United Kingdom-based Greenback Technologies has received funding it says will go toward a recycling plant in Mexico.
Greenback Technologies Ltd., based in the United Kingdom, says it has secured additional funding that can help enable it to build a plastic scrap recycling facility in Mexico that will use pyrolysis technology.
Greenback says it has “successfully completed part of a pre-Series B funding round” for an undisclosed amount it says was supported by both new and existing investors. “The extra funding has also enabled the company to convert a loan made under the U.K. government’s Future Fund scheme into equity,” the firm adds.
The company also has announced the appointment of Craig Arnold as a new nonexecutive board director. He joins the board “bringing with him extensive experience gained in executive leadership roles with global responsibilities and spanning a variety of industries,” Greenback says.
Arnold currently is chief commercial officer at Ferroglobe, a London-based silicon metal, silicon alloys and manganese alloys producer. Prior to that, he was Dow president for Sub-Sahara Africa and global ambassador for Africa.
Philippe von Stauffenberg, founder and CEO of Greenback, says, “This is a genuinely exciting and important moment for Greenback. The investment secured during our latest funding round and the addition of Craig to our board are both pivotal in enabling us to progress our project with Nestlé Mexico to the next stage.”
He continues, “We are one step closer to delivering a solution for globally recognized brands that can make the previously unrecyclable, recyclable, making a very clear statement about the strength of their commitment to sustainability and the circular economy.”
Greenback says it has raised additional funds through the sale of ecoveritas, a consulting firm offering data-driven recycling-related “compliance and provenance” services.
The 2022 developments at Greenback will enable the company to proceed with the project in Mexico that involves cooperation with Nestlé. That plant will use “innovative microwave-induced pyrolysis technology developed” by U.K.-based Enval “to turn hitherto hard to recycle plastic into certified feedstock that can be used to create new food grade plastic packaging with the required evidence that it has been made from post-consumer waste,” Greenback says.
The company says the equipment increases profitability by improving downstream separation and the grade of nonferrous metals.
Recycling equipment manufacturer Eriez, Erie, Pennsylvania, has launched the Dynamic Pulley Separator. The equipment is designed to free steel and weakly magnetic fines from recycled materials.
The company says the equipment increases profitability by improving downstream separation and the grade of nonferrous metals. The Dynamic Pulley Separator is suited for recovering ferrous fines from ASR and waste-to-energy bottom ash.
The equipment is positioned upstream from an eddy current separator, and uses a rare earth permanent magnet pulley rotating at an offset speed from the belt, creating an agitating magnetic field. This improves ferrous recovery or removal and allows nonferrous material to continue to downstream equipment.
For ASR applications, the Dynamic Pulley Separator can be used with weaker magnetic drums to recover ferrous nuggets from the ASR stream. Discarded fines material that pass through the initial screening process goes to the Dynamic Pulley Separator for removal of ferrous. The nonferrous fraction can then be further processed on an eddy current separator.
“The agitating action generated by the Dynamic Pulley Separator allows for fine ferrous to be recovered while freeing up valuable nonferrous metals to be recovered downstream,” says Chris Ramsdell, Eriez Recycling product manager. “The Eriez DPS helps to debulk and reduce material burden upstream of eddy current separators and other downstream nonferrous separation equipment providing for improved Zorba grade and recovery.”
The new Dynamic Pulley Separator is also effective for ferrous removal from plastics, rubber and similar materials. These separators provide a high-powered agitating magnetic field to pull metal contaminants out of the product flow, improving purity and protecting downstream equipment from damage.
The Dynamic Pulley Separator is available in 40-inch and 60-inch widths and can be accommodated for base or suspended mounting ahead of an eddy current separator. For more information on Eriez recycling equipment, click here for more.
Copper and aluminum pricing have softened.
While domestic demand for copper and aluminum scrap remains, pricing has softened since March, with Rick Dobkin of Shapiro Metals, St. Louis, writing in the Brussels-based Bureau of International Recycling’s “World Mirror: Non-Ferrous Metals,” released in mid-May, that the decline has been significant.
“The U.S. regional premium has dipped slightly since March but is still near historically high levels, reflecting how freight and other supply chain costs remain elevated,” he continues. “Rolling mill and profile scrap spreads to prime have remained stable through the downturn in terminal markets. The demand side is still strong, with spot sales readily available for most items.”
