Getter of Balcones Resources takes part in a panel discussion on how, from carbon credits to green publicity efforts, the growing environmental movement provides opportunities for paper recyclers.

Programming for the 2008 conference promises to deliver on the tradition of quality the show has established since its inception.

"One leaves this show each year with a good understanding of the international market conditions for the short-term recovered paper markets in addition to paper industry expansion related to recycle content," Grogan says.

Paper is not the only secondary commodity that is enjoying high demand, and Recycling Today’s Plastics Recycling Conference & Trade Show seeks to provide established plastics recyclers and those new to the industry with varied and informative programming.

The 2008 Recycling Today’s Plastics Recycling Conference offers MRF operators, plastics scrap processors, brokers and traders and consumers of secondary material an in-depth educational program as well as networking opportunities that can help to expand their recycled plastics trading network.

Monday, June 23, attendees can sit in on a session titled "The Real Deal," where key parties involved in the Coca-Cola bottle recycling plant investment offer an up-close look at that major initiative. Speakers include Ron Gonen of RecycleBank and John Burgess of Coca-Cola.

Registrants can also attend a session about how plastics and electronic scrap recyclers are making new efforts to increase the profitability of the e-scrap plastics stream as well as a session on how manufacturers are dropping their resistance to using scrap feedstock and signaling a green light for the use of recycled plastics. Guest speakers for this session include Steve Cecil, Ark Inc.; Scott Melton, ACI; and Jase Traylor, JET Polymer Recycling.

Tuesday, June 24, a panel of traders discusses the legalities associated with plastic scrap export shipments at a session titled "Roiling Waters."

In its brief history Recycling Today’s Plastics Recycling Conference & Trade Show has delivered on its promise of providing a venue "Where Business Gets Done."

"In last year’s show, I met three companies we now do business relationships with and found technology we are going to utilize in the future," Render says. "It was a home run for us."

The relationship between plastics and electronics is unavoidable. By co-locating the Electronics Recycling Conference & Trade Shows, attendees are able to maximize their travel dollars.

The second annual Electronics Recycling Conference program focuses on the electronics recycling chain from collection through to assessment, refurbishment, processing and marketing of electronic scrap and the resultant secondary commodities. Attendees also have the opportunity to attend the management workshops on Sunday and visit the exhibit hall where the latest products and technology are featured.

Electronics recycling sessions include "Rising Tide for Collection," a discussion of how non-digital televisions, pre-Vista computers and rapidly obsolete cell phones will be flooding into electronics recycling facilities. David Thompson of Panasonic, Jeff Ziegler of Tech Turn and Edo Cohen of FlipSwap are among the panelists speaking on this topic.

Other sessions include a discussion of how the largest OEMs and retailers are championing the cause of recycling in different ways as well as a session on how recyclers and recycling coordinators in small and medium-sized markets can collect and process electronics effectively on a smaller scale.

Laura Gabel, vice president of sales and marketing for e-EndUSA, Frederick, Md., who attended last year’s Electronics Conference, says what makes this show standout from others she has attended is how accessible the speakers were and how they not only had a clear understanding of what they were speaking about, but also understood the attendees’ businesses and challenges.

Recycling Today Media Group’s June conferences have and will continue to provide a venue for people in the paper, plastics and electronics recycling industries to network while attending educational programming that addresses the issues that affect their businesses.

"Recycling Today, through their conference, has been able to unite some of the recycling industry’s best," says Ferris Segovia, president of Monitex LLC, Grand Prairie, Texas. "To be able to access some of the industry’s top companies and brightest minds in one location is well worth attending," he adds.

Registration and hotel information, as well as updated programming information for all three conferences, is available online at www.RecyclingToday
Events.com.

The author is assistant editor of Recycling Today and can be contacted at kmorris@gie.net.