Carpet Recycling Jumps 52 Percent in 2013

Triple Pundit (08/13/14) Petru, Alexis

Last year 14 percent of discarded carpet was diverted from landfills and recycled to produce new products or energy, a 52-percent increase over the amount of carpet recycled in 2012, according to a Carpet America Recovery Effort report. Of the 500 million pounds of carpet recycled, 44 percent was used to create new carpet, 35 percent was recycled into new products such as composite lumber, 10 percent was used to create thermal energy, 4 percent was used to power cement production facilities, 2 percent was refurbished and reused, and less than 1 percent was incinerated. The report also noted California now mandates that carpet manufacturers finance and manage the collection and recycling of their products. The state designated CARE to carry out the state carpet-recycling program. Extended producer responsibility requirements make manufacturers responsible for the life-cycle environmental impacts of their products. It also encourages manufacturers to make sustainable products and relieves governments and taxpayers of the high cost of product disposal. Carpets are difficult to recycle, and there currently are no facilities that can process high volumes of polyester carpet, which accounted for 34 percent of all carpet collected last year. CARE has requests for proposals seeking viable recycling outlets for polyester carpeting.

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USS Saratoga Bound for Port of Brownsville for Recycling

Valley Morning Star (TX) (08/12/14) Clark, Steve

The USS Saratoga, the second «supercarrier» in its class when built in the 1950s, will be dismantled at ESCO Marine’s ship recycling facility in Brownsville, Texas. The U.S. Navy will pay the company 1 cent, the lowest price possible, and will continue to own the ship during its dismantling. All Star Metals is dismantling the USS Forrestal, and International Shipbreaking will dismantle the USS Constellation. There had been plans to turn the Saratoga into a museum, but fundraising efforts were redirected to the USS John F. Kennedy. Dismantling ships creates jobs and recycles high-quality steel. The Saratoga contains 60,000 tons of steel, according to ESCO’s Arnie Tyler. The ship will take 18 to 24 months to dismantle and will require 60 to 70 extra employees, which Tyler plans to fill with veterans, especially those with security clearance.

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Obsolete Electronics Keep Recycling Business Growing

Grand Rapids Business Journal (08/12/14) Dewey, Charlsie

Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Valley City Electronic Recycling is expanding into a new, larger facility. After 42 years in its Market Street location, the company will move to a 30,000-square-foot facility in the former Keeler Brass Building. The company can maximize efficiency and create a nicer retail space for selling refurbished electronics and parts in the larger space. Because of concentrated sales and marketing efforts as well as a new partnership with Goodwill Industries of Greater Grand Rapids, Valley City will be able to accept 50 percent more materials in the new space, including the 2 million pounds of electronics Goodwill takes in every year. In addition, Valley City will partner with Recycled Concepts, a paper, corrugated, and plastics recycling company also located in the Keeler Brass Building. Valley City will handle any obsolete electronics Recycled Concepts receives. E-cycling is a growing industry, and Valley City uses education and marketing efforts to help businesses that do not know what to do with their obsolete electronics. It also offers data destruction services and pays for devices that can be refurbished. With commodity prices losing value, the industry is challenged to find other ways to increase revenue. Repurposing discarded quality devices from corporations can be more lucrative for e-cyclers than recycling.

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Recycling Plant Should Aid Growers With Sustainability, Landfills

The Grower (08/11/2014) Boyd, Vicky

Labelle, Fla.-based Recypoly has found a solution for recycling plastic mulch, drip tape, and silage bags that farmers previously could only send to landfills or burn. To recycle the materials, the soil first must be removed. Recypoly CEO John Szkolnik found a new technology in Europe that first washes then shreds the plastic, making it ready for recycling into plastic pellets. The Szkolnik family chose the site of its plant to make the facility economically feasible for the state’s vegetable farmers, who rely heavily on ag plastic. Recypoly is accepting and storing the material until the recycling equipment is installed in the new plant. Farmers must separate their plastic mulch and then make an appointment to deliver it to Recypoly. The company also accepts greenhouse film and most other low-density polyethylene plastic film. They have accepted 10,000 tons of material so far from companies such as Immokalee-based Lipman Produce, which lays thousands of miles of plastic mulch every year. Although farmers have to get the material to the company, they save landfill charges of $40 a ton. Recypoly also will provide recycling certificates that growers can use in sustainability reports required by some buyers. The company plans to be operational by the end of the year with a plant that will be able to recycle 40,000 tons of plastic each year.