Dobkin adds that metal input, transportation and personnel costs are supporting aluminum ingot prices despite suppressed automotive production related to the ongoing semiconductor shortage. “As secondary ingot prices climb, the gap to prime is narrowing, allowing secondary smelters to start dipping into lower grade mill scrap items. All secondary scrap prices have headed higher since March, although some items are less in fashion than others. Most recently, domestic scrap prices have been drifting lower as export markets are very quiet,” he adds.
Colin Denihan of Metal Source LLC, a Wabash, Indiana-based operator of scrap yards and producer of 356 and 380 aluminum sow and ingot and de-ox products, says much of the downward pressure on pricing is related to lockdowns in China designed to stop the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19.
He adds that Malaysia and India are not buying aluminum sow and ingot.
Dobkin writes, “Export business remains complicated, with wide swings in ocean freight costs and ongoing port issues. The dramatic fall in LME (London Metal Exchange) prices has put many buyers on the sidelines as Asian ingot prices are slipping.”
South of the U.S. border, Alejandro Jaramillo of Glorem SC in Mexico, also writing in the “World Mirror,” says, “The pronounced correction in LME aluminum prices has brought more scrap to the market at the same time as buyers are adopting a cautious stance amid a dropping market, demand uncertainty and elevated financing costs owing to higher interest rates. The resulting imbalance has led to bearish aluminum scrap markets for almost all grades.”
He adds that scrap used to produce secondary alloys for automotive applications “have retained their bearish tone, while those used by the extrusion industry and rolling mills have lost significant steam compared to previous months.”
Dobkin says copper spreads in the U.S. market have remained stable despite the decrease in the terminal market. “Demand is still strong domestically for copper. Brass ingot makers are busy with all mills aggressively chasing scrap units such that pricing remains strong.”
A wire processor based in the Midwest says scrap generation has been somewhat softer with the decline in price, even though it remains in the $4.25 per pound range.
“Domestic demand is still pretty high,” he says. “Copper foundries want material.”
He says delivery windows are within 30 days, though spot market interest is not as strong, which he attributes to consumers having locked in contracts at the start of the year.
Trucking within the U.S. can rival overseas shipping in terms of complications, Denihan and the wire processor indicate.
Denihan says Metal Source has experienced difficulty with trucking. “Demand is far outweighing capacity,” he says, adding that missed appointments are more common than they traditionally have been.
The wire processor says trucking is a “nightmare,” indicating that pricing has doubled and securing a truck is uncertain. He says his company is spending more time dealing with trucking than ever before, adding that 10 percent to 15 percent of the time, the trucks fail to show up as scheduled. Despite that, he says the situation is better than it was a year ago.
“It doesn’t make me any money trying to figure out a truck,” the wire processor adds.
The U.S. aluminum can industry has set lofty goals with its new pillared approach to improve used beverage can recycling rates.
Last year, the Can Manufacturers Institute (CMI), Washington, released a report with The Aluminum Association, Arlington, Virginia, showing the U.S. consumer recycling rate for aluminum used beverage cans (UBCs) in 2020 was 45.2 percent compared with 39.6 percent for glass bottles and 20.3 percent for polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles. It also showed that the closed-loop circularity rate for aluminum cans was 92.6 percent compared with 26.8 percent for PET bottles and between 30 percent and 60 percent for glass bottles.
Last year, the CMI said high demand for aluminum beverage cans necessitates increasing the UBC recycling rate, which also would enhance the resiliency of the domestic aluminum supply chain. The CMI plans to increase aluminum can recycling rates over the coming decades from today’s level of 45.2 percent to 70 percent by 2030, 80 percent by 2040 and 90 percent by 2050.
“We set these goals because we saw a need to be clear where we’re trying to go,” says Scott Breen, vice president of sustainability at CMI. “It’s hard to make progress and be focused without a clear idea of where you’re trying to go. So, we wanted to make clear to external stakeholders what this industry is doing to get that recycling rate up.”
To help the industry meet these goals, CMI plans to use four pillars of action. The pillars involve enacting beverage container deposit return systems on the state and federal level, increasing household and away-from-home recycling, improving recycling at material recovery facilities (MRF) and increasing consumer education on the environmental and economic impact of aluminum beverage can recycling.
