Shredder maker moves into 150,000-square-foot complex in Austria.

Shredding and recycling equipment maker Lindner Recyclingtech GmbH has moved into its new 14,000-square-meter (150,000-square-foot) corporate headquarters complex in Spittal/Drau, Austria.

The company moved its new offices and adjacent production area in July. “The high global demand for Lindner’s quality products made it necessary to expand the plant and the team,” the company says.

Lindner says it emphasized sustainability and technology in designing and building the new campus. “In terms of production, the focus was on the further expansion of automation and robotics, the associated quality assurance, process optimization in assembly and on extending the company’s own manufacturing capabilities,” Lindner says.

Lindner owner and CEO Manuel Lindner says, “The [energy] crisis has further reassured us that this is the right path. The disrupted supply chains have also shown how important it is for us to manufacture as many components as possible in our own production. Only by investing in our own manufacturing capabilities, robotics, automation and flow production we can ensure the quality of our products and reliable delivery times in the future.”

Michael Lackner, managing director at Lindner, says, “We want our new headquarters to be perfectly equipped for future requirements and be well-positioned to maintain high quality standards and meet the increasing demand for our machines. The production area in the new plant has doubled, which means that we are ideally equipped to cope with the increasing capacities.”

He continues, “It is just as important to us that we offer our employees a modern workplace. By using automation and robotics, we can make work more comfortable. Heavy physical work, such as mounting machines, is no longer necessary. Instead, the task is focused on the proper operation of the robots. We are also significantly expanding our team, which means that we are currently taking on 100 new employees.”

A three-story office complex also is part of the new complex. Throughout the campus, the company says “a great deal of importance was attached to the use of environmentally friendly building materials and sustainability when building the new home of recycling.”

The investment was made possible, the Lindner organization says, because “recycling has been experiencing a strong upswing for many years—worldwide. In 2019, due to the associated higher demand for efficient recycling solutions and Lindner’s endeavor to support its customers in the transformation of end-of-life materials into recyclables, the decision was made to build a new factory—the new home of recycling.”

The company’s motto in its new home of recycling has not changed, Lindner-Recyclingtech says: Make the most of waste.

The company's designers have worked with clients on packaging and displays to replace or remove more than 3 million units of plastic per week.

Sustainable packaging company DS Smith, headquartered in London with North American operations based in Atlanta, has announced it has removed more than 313 million pieces of problem plastics in the last two years by replacing them with its paper-based products. DS Smith says it also educated more than 2.8 million people on the importance of the circular economy.  

DS Smith’s designers have worked with clients on packaging and displays to replace or remove more than 3 million units of plastic per week, or 13,000 an hour. DS Smith says 80 percent of all sustainability savings come in the design phase, which is why the company has trained all 700 of its designers in its circular design principles. The principles were developed in cooperation with its strategic partner, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, to translate its circular economy model into practical packaging solutions.  

The company says its designers have created thousands of designs to eliminate all sizes of plastic in its packaging. This includes replacing plastic sealing tape with self-locking cardboard flaps and swapping plastic labels with print direct onto cardboard.  

“With our help, customers are responding to consumer demands to remove problem plastics from their products,” says Allison Berg, sustainability manager for DS Smith North America. “By using our proprietary circular design metrics system, we can easily show not just where plastic can be replaced, but how circular their packaging is right now and where we can make improvements together.”   

Over the next year, DS Smith says it will continue to drive the adoption of fiber-based alternatives among customers in response to consumer demand for plastic alternatives. It has also committed to continue engaging people in the circular economy, promoting circular lifestyles to 5 million people by 2030.  

At COP26, it launched a circular economy lesson plan, ‘Let’s Go Circular!’ as a free resource for teachers to educate students aged 11-14 about the circular economy. DS Smith also provides information through online content, videos, news articles, blogs and case studies with its goal of reaching 5 million people.  

As part of DS Smith’s "Now & Next" sustainability targets, the company says it plans to take 1 billion pieces of problem plastics off supermarket shelves by 2025, replacing them with sustainable, corrugated alternatives. DS Smith’s plastic replacement work and wider sustainability progress can be found in its latest sustainability report, which can be found here.   

One way DS Smith is doing this is with an investment of $140 million into research and development to explore a range of natural fibers. These include uses of seaweed, straw, hemp, miscanthus and cotton. It also includes sources like the daisy-flowered cup plant and agricultural waste such as cocoa shell or bagasse, the pulp fiber left over after sugarcane is processed. 

The addition expands services and offerings to clients.

Ingenium, a waste management service provider based in San Diego, has expanded its service offerings and launched its industrial services division.   

With the addition of the division, Ingenium says it provides a necessary service for its clients and adds to its already extensive menu of service offerings.   

“Our familiarity in working in hazardous and nonhazardous environmental spaces provides our customers complete environmental and industrial services,” says Scott Manuel, industrial services division manager. ”Ingenium manages any type of industrial/environmental project and can be your turnkey solution.”   

By upgrading its Southern California fleet, Ingenium's industrial services include:  

roll-off trucks (single and double bin); 

roll-off bin rentals (20-yard, 40-yard, closed top, open top, FRAC tanks, dewatering bins); 

bulk waste management, transportation and disposal, including vacuum tankers and vactor trucks; 

remediation projects, excavation, contaminated soils cleanup, debris removal, lead and asbestos remediation, copper remediation for gun ranges; 

industrial cleaning, pressure washing, SCBA and confined space; and

on-site technical services and project management.  

Ingenium says it specializes in packaging, transportation, recycling and disposal of hazardous, nonhazardous, biological, universal and radioactive waste. The company helps its customers manage their waste programs, maintain budgets and meet regulatory demands while protecting employees, the community and the environment.   

Ingenium also assists in the process of reducing and recycling wastes to achieve sustainability goals while maintaining safety and service.

Second-quarter earnings increased for the company’s Industrial Packaging segment due to higher sales prices for corrugated boxes and containerboard.

International Paper (IP), a Memphis, Tennessee-based global producer of fiber-based packaging, pulp and paper products, has achieved strong net earnings in its second-quarter financial results when compared results from one year ago.

The company reports it achieved second-quarter net earnings of $511 million compared with $432 million in the same period of 2021. Second-quarter adjusted operating earnings were at $459 million in the second quarter of the year compared with $325 million in the second quarter of 2021.

“International Paper delivered strong revenue and earnings growth in the second quarter,” says Mark Sutton, chairman and chief executive officer of International Paper. “We performed well both commercially and operationally, which contributed to margin expansion despite a challenging supply chain and input cost environment.”

According to the company’s second-quarter earnings report, IP’s Industrial Packaging segment achieved operating profits in the second quarter of $560 million compared with $397 million in the first quarter of the year. Within that segment, IP says its North American earnings increased due to higher sales prices for corrugated boxes and containerboard as well as lower planned maintenance outage expenses. The company says these benefits were partially offset by higher input costs for both energy and freight. In Europe, earnings for this segment improved, reflecting higher average sales prices and strong operating performance.

Looking ahead to the third quarter, IP says it expects the realization of prior price movements to output higher input costs.

According to the company’s earnings report presentation July 28, IP anticipates price and mix to improve by $40 million within its Industrial Packaging segment in the third quarter. IP said it expects volume for the Industrial Packaging segment to increase by $10 million in the third quarter due to stable demand. Additionally, the company said it expects maintenance outage expenses to go down by $41 million in the third quarter of the year for its Industrial Packaging segment.

“Sitting here midway through the year, I’m confident in our earnings outlook for 2022 and in our ability to deliver strong earnings growth this year,” Sutton said during the second-quarter earnings presentation. “We’re mindful of the uncertainty surrounding the macro environment. I’m very certain about the resiliency of International Paper. During the past few years, we have significantly enhanced our financial strength and flexibility.”

Recycler of mill residues says it has been handling growing volumes of EAF dust.

Befesa S.A., a Luxembourg-based global provider of recycling services enabling handling steel and aluminum mill byproducts, has reported another adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of 118 million euros ($120.4 million) in the first half of this year.

The company says that represents an increase of 25 percent year on year, and that growth in this year’s second quarter “was primarily driven” by good volume performance in its Steel Dust business unit, including a contribution from its United States zinc operations.

“In the first half we continued to deliver 25 percent year-on-year EBITDA growth in a challenging market environment,” says Javier Molina, executive chair of Befesa. “In the medium to long term, decarbonization and electric vehicles are favorable trends for the secondary steel and aluminum markets, benefitting our customers.”

Molina continues, “Our environmental services are a key enabler of this transition. We have enhanced our organizational structure and are finalizing our five-year Sustainable Global Growth Plan to seize these opportunities. We are looking forward to sharing this globally balanced investment program of around 500 million euros ($510 million) with our shareholders and analysts.”

Regarding its first-half 2022 results, Befesa says higher base metal prices offset energy inflation and higher zinc treatment charges. Its overall plant utilization levels remained high (around 80 percent), the firm says, in both its Steel Dust and Aluminium Salt Slags business units.

The company says during the second quarter it “continued its hedging rigor and sold further zinc volume forward.” Befesa says its hedge book is now fully extended up to January of 2025 at the latest hedging volume run rate of around 38,000 metric tons of zinc sold forward per quarter, or around 152,000 metric tons per year.

Regarding Befesa’s expansion in China, it says its first plant, in Jiangsu Province, is in commercial production and has more than 80 percent of furnace dust capacity contracted with customers. However, the company adds, “supply and operations are COVID-constrained.”

The commissioning of its second plant in China, in Henan Province, is being prolonged because of COVID constraints, with ramp-up expected to be finalized in the second half of this year.