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Boeing to Enter the Scrap-Aircraft Market

Bidness Etc. (08/11/14) Quest, Sam

Boeing plans to purchase an aviation used-parts company to recycle aircraft components, according to Boeing’s John Wojick. He notes the used aircraft parts market is worth $3.2 billion and rapidly growing, as airlines are replacing airplanes well before their useful life span with more fuel-efficient models. Previously, Boeing incentivized purchasing its newer models by repurchasing its older jetliners from airlines and outsourcing the disassembly process. However, Boeing now wants to do its own disassembly. The company predicts that 6,000 jetliners will be replaced in the next 10 years. Components from narrow-body aircraft are worth about $1.5 million, while those from wide-body aircraft are worth about $2.5 million. Wide-body aircraft engines sell for an average of $6 million. Aviall, a Boeing subsidiary, is responsible for the distribution of new aircraft parts and may see a drop-off in demand if Boeing also sells used aircraft parts.

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Newton Startup Using Cardboard Boxes to Insulate Homes

Boston Globe (08/11/14) Fitzgerald, Jay

UltraCell Insulation uses a technology developed at the University of Maine to recycle corrugated boxes into cellulose insulation for use in homes. Awarded two large grants from Massachusetts and federal agencies, it is testing its technology to treat recycled corrugated with fire retardants, making the material safe for use as insulation with a slightly higher energy-efficiency rating than traditional paper-based cellulose. Growing environmental concerns are boosting the sales of cellulose for insulation 15 percent a year, double the rate for fiberglass or foam insulation. However, cellulose insulation is usually made from recycled newspapers, which are becoming scarcer, while corrugated manufacturing is rising due to online commerce. UltraCell’s technology uses a «wet» process that separates the glue, tape, staples, and other contaminants from the corrugated, then adds fire retardants to the material. The result should cost about the same as the insulation made from newsprint but is not yet competitive with fiberglass, the most widely used insulation material. Foam is about three to four times more expensive than fiberglass, but it also is the best insulator. The company, which plans to partner with paper mills, is looking in New England and upstate New York for production sites.

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An Asphalt Recycling Process Is Gaining Popularity at Construction Sites

St. Louis Post-Dispatch (08/08/14) Kelly, Robert

Reusing existing asphalt to create the base for new asphalt roads and parking lots—a process called full-depth reclamation—is gaining popularity. Businesses, road districts, and transportation departments say the decades-old process is more cost efficient and reliable than hauling away and replacing existing asphalt. For example, eight parking lots were recently rebuilt at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville using the existing asphalt as the base. Reclaimer machines break up the existing asphalt into small pieces, then mix them with Portland cement and other fillers to form the new base. The process can be used on many surfaces, including roads, parking lots, tennis courts, and running tracks. To create a stable base, the recycled asphalt is allowed to cure for three days, and then a new asphalt surface is laid over it. The process saves 30 to 50 percent compared with the cost of hauling away the existing asphalt and using new materials to create the base. About 68.3 million tons of asphalt was reclaimed in 2012, an increase of 22 percent in three years.

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A Different Kind of ‘Trashy’ TV: Trenton-Based TerraCycle Gets Reality-Show Treatment

Times of Trenton (NJ) (08/08/14) Reynolds, Amy

«Human Resources,» a 10-episode docu-series, premiered on Pivot this week. The show follows employees at TerraCycle, a company that takes landfill-bound items and repurposes, recycles, and reuses them. The company’s unique offices feature tables made from discarded bowling lanes and wall partitions created from discarded soda bottles. Produced by Left/Right, the series highlights how TerraCycle uses innovative solutions to eliminate the amount of material headed for landfills by taking products that are difficult to recycle and creating affordable and innovative products, or «upcycling» them. The show also demonstrates how the company uses cigarette butts to make plastic and discarded drink pouches to make tote bags. Although the show impeded the company’s main work during the taping, TerraCycle CEO Tom Szaky says the advertising opportunity was well worth the time. It’s difficult «convincing people that having a solution to every type of waste stream out there is important. What we’re really focused on is how do we get people involved and how do we get people to take a stand against the issue,” Szaky says. “I hope that (viewers) get something out of it other than entertainment.”

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Depot to Open in the Fall

Weyburn Review (08/06/14)

A new SARCAN recycling plant and a new vocational training center for the Wor-Kin Shop will open in the fall, with both facilities housed in an 11,000-square-foot warehouse in Weyburn, Saskatchewan. Andria Brady, executive director for the Wor-Kin Shop, says the new location will allow for better services for the SARCAN depot. The warehouse will feature customer service lanes, larger receiving areas, enhanced material handling capabilities, and improved areas for employees. The location also will have three loading doors. At the current facility, bulk orders are often backed up and have to be processed a bag at a time. The vocational training center will feature a wood shop, paper and corrugated operations, and learning opportunities for local residents in the region. All materials accepted at the SARCAN facility are recycled into usable products, and no materials are shipped to landfills.

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PRI Opens Foam Recycling Facility

Environmental Leader (08/05/14)

Plastic Recycling Inc. has opened a facility in Indianapolis dedicated to recycling foam and rigid polystyrene materials. The plant will recycle postconsumer foam cups, foam take-out containers, and other discarded polystyrene materials collected through curbside pickup programs across the country as a result of a partnership with Dart Container. The facility will have access to materials recovery facilities that draw from residential recycling programs as well as rail to limit the environmental impacts of shipping. PRI initially plans to employ 25 people at the site, which will have a capacity of 25 million pounds a year. The plant is expected to be fully operational by the end of the first quarter of 2015. The company currently recycles about 60 million pounds of foam and rigid polystyrene materials annually.

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Pratt Paper Mill Plans Head to Valpo BZA

Northwest Indiana Times (IN) (08/05/14) Wieland, Phil

A 205,000-square-foot Pratt Industries paper recycling mill is currently being built in Valparaiso, Ind. The $290 million project has applied for several variances from the local zoning board, which met Aug. 7. The building is expected to be finished in about a year, at which point Pratt will no longer be required to truck in the 1,000 pounds of paper it uses at its plant every day to make corrugated. A trolley will transport recycled product from the paper mill to a nearby boxmaking plant. A wastewater treatment plant capable of treating 650,000 to 700,000 gallons of water a day also is being built next to the plant. In addition, the project includes a 14,000-square-foot pulper room, a 40,000-square-foot discarded paper storage building, a building for storing the finished rolled stock, and another 43,000-square-foot building. Pratt engineer Mac Switkowski notes the recycling process for producing paper has less odor than the process for turning trees into pulp for paper. He says the variances being sought include one for the exhaust stack, which will have the latest technology with «ultra-low emissions.»

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Missouri ‘De-Man’ Finds Buyers for Electronic Waste

KBIA.org (08/05/14) Grigsby, Gary

EPC’s St. Louis County, Mo., facility recycles 12,000 pieces of end-of-life electronics every month, and the company says it is the largest processor of e-scrap in the state. The work happens in the facility’s demanufacturing department, where the electronics are taken apart and the valuable materials, which make up 98 percent of the machines, are separated out for resale. Some of the valuable materials include copper, steel, gold, plastic, palladium, lead, aluminum, and other precious metals. The facility’s processing line is like a factory assembly line in reverse, and everything from the screws holding the panels together to the wiring itself can be recycled. The plastic housing is removed, and the devices are disassembled one piece at a time. «Plastic fluctuates a lot depending on what China needs,» notes EPC vice president Dave Beal. However, he says it normally is worth about 12 cents a pound. Beal says the wiring from most devices is sent to a company in Illinois.

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First Tenant Opens in McCook Industrial Park

McCook Daily Gazette (NE) (08/05/14) Baker, Bruce

Booe Machinery & Salvage recently became the first tenant in the McCook Industrial Park in McCook, Neb. The scrap metal recycling facility can accept a variety of items ranging from aluminum cans to car bodies and farm equipment. There also is office space and receiving bay areas within the company’s 7-acre portion of the 20-acre park. The facility is expected to help attract more tenants to the industrial park and already has accelerated plans for paving the main roadway into the park. Although planning and construction for the facility took more than a year to complete, members of the family-owned business based in Atlanta, Neb., say it was worth the effort. «We feel we found the perfect location for the facility,» says Ross Booe. «We believe the construction of the facility turned out great and will benefit the community greatly.» Booe says the company already has established working relationships with several local entities.

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Electric Company Offers Incentive to Recycle Old Fridges, Freezers

Newburyport News (08/05/14)

National Grid in Massachusetts is offering its residential electric customers a new incentive to recycle obsolete refrigerators and freezers. Homeowners who recycle an outdated refrigerator or freezer in August or September will have an opportunity to win a $250 prepaid debit card. «National Grid is committed to helping customers save money and energy, so we’re offering a program that allows customers to recycle an inefficient device and potentially start saving for a high-efficiency Energy Star appliance at the same time,» says National Grid’s Edward White. An existing program already pays homeowners in the state $50 for scheduling a free pickup of an obsolete second refrigerator or freezer. The electric company will automatically enter participants in the program into a random drawing for a chance to win one of four $250 prepaid debit cards.

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How Do Detroit’s Parolees Fit Into the City’s Revitalization?

Michigan Radio (08/04/14) Nasr, Reem

Green Works in Detroit is working to give the city’s parolees a fighting chance at employment. A subsidiary of Goodwill Industries of Greater Detroit, Green Works trains people how to prepare materials for recycling. The nonprofit sells recycled metals and other materials, generating about $6 million in revenue a year. Most of it goes back into training and hiring Detroiters, some of whom have been through the prison system. One high-profile client is a former General Motors plant called Willow Run in Ypsilanti that has been vacant since the automaker stopped producing transmissions at the site in 2010. Racer Trust, the group overseeing the cleanup of GM’s abandoned plants, hired Green Works to help remove and recycle demolished metals from Willow Run. About four or five Green Works employees and trainees visit the site every day to gather material and bring it back to the nonprofit’s warehouse for recycling. Green Works moved into a new 94,000-square-foot warehouse two years ago.

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