For the first pillar, the organization says it plans to target specific states where deposit systems have a chance of being implemented. Additionally, CMI says it believes the redemption value in current and new deposit systems should be higher than 5 cents to expand the incentive to recycle these containers.
Breen says some states CMI is focusing on include Illinois, Maryland and Washington because of the current social and political attitude toward recycling and because they have a high rate of UBCs going to landfills.
For the second pillar, the CMI will continue to support The Recycling Partnership, Falls Church, Virginia. Recently, that organization released kits designed to reduce contamination in curbside collection programs and at drop-off sites. The Partnership also regularly gives grants to communities to pay for recycling carts and recycling education.
“They're doing fantastic work, not only with single-family households, but they’re also looking at improving recycling for multifamily living situations,” Breen says. “From their data, we know that when we go from households that have no access, or just drop-off access, and they go to having curbside carts and robust education on what can go into the carts, we get more cans back.”
The CMI, in partnership with the Aluminum Association, launched the Curbside Value Partnership in 2003. It was spun off as an independent nonprofit organization in 2011 and changed its name to The Recycling Partnership in 2015.
To increase away-from-home recycling, the CMI says it plans to partner with businesses and organizations including concert venues, stadiums and universities. CMI says it assists by introducing tactics that engage people in recycling UBCs. Breen is not disclosing what organizations CMI is working with, though the organization keeps a list of organizations, venues and others that have banned the sale of plastic PET bottles on its website here.
Under the third pillar, the CMI plans to continue efforts catalyzing the installation of can-capture equipment in MRFs. Last year, it launched the can capture grant program with Ardagh Metal Packaging, Chicago, and Crown Holdings, Philadelphia, and The Recycling Partnership. Through this program, five grants were provided to MRFs in the first year: Gel Recycling, Port Orange, Florida; Rivers Recycling in Kilgore, Texas; Curbside Management, Asheville, North Carolina; Independent Texas Recyclers, Houston; and a MRF owned and operated by the city of Milwaukee and Waukesha County in Wisconsin.
The grants helped fund investments in eddy currents and optical sorters that will capture an additional 71 million aluminum cans annually that will generate more than $1.15 million in revenue for the U.S. recycling system and energy savings that could power more than 28 million U.S. homes for one hour, CMI says.
Breen has communicated to The Recycling Partnership that the CMI would like to continue supporting grants for can capture equipment through them. The three factors the CMI asks The Recycling Partnership to consider when selecting grant recipients is incoming material volume, a willingness to share collection data and a history of maintaining its equipment.
This year, the CMI plans to expand the program with a new lease-to-own program for equipment that increases UBC capture. With funding from Ardagh and Crown, CMI is offering leases where it will pay the upfront cost of the equipment, and the MRF operator can make payments to the CMI using a portion of the revenue from the UBCs captured with the equipment. Breen says the CMI will not charge interest to the MRF operators through this lease program.
Breen says CMI is working with Resource Recycling Systems, Ann Arbor, Michigan, to count the number of cans missorted at certain areas within the MRFs and then calculate a return on investment (ROI) that will tell each MRF how much money it can make using the additional equipment. CMI also will provide an ROI calculator on its website for any MRF operator to download and use.
“Hopefully, that MRF operator will decide, ‘OK, I see the ROI that’s possible with can capture equipment,’ or ‘I don’t have the capital, but I will take the equipment you are offering as a lease and I will pay you back over time with a portion of the revenue made from the cans,” Breen says.
For the fourth pillar, the CMI says it is developing a plan of action to increase consumer understanding of the importance of aluminum can recycling and the ability to collect and sell UBCs for cash. Roll out of the programs developed under this pillar will be slower, Breen says, though he hopes to have some lined up before the end of the year.
“This is a somewhat of a catch-all pillar. It's the squishiest in the sense that it is hard to do a communications effort that has clear measurement on the additional cans recycled,” Breen says. “Ideally, the communications activities will complement efforts in other pillars.”
CMI has recently added tools online to enable others to communicate about the importance of recycling aluminum beverage cans. It created an aluminum beverage can sustainability communications toolkit that has statistics with sources and downloadable graphics that anyone can use for social media or email. Also, CMI published an aluminum beverage can recycling impact calculator where someone can see the impact of recycling cans in a variety of metrics like hours of powering a U.S. home and number of smartphones charged.
Businesses that consume aluminum scrap, like JW Aluminum, an aluminum manufacturing company based in Mount Holly, South Carolina, support the new goals set forth by the CMI, says Ryan Roush, the chief commercial officer of JW.
"It’s a declaration that the industry is committed to advocating for container deposit programs based on best practices in the marketplace today,” Roush, whose served on various CMI committees, says. “We know they work, but we are trying to find ways to optimize them or invest in infrastructure and better programs.”
While the CMI is confident it can achieve the aggressive recycling goals it has set out, obstacles could hinder its plans.
Deposit systems are difficult to establish because some MRF operators believe the system could negatively affect them. For example, Ben Harvey, the former president of E.L. Harvey & Sons Inc. in Westborough, Massachusetts, told Recycling Today in an article published in October of last year that deposit systems could take away that commodity as a revenue stream. (E.L. Harvey was acquired by Waste Connections in the fall of last year.)
“We are reaching out to those that may not want to see new deposit systems and see where we can find common ground,” Breen says. “We want to engage and hear their concerns and see how we can all come together to create a system that’s efficient and effective.”
When it comes to recovering UBCs at a MRF, some operators either do not have equipment that is effective or don’t see a need to invest in it. Breen says some MRF operators don’t realize the additional revenue they could be generating from more accurately sorting UBCs.
“People just don’t necessarily have the full picture of the environmental benefits of recycled aluminum and some have misconceptions about its recyclability,” Roush says. “We need to make sure consumers of beverages or anything else [packaged in] aluminum understand how to recycle properly.” He says if more UBCs are recycled, the effect on supply chains and the reduction of energy use would be “huge.”
Additionally, new curbside recycling programs can be costly to implement because of the number of bins and education required to properly recycle UBCs and other materials.
The CMI says it plans to release a road map detailing the pillars by the end of June.
Breen says if the UBC recycling rate had been 70 percent in 2020 instead of 45 percent, an additional 25.6 billion more cans would have been recycled. This would have generated more than $400 million in revenue. It also would have saved enough energy to power more than 1 million homes for one year.
“We’re not satisfied; we want to get that recycling rate up to new heights,” Breen says. “This is important to maintain our position as a sustainable circular package. It's also how we’ll make more scrap available so we can build on our industry-leading 73 percent average recycled content, which is key to reducing the carbon footprint of the aluminum beverage can.”
SWANA says the administration’s data is consistent with its own fatality data.
The Solid Waste Association of North America, or SWANA, has issued a news release stating that it is “very concerned” by safety data released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that shows a 15 percent increase in traffic fatalities in 2021. SWANA says the data is consistent with its data showing a continuing high level of third-party fatalities from incidents involving waste collection vehicles, despite an apparent decline in collection worker fatalities in the solid waste industry in 2021.
“This federal data confirms what SWANA and our members are seeing: Other drivers on the road are driving too fast, do not always comply with traffic laws, are sometimes distracted and causing many collisions with waste collection trucks and other vehicles,” SWANA CEO and Executive Director David Biderman says. “SWANA urges the driving public to drive more carefully, particularly near large vehicles like waste collection trucks.”
Thirty-five members of the public have died in roadway accidents involving the solid waste industry this year compared with 37 at this same time in 2021. Many of these incidents involve drivers crossing the center line and hitting collection vehicles or crashing into them when they are stopped, suggesting that distraction may be playing a role in many of these tragic collisions, Silver Spring, Maryland-based SWANA says.
The organization says it is committed to reducing worker injuries and fatalities through awareness, training and education. SWANA’s safety offerings include distribution of the weekly Safety Matters tip sheet to members, coordination of Chapter Safety Ambassadors and an annual Safety Summit at WASTECON. SWANA and its New Jersey and New York Chapters also recently signed a two-year agreement with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration Region 2 office to help protect workers from health and safety hazards present in all aspects of the solid waste industry.
Slow Down to Get Around, a national safety campaign that reminds motorists to drive more carefully near waste and recycling collection vehicles, is a priority for SWANA and the National Waste & Recycling Association, Arlington, Virginia. SWANA says being struck by a motorist is a leading cause of death for waste and recycling collection employees and, with proper awareness, is completely preventable.
A number of Slow Down to Get Around laws requiring motorists to slow down or move over when passing waste and recycling vehicles that are collecting waste and recyclables have been enacted at the state level: