A Spectacular Show

July/August 2015

Thousands gathered in Vancouver in April for ISRI’s 2015 convention. Attendees heard the latest thinking on the global economy, trade, safety, management, and operations while enjoying a venue—and a final celebration—that will be hard to top. 

This year’s ReMA convention faced some uphill battles. In late 2014 and early 2015, the scrap commodity markets hit some of their lowest prices since the 2008 recession. The difficult business conditions made some think twice about making the trip. But the reasons to go were numerous: The ISRI convention is still the world’s largest gathering for the scrap recycling industry. It still draws an international audience of processors, traders, consumers, and equipment and service providers interested in making connections with new business partners—and reconnecting with old ones. The education sessions address an unparalleled range of topics, giving attendees an opportunity to learn about new commodities, markets, and processing techniques. And there was the allure of Vancouver, a world-class city on the west coast of Canada known for its natural beauty, mild climate, diverse cultural offerings, and more.

Those who made the trip said uniformly they were glad they did. Even though the show had a smaller attendance than some of the record-setting Las Vegas conventions of recent years, it still ranked among ISRI’s top 10. Exhibitors reported fewer looky-lous and more serious inquiries and detailed conversations they expected would lead to sales. And the stormy weather that blew in at the convention’s start cleared in time for one of the most memorable final-night galas in ISRI history. That event almost defies description: It featured champagne-serving acrobats, multicultural music and dance performances, a giant metal puppet, a rhythmic percussion troupe, a dance band, fireworks, and a ceremonial lighting of the Olympic cauldron. There’s no way to recreate the magic of that event in print, but learn much of what else transpired at the 2015 convention in this recap.
 

Market and Metal Overviews

In the Spotlight on the Economy and the spotlights on specific commodities, speakers cited many of the same economic factors: China’s slower growth and overproduction of base metals, the strong U.S. dollar putting U.S. recyclers at a disadvantage selling scrap to U.S. and overseas consumers, and the still-weak global economy. Still, many emphasized the cyclical nature of economies and markets and expected better times ahead.

Analysts see opportunities in the economy. Wherever the economy is heading, opportunities can be found, said Tim Kneen, chief investment officer of IFAM Capital (Greenwood Village, Colo.), at the Spotlight on the Economy. Right now, for example, bad times offer opportunities to make profitable acquisitions, he said. “Look for companies that are extraordinarily highly leveraged in the marketplace today, and go to banks and hedge funds that own or control them and grab market share.”

Things are not bad for everyone, observed Doug Hepworth, portfolio manager at Gresham Investment Management (New York). “Europe is happy with the way things are going, and China is not incredibly unhappy, despite slow growth.” China’s slowdown “is not as deleterious to metals consumption as it would have been before,” he added, “because part of the current Five-Year Plan was a shift away from infrastructure development to a more consumption-led economy.”

In terms of specific metals, Hepworth said he favors copper in the shorter run (“Homes and cars are more copper now than steel”), aluminum when energy prices rise, and the platinum group metals—but not gold “because of its negative relationship to interest rates, and I don’t see interest rates going down.”

“Markets work!” proclaimed Rick Rule, chairman of Sprott Global Resource Investments (Carlsbad, Calif.). “The cure for high prices has always been high prices, and the cure for low prices will always be low prices.” He urged those in the metals industry to prepare for the market to shift suddenly and dramatically. 

Recovery is slow for steel and ferrous scrap. Some “complicating factors” are making the current down cycle more challenging for the U.S. steel and ferrous scrap sectors, said Jim Wiseman of Smart Recycling Management (Nicholasville, Ky.) at the Ferrous Spotlight. Global overproduction of iron ore is one, he said, noting that “excessive amounts are being produced to squeeze out the high-cost producers.” This overproduction has yielded “unusually cheap” iron ore prices, which have “depressive effects across the entire ferrous supply chain.” Another complication is the simultaneous slowdown in domestic and overseas demand for scrap, which is unusual, Wiseman said. Also, the much stronger dollar has had many ripple effects throughout the steel and ferrous scrap markets, he said, and “it doesn’t look like that will change anytime soon.”

Many domestic steel users have taken advantage of the strong U.S. dollar to “massively increase their buying of steel from overseas,” said Jason Schenker, president and chief economist of Prestige Economics (Austin, Texas). Such imports are “killing” domestic steelmakers, said Michael Coslov, former CEO of Tube City IMS (Glassport, Pa.), because they reduce demand for domestic scrap and increase the supply: For every million tons of steel the country imports, 25 percent becomes scrap, he said.

To survive the current downturn, Coslov advised recyclers to “be very diligent on the buying and operating ends” because their selling prices are “pretty much set.” Aside from buying wisely, recyclers need to “get the absolute highest value out of your scrap,” such as by recovering every bit of metal from shredded material, he added.

For steel, “I think we’ve reached the bottom,” Coslov said, and “things are starting to turn.” Similarly, Schenker said he expects steel and ferrous scrap prices to rise, but “it’s going to take some time before we get to where we were a year and a half ago.” Although accommodative monetary policies are in place to support economic growth, those policies don’t take effect immediately. “There’s going to be a slow claw-out for the global economy,” he said.
 

Alloys loom in ferrous’s future. A later session addressed one long-term ferrous concern: The relentless pursuit of lighter and harder metal alloys for vehicles and heavy equipment will mean the volume and variety of alloys in the scrap stream will grow.

“Micro-alloying of auto grades will increase significantly over the next 10 to 15 years,” explained Steve Snell, a project manager at Hickman, Williams & Co. (Valparaiso, Ind.). “Current trends mean that every car part is going to have a ‘tramp’ element in it—and that’s going to be a problem for recyclers and mills.”

Advanced, high-strength steel can offer vehicle and part manufacturers extraordinary savings, especially over aluminum, he explained. Thus, exotic elements such as boron and vanadium are becoming common in trace amounts; rare earth elements are likely to increase their share significantly; and more familiar ones—such as copper and silicon—are already playing big roles. Snell specifically addressed the increased use of aluminum as an alloying agent: “Steel mill customers like it,” he noted dryly, “but recyclers don’t.”

Copper—once the bane of ferrous scrap recyclers—is now intentionally being introduced into the steel (and thus the scrap) supply, noted Matt Kiser, steel technology steward at Caterpillar (Peoria, Ill.). Basic oxygen furnace steelmakers are adding copper to plate for hardening purposes, for example, despite the fact that copper can cause real problems for plate. At Caterpillar, at least, there’s a real effort to “keep alloying down” and make up for it in the heat treatment, he said.

All of this leads to long-term challenges for ferrous processors. “There’s less and less separation, and more commingling,” noted David Borsuk of Sadoff Iron & Metal Co. (Fond du Lac, Wis.). “It’ll be a big problem.”

China’s overproduction affects nickel and stainless. China’s slower economic growth and metal production overcapacity are pressuring the global stainless market, according to the Spotlight on Nickel/Stainless panelists.

China is stuck between a rock and a hard place, said metals analyst Edward Meir of INTL FCStone (New York): Industrial consolidation that leads to job losses is “politically not palatable,” nor can the country continue to stimulate the economy. “All these excesses have to be scaled back eventually,” he said. “If they do that … we will see a supply-side response for many commodities and could have a higher level of prices next year.”

The latest International Nickel Study Group (Lisbon, Portugal) forecast expects a slight supply surplus in 2015, reported Joe Pickard, ISRI’s chief economist and director of commodities. But other analysts are predicting a deficit, leading Meir to conclude the market is pretty much balanced. The World Bank is predicting an average 2015 nickel price of $14,200 a mt, which Pickard thought was “a little low.” In addition to primary nickel hitting historically low prices, chrome, iron, and molybdenum are down, pointed out Rich Jones, a Chicago-based general manager for ELG Metals (McKeesport, Pa.).

In the United States, mills are facing greater competition from Chinese stainless imports, some of which have been redirected to North America after China lost an anti-dumping case against the European Union, Jones said. Domestic demand for U.S. stainless scrap is down 12 to 15 percent this year, he said, with the two big domestic stainless producers finding it cheaper to import stainless scrap. Also, U.S. construction spending is falling, and steel industry capacity utilization rates have plummeted since the start of the year, Pickard said. At the same time, the strong U.S. dollar is making U.S. stainless scrap exports less competitive.

Despite the current U.S. stainless market weakness, the speakers saw potential for growth. Jones pointed to domestic stainless mill construction and expansion; Pickard noted the underlying strengths in the U.S. economy. But he cautioned that imports—notably, the dumping of stainless and carbon steel on the U.S. market—could be a huge determinant of domestic demand and the health of the industry.
 

Aluminum pins its hopes on transportation. A lot of change has happened recently in the markets, “and not a lot of it good for scrap processors or brokers,” said Stephen Moss of Stanton A. Moss Inc. (Bryn Mawr, Pa.) at the Aluminum Spotlight. Pressures include downward economic currents, the strengthening U.S. dollar, and declining aluminum premiums, prices, and production. Even Americans’ healthier diets are causing headaches: Packaging demand has declined 10 percent, driven down by lower U.S. soda consumption, noted Joe Quinn of the Aluminum Association (Arlington, Va.).

One of the biggest recent changes to the aluminum market was Indonesia’s early 2014 ban on bauxite exports. Ultimately, the ban made no difference to global production, said John Tumazos of Very Independent Research (Holmdel, N.J.). “Southeast Asia and China appear to have replaced the Indonesian output,” and they potentially could generate double or triple what Indonesia was producing, he said.

China alone is producing 53 percent of the world’s aluminum and is doing so with some of the newest and most advanced technology in the world, Tumazos said. One result is that it’s producing more: China’s aluminum output increased 8.9 percent last quarter, according to the International Aluminium Institute (London). Demand is up, too, Tumazos noted, “but not as much as output.” So premiums, and the LME price, are falling. He projected a $1.20-a-pound “long-term” LME price and a 16-cent premium.

China has built up a surplus of aluminum in the last several years and it’s exporting large volumes of that surplus as a “release valve,” said Mike Southwood, a senior consultant with CRU Group (Pittsburgh). It will continue to whittle down those surpluses for years, he said.

Quinn acknowledged the Chinese surpluses but was far from pessimistic. U.S. demand is increasing, he said, approaching mid-2000s levels and “transformative growth.” In U.S. transportation, aluminum demand is up 75 percent (according to his data) due to demand for lightweight materials that can help meet fuel-efficiency standards. Building and construction are also driving demand, though by a comparatively modest 10 percent. Aerospace, driven by continued defense spending and the explosive growth in aviation, also plays an important role, he said. 

China dominates copper’s prospects. Analysts at the Copper Spotlight predicted better days ahead, but they differed on how far. Scotiabank (Toronto) commodity market specialist Pat Mohr said she foresees a copper market turnaround by 2017, as zinc and nickel supplies tighten and iron ore production expands.

Much will depend on China, which consumes nearly 46 percent of the world’s copper but whose industrial sector continues to slow. China’s government also is de-emphasizing its overbuilt industrial sector and focusing on expanding its service sector, Mohr pointed out.

China’s slowing GDP growth is “one of the key reasons why metals [markets] have been a little softer,” she said. Its copper demand is expected to grow 4 to 5 percent in 2015. The copper price forecast for 2015 is $2.75 a pound, compared with an average price of $3.11 a pound in 2014, Mohr said. An end to mine expansion in 2017 and 2018 could boost copper prices, perhaps to $3.50 a pound, she said.

Another record year for motor vehicle production and sales could lead to growth in the Chinese and U.S. economies, Mohr said. Demand from the metal-intensive U.S. automotive industry should lift copper and other base metal prices in 2017 and 2018.

American Iron & Metal (Montréal) President and CEO Herb Black agreed that a copper rebound is inevitable but contended it’s further down the road. “I believe there will be a bright future one day, but don’t count on the magic being in 2015 or 2016 or 2017,” he said.

As Chinese manufacturers are automating and upgrading, “they’re not interested in bringing in low-grade scrap metals,” observed journalist and author Adam Minter, who spoke at both the Copper Spotlight and a separate session, China and Beyond: The Future of Copper Scrap. Other Southeast Asian countries—such as Cambodia and Laos—are picking up the slack, however, with their demand for low-grade material and their lower labor costs compared with China. Minter predicted a more diverse global marketplace of low-grade metal consumers five years from now.

China’s high labor costs were among the trends David Chiao, vice president of Uni-All Group (Atlanta), named when describing how market conditions in that country have changed “dramatically” since 2012. Another change is that copper scrap traders have found it difficult to secure commercial loans due to the Qingdao scandal, which has made it almost impossible to use copper as collateral, he said. China’s imports of copper scrap and mixed metals declined 10 percent in 2013 and 12 percent in 2014, and its Green Fence initiative made import procedures more complicated and restrictive, Chiao said. The lower copper prices and higher labor costs have prompted Chinese consumers to buy higher grades of copper, “even replacing scrap copper with cathode as input.” Overall, Chiao suggested that China’s demand for copper scrap may have peaked.

Giving a perspective from another part of the world, Jurgen Van Gorp, business development manager of Metallo-Chimique (Beerse, Belgium), described his company’s strategy for coping with competition from Asian copper scrap buyers starting in the early 2000s. The company stopped warehousing nonferrous scrap and focused on its core competence of refining. It also expanded into less-traditional scrap grades and expanded its geographic reach, he said.

Spotlights for paper, electronics, plastics, and tires appear in their specific sections below. 

Other Timely Topics for Recyclers

Sessions at this year’s convention addressed some of the biggest issues facing the industry beyond the commodity markets, namely the slowdown at West Coast ports due to a labor dispute, driver safety concerns, and the continuing problem of metals theft.

More port problems are looming. The resolution of the labor dispute at West Coast ports in spring 2015 might not improve port conditions very much, according to speakers at a session on domestic issues affecting scrap exports.

Well-functioning ports are critical to the scrap industry, said Journal of Commerce (Newark, N.J.) Senior Editor Joseph Bonney. “About half the containerized products exported from the U.S. are scrap paper” and related products, he noted. Even plastics, which ship in far smaller volumes, are roughly 5 percent of exports.

Bonney predicted the West Coast port slowdown would have a relatively small long-term impact on shipping, but other problems loom on the horizon for all U.S. ports. Trade volumes are getting back to pre-recession levels, but the ports themselves have failed to upgrade their infrastructure during the downturn, he said. Meanwhile, ships are getting bigger and leaving more containers at ports that are not ready for them. The growth of carrier alliances means that multiple carriers will share space on a ship, creating a mess when the containers are unloaded. Finally, many carriers have stopped offering chassis for moving containers at port, creating a shortage and forcing shippers to find their own.

The consequences of port delays have been harsh for scrap recyclers, including increased counter-party risks, demurrage and detention charges, and delays in the supply chain. One solution all participants suggested is for the recycling industry to become more aggressive in lobbying for greater government attention to ports.

Looking at the export problem even more broadly, Mark Malloy, a vice president at Metal Exchange Corp. (St. Louis), pointed out the critical shortage of U.S. truck drivers—an average shortfall of 100,000 drivers a year over the next decade, he said. Causes of that shortfall include low wages and poor conditions, not least of which are the multi-hour lineups drivers must contend with at U.S. ports. Malloy also cited a lack of a national strategic policy on ports and a lack of committed investment from either the public or the private sector. 

Sleep apnea raises driver safety concerns. Safety is a top concern for the scrap industry, and driver safety has been a particularly serious problem. One session addressed a hidden health hazard, sleep apnea, that can have long-term consequences for truck drivers. This disorder, in which a person’s breathing repeatedly stops and starts while he or she is sleeping, can lead to fatigue, heart disease, and stroke. Despite sleep apnea’s seriousness, the U.S. Department of Transportation (Washington, D.C.) does not have regulations governing the condition, said Daren Hansen, senior editor for transportation safety at J.J. Keller & Associates (Neenah, Wis.).

The DOT requires drivers to undergo a medical examination at least once every two years, but a typical exam can’t detect sleep apnea, so doctors must refer any patients they believe may have the condition to a sleep specialist, he explained. Risk factors include being older than 50, having a body mass index higher than 35, and having a neck size greater than 17 inches in men or 16 inches in women.

Experts estimate sleep apnea might affect 20 to 30 percent of commercial vehicle drivers, Hansen said. Those dangers have prompted the National Transportation Safety Board (Washington, D.C.) to push DOT’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to pass sleep apnea rules. (Sleep apnea currently falls under FMCSA’s ambiguous “respiratory dysfunction” category, which can disqualify an employee from driving.) Hansen said he believes it will be at least another year or two before any proposed rule passes, however, because of the congressional mandate requiring a full rulemaking process.

Hansen also reviewed other changes to federal regulations governing commercial drivers’ medical information cards, medical exam forms, and certificates as well as the implementation of a drug and alcohol database. Employers will have to report employees’ positive drug and alcohol tests or refusal to take the test to the database. Employers also will have to check the database—for a fee—before hiring a new driver. Getting the database set up and functioning properly will take time, Hansen said.

(For coverage of another convention safety session, read “Thinking Outside the Box” on page 56.) 

Law enforcement efforts against metal theft. More police departments across the United States are working to combat scrap theft, said Todd Powell, a sergeant with the metal-theft unit of the Anne Arundel County (Md.) Police Department, in a session on law enforcement efforts. In its first year, his unit already has made 125 arrests in the more than 500 materials thefts reported to it. The new system works, Powell said, “because we put the time and the effort and the energy into it.”

Scrap theft and other property crimes often are a lower police priority than violent crimes, Powell said. This low priority and a lack of adequate funding can be major barriers to fighting metals theft. But improved relationships in recent years between police agencies and scrap businesses are showing results.

Also valuable is police cooperation across geographic borders, Powell said, because scrap theft cases often share certain characteristics. For instance, scrap thieves often suffer from drug addiction: Of the scrap thieves arrested in his jurisdiction, 97 percent are addicted to opiates, he said. Frequent targets of thieves are electrical substations and cell phone towers, he added.

To facilitate investigations, law enforcement officers increasingly are working with scrap businesses to obtain surveillance video. And one of the most significant advances is the increased sharing of information in metals theft databases, he said, which has helped catch thieves reselling multiple stolen goods in different jurisdictions.

Communication is key, Powell said, among and within police departments, between the police and scrap businesses, and among workers within a scrap business.

Preventing theft from the scrapyard. When it comes to protecting your business, attitude matters, said Robert Jasinski, a former U.S. Secret Service agent who is now director of security for SoBran (Fairfax, Va.). “You have to have the mindset of not being a victim,” Jasinski said. He offered the following practical steps for protecting material in a scrapyard:

--Store your most valuable items in the center of your yard, where they’re harder to reach and you can restrict access.

--Install real-time audio and video surveillance equipment—and post signs saying that you’ve done so.

--Keep your yard and office area well-lighted, and establish cordial relationships with neighbors and first responders.

--Avoid routines. Vary the time you arrive at and depart from the yard, and, if possible, travel in different vehicles from day to day. As you approach your yard, enter slowly, stay off the phone, and circle the facility looking for anything that appears out of place. When you exit your vehicle, keep your keys in hand, observe your surroundings, and proceed directly to the door.

“Trust your gut,” Jasinski said, “and if you get a bad feeling, just drive away.”

Greg Brown, owner of Raleigh Metal Recycling and two other yards in North Carolina and president of Benlee (Romulus, Mich.), pointed out that “theft comes in a lot of ways”—most often at the scale, when customers pad their load of steel with rocks, water, and people hiding under tarps. He offered additional advice, in part based on his recent encounter with thieves at the Raleigh yard.

--Open the trunk of every car that enters your yard, make sure only one person occupies the vehicle, and inspect the contents of every box and bag.

--Require your managers to sign off on all sales over $400.

--If you have an ATM, load it late at night when someone else is around. And never let anyone see you have cash.

--Keep close track of your inventory. “Don’t look at your inventory only once a month,” he said. “Make sure [to] look at your inventory over time—three or four months.”

Despite all of these precautions, prepare to deal with bad stuff when it happens, Jasinski emphasized. “Have a plan; know in advance what you’re going to do,” he said. “But if you are confronted [by thieves], comply. There’s nothing in your facility worth losing your life for.”
 

Paper Worries About Mixed Waste, Inelastic Supply

Among the biggest trends affecting the recovered fiber market is a growing disconnect between supply and demand. “Involuntary generators”—companies that recover recyclables to meet sustainability or regulatory goals—“mask the classic supply–demand dynamic of the marketplace,” said consultant Bill Moore of Moore & Associates (Atlanta), the Paper Spotlight speaker. While peddlers and small recyclers will go away when prices are too low, these generators continue providing the same volumes regardless of price, which could keep prices low, he said.

China’s paper production is projected to grow to 131 million mt in 2016, with the most significant growth in containerboard and tissue—but the tissue plants all use virgin fiber, Moore pointed out. Growth in China’s paper recovery and its capacity to use recovered fiber have been sluggish.

Moore said he believes OCC prices have hit bottom, and he’s bullish on their upside potential. He cautioned that quality will continue to deteriorate, however, as collectors seek additional supply sources. For mixed paper, Moore said he sees a “serious downside” due to oversupply and quality issues. Mixed paper prices are likely to remain roughly 50 percent of OCC prices, on average, with lows that will mean marginal-quality material won’t be able to move, he said.

The growing interest in mixed-waste processing—“dirty MRFs”—is another trend paper recyclers need to watch. Such collections will only exacerbate recovered paper’s quality issues, Moore said. He questioned the viability of such facilities and their ability to provide high-quality hard recyclables.

Moore also cautioned that the trend of curbside collectors accepting a greater variety of materials, such as polycoated cartons, will likely result in a material stream that requires more sorting and has more contamination. He wondered who will bear the cost of producing higher-quality bales when margins are already slim. Globally, he expects only incremental growth in recovered paper demand, supply, and quality.

Why the interest in mixed-waste processing? In a session devoted to mixed-waste processing, J.D. Lindberg, president of Resource Recycling Systems (Ann Arbor, Mich.), described the rationale its proponents give for collecting waste and recyclables together in one bin. “MWP is the idea that says we can take the whole waste stream … and not only gain the recovery of those materials that we would have gotten in a single-stream, segregated recycling program, but actually gain more.”

Three trends supporting MWP, he said, are a diminishing supply of recoverable recyclables over the last 10 years, particularly glass and newspaper; diminishing public interest in recycling, particularly in the southeastern United States; and—to a lesser degree, he said—plans to use the solid waste stream for thermal combustion.

Despite great technological improvements, materials recovery facilities can still recycle only about 41 percent of the materials they receive, Lindberg said. As MRFs work their way up the recovery range, it costs more money to extract more recyclables from the waste stream. Consequently, he said, it makes sense to put in a single-stream MRF first, then aggregate the rest to MWP facilities, and, at the very high end, process organics. “Instead of thinking of MWP as the only solution, think of it as a solution you can use in a cascading manner,” he said.

Cost is first among the challenges MRFs now face, along with changes in recycling laws and regulations, the variety of materials, persistent quality issues, and contamination, said Ben Harvey, president of E.L. Harvey & Sons (Westborough, Mass.), which opened its first MRF two years ago. “If you’re running a MRF today, there’s a good chance that you’re producing below cost,” Harvey said. “But we can’t shut the stream off, either, because of laws, or our customers, or where we are in today’s environment.”

In the future, MRF operators will have to deal with zero-waste initiatives, decide whether to recycle mixed waste or use it as fuel, ensure demand for their product persists, and keep equipment manufacturers aware of their needs, Harvey said. “The equipment wasn’t manufactured for the rapid change in the type of materials we have seen over the last 10 years,” he pointed out. “The manufacturers need to be able to adapt, and we as an industry need to be able to adapt, too.”
 

EPR and Other Challenges for Electronics

The sharp decline in commodity prices is one of several factors forcing electronics recyclers to innovate and adapt, according to panelists at this year’s Spotlight on Electronics.

Plastics and steel—the two main commodities electronics recycling generates—show no sign of recovery. Meanwhile, suppliers are demanding more from the recyclers themselves, said John Shegerian, chairman and CEO of Electronic Recyclers International (Fresno, Calif.). He predicted much disruption and confusion, and many consolidations and company failures, over the next two to three years.

Low commodity prices might be driving recyclers to “cut corners,” said Scott Venhaus, director of global compliance at Arrow Global Asset Disposition (Austin, Texas). Thus, his firm is spending more on auditors—much to the detriment of the bottom line. Shegerian was similarly concerned about the growing number of firms abandoning warehouses filled with large tonnages of cathode-ray-tube glass or whole monitors. “We’re getting calls from landlords with 1 million square feet that are now filled with leftovers of 10-cents-per-pound glass.” He has no solution for them, and the problem is going to grow, he said.

Refurbishing and repairing electronic products offers a critical alternative revenue stream for recyclers, said Jim Levine, CEO of Regency Technologies (Twinsburg, Ohio). But environmental stewardship programs heavily favor end-of-life solutions (responsible recycling) rather than extending the product life span with repair and reuse, said Sean Weir of eCycle Solutions (Toronto).

The developing world itself is now generating enormous tonnages of end-of-life electronics, pointed out Katharina Kummer Peiry, president of Kummer EcoConsult (Villars-sur-Glane, Switzerland) and former executive secretary of the Basel Convention. She suggested that certification of processors—rather than bans on e-scrap exports—might be more effective at managing material flows.

The unintended effects of EPR. More electronics are getting recycled as a result of state extended producer responsibility laws. But nearly all the parties involved—the manufacturers, the local governments, and the recyclers—are unhappy with the unintended consequences, especially the higher costs and the difficulty of recycling CRTs, according to speakers at the EPR for Electronics Recycling session.

State EPR laws fall roughly into three categories, said Resa Dimino, senior advisor for policy and programs at the Product Stewardship Institute (Boston): those with centralized state-level control of EPR, those with performance goals for manufacturers but flexibility in how they meet those goals, and those that mandate the take-back of electronics but don’t set goals. Four of the top five states in terms of pounds collected per capita have centralized programs, she said. The performance-goal states are the second-most-successful collectors, but their struggles with collection infrastructure are creating anxiety and uncertainty among participants, she said. Some states are adjusting their laws to address these issues.

Recyclers are concerned that EPR program structures and the bidding process are creating a fight to the bottom. Manufacturers “pay a very low price to the third-party [EPR management] company, which pays even less to the recycler, which is squeezed,” said Jade Lee, president of Supply-Chain Services (Lombard, Ill.). Participating recyclers have high up-front costs—the infrastructure for collecting, processing, transporting, and reporting, as well as labor—but if they collect too much material, the manufacturers won’t pay for them to process the excess. Further, the contracts are only for one or two years. If someone else wins the next contract, the recycler is left with the infrastructure costs. With payments to recyclers as low as 8 to 13 cents a pound in performance-goal states, “companies like mine know we can’t do CRT processing responsibly at these prices,” Lee said, so they choose not to bid for EPR work.
 

States and manufacturers provide little to no oversight of the companies they hire, Lee added, naming several ways unethical recyclers may be falsifying records. “Without oversight, the EPR system is crumbling,” she said.

Manufacturers’ control of the electronics recycling contracting process is leading to greater efficiency due to more consolidation in the recycling industry, said Walter Alcorn, vice president of environmental affairs at the Consumer Electronics Association (Arlington, Va.). EPR laws have been less successful getting manufacturers to internalize the end-of-life costs of electronics, however, due to other pressures to keep prices low. Nor have these laws had a significant impact on design for recycling.

EPR programs are “artificially increasing supply when there’s no demand,” most notably for CRT glass, pointed out attorney Larry Schillinger with Young, Sommer, Ward, Ritzenberg, Baker & Moore (Albany, N.Y.). He, Alcorn, and Dimino all suggested EPR systems should focus entirely or primarily on CRTs to “get past the CRT issue,” as Schillinger put it. Once CRTs are gone, he added, a market-based system that uses electronics retailers as collection points might be able to recycle electronics without EPR. 

What’s ahead for electronics. EPR laws are among the trends Klaus Hieronymi, resource efficiency strategist for Hewlett-Packard (Bad Homburg, Germany), is tracking in electronics recycling. The goal of EPR is to help municipalities spend less managing such products and to prompt OEMs to design recycling-friendly products, he said. In Europe, however, EPR is not playing out as intended, Hieronymi observed. OEMs there handle less than 30 percent of end-of-life electronics because municipalities and other parties compete to handle valuable e-scrap streams. Andrew Rubin, president of FCM Recycling (Lavaltrie, Québec), agreed with Hieronymi that “EPR is failing,” noting that Canadian recyclers must take whatever end-of-life electronics their province’s electronics collection program receives; this often means “smaller and less valuable” products.

In addition to struggling with the “clear decline in value” in the commodities in the e-recycling stream, Rubin said he is seeing a decline in the number of CRT units but not a decline in the weight. Meanwhile, a shift toward flat-panel displays is bringing new challenges, such as mercury in LCD displays.

E-recyclers in Asia face challenges due to the lack of legislation on end-of-life electronics in some countries, as well as the lack of enforcement in countries that do have such laws, said Venkatesha Murthy, managing director of Vans Chemistry (Singapore). The region needs a stronger commitment to EPR and a greater sense of shared responsibility among the various stakeholders, he said. With the informal sector handling roughly 90 percent of e-scrap in Asia, it is essential to engage those operators if e-recycling is to succeed, he added.

E-recycling companies should “select the niche in which they want to play” and “look at this as a service-based business, providing value that people are willing to pay for,” said Neil Peters-Michaud, CEO of Cascade Asset Management (Madison, Wis.). Secure data destruction is one example of a service-based approach, he said. Ensuring data privacy is “something you can charge for.”

Other trends Hieronymi touched on included ongoing miniaturization in electronic products; centralization of data in large data centers; and electronic products with less metal—especially precious and rare metals—and more plastics or composite materials. HP Labs’ The Machine, for example, is a computer that will have “almost no copper cables,” won’t need gold-plated contacts or precious metals, and “will basically exist out of plastics and glass.” 

Legal barriers to electronics repair and resale. Electronics recyclers are experiencing negative consequences from federal copyright protection legislation and are trying to change what they call an erosion of property rights.

Software is all around us—in phones, video game consoles, cars, and even refrigerators. Software and copyrights go hand in hand, bringing with them restrictions such as end-user license agreements, said Corynne McSherry, legal director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (San Francisco). Because of such restrictions in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, she recommends that electronics recyclers work with a copyright lawyer to ensure they’re operating within the law.

The DMCA prohibits breaking software locks or helping others to do so. Although regulators designed the measure to protect copyrighted works, it has had unintended consequences, McSherry said. For instance, the law has made it technically illegal to repair an item you own—such as a car—somewhere other than at a manufacturer-approved dealership.

Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit (San Luis Obispo, Calif.), agreed that copyright law is the largest barrier to repairing electronics. “The manufacturers are using copyright laws to prevent the rest of us from having the information, tools, and research we need to be able to repair property,” he said. Recyclers need fair market access, and that means passing state-level right-to-repair bills, Wiens added.

Problems also stem from laws preventing recyclers from disabling a device’s kill switch—laws only permit the phone’s owner to do that, even if the original owner legally sells the device, said Craig Boswell, president and co-founder of HOBI International (Batavia, Ill.). This restriction prevents many devices from achieving a second life.

“If I can establish legitimate ownership of the device and establish that it’s not stolen … there’s no reason that these devices can’t find their way back into the [market],” Boswell said. “I can’t tell you how cumbersome this can be.”

Designing electronics for recycling. Two past recipients of ISRI’s Design for Recycling® Award and a product design strategist shared their perspectives on the importance of DfR in manufacturing.

About 75 to 80 percent of the opportunity to improve a product’s life cycle is in the design phase, said Scott O’Connell of Dell (Round Rock, Texas), the 2014 honoree. He described steps Dell has taken to make the recycling of its products more efficient and result in higher material yields—steps other companies can take as well. Despite the efforts of brand owners, recyclers, and policymakers, only 15 percent of electronic products on the market are getting recycled, he added.

Manufacturers must make DfR part of the company culture, said Sharolyn Vettese of SMV Energy Solutions (North York, Ontario), who previously was president of Wind Simplicity, a wind turbine manufacturer that won the award in 2011. CEOs must lead the effort because they can think beyond the financial impact of DfR to its impact on the company brand, its corporate social responsibility efforts, and more, she said.

Although DfR can result in higher up-front costs, it also can save money if it results in a product having fewer parts, she pointed out. Government action, such as higher user fees on landfilling, can make end-of-life costs more visible, which might level the playing field.

“If you really want [companies] to design for recycling better, I encourage you to teach people how to do it,” said sustainable design strategist Jeremy Faludi of Faludi Design (Berkeley, Calif.). Most engineering and design schools don’t teach it at all, he noted. To fill that gap, he created a series of videos with Autodesk (Mill Valley, Calif.) to introduce basic DfR concepts to designers. (Visit academy.autodesk.com/library/sustainable-products.)

Faludi urged convention attendees to reach out to engineering and design programs to make DfR part of the curriculum. “Students today are motivated by sustainability and [are] looking for projects with a real impact,” he said. Companies could propose a quick design contest, a semester-long project, or subjects for graduate theses, for example, he said.

O’Connell also spoke about the importance of awareness. “Getting designers into recycling facilities to see [recycling] in real time makes a connection for them, [and it] makes them advocates and champions” for DfR, he said.

Strong Prospects for Plastics

Plastic scrap imports to China and elsewhere in the Far East have increased significantly in the wake of China’s Green Fence restrictions, Kathy Xuan, founder and principal of plastics recycler PARC Corp. (Romeoville, Ill.), said at the Spotlight on Plastics. “The number of license holders—Chinese companies that are allowed to import plastic scrap—has doubled in the post–Green Fence period,” she said.

At the same time, the region’s other major plastic scrap importers—Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam—have almost tripled their purchases, most of which they will reship to mainland China, Xuan said. “But Southeast Asia countries still have a lot of obstacles,” she said, “not only the economic and import structure, but even transportation … because not as many vessels come there, compared to mainland China and Hong Kong.”

In North America, the supply side is generating mostly bad news for PET suppliers, mainly due to “a tremendous amount of excess capacity,” said John Maddox, president of plastics consulting firm SBA-CCI (Jacksonville, Fla). On the demand side, most PET currently goes into fiber, with a good portion used for food-grade PET. “The big opportunity here is moving post-recycled PET into non-food-grade bottles where the specifications are a little looser and the price opportunity is maybe a little bit better,” he said.

Looking at PET prices, “a good rule of thumb is that, for every $1 change in a barrel of crude oil, the price of PET changes about a half a cent a pound,” Maddox said.

Surendra Borad, chairman of Gemini Corp. (Antwerp, Belgium), described a major change in the European plastics regulatory picture. Last year the European Union tabled its ambitious circular economy package—which would have stipulated 60-percent reuse and recycling of plastics—in favor of country-specific policies stressing clean-technology innovation and investment, Borad said. The alternative approach promises to generate €600 billion in savings within Europe, he said.

Bright prospects for PVC. The top five end markets for recycled vinyl are custom extrusion, interior building trim, floor coverings, small-diameter pipe, and sidings, soffits, and trim, said Richard Krock, technical director of the Vinyl Institute (Washington, D.C.), at a session on PVC plastics. Recycled volumes are growing, Krock said. “There is certainly a robust industry, both in preconsumer and postconsumer recycling.”

PVC plastics have been relatively unaffected by oil prices, thus offering stability as well as value, said Troy Burgess, general manager of Central States Reprocessing (Lincoln, Neb.). His company’s four major sources of PVC are siding, which tends to be worth 10 to 15 cents a pound, depending on grade and quality; windows, 10 to 17 cents a pound; pipe, 6 to 10 cents a pound; and fence, 8 to 12 cents a pound.

PVC’s volatility and the need for higher processing temperatures can make processing more complicated, Burgess said. Other challenges for processors include the misconception that recycled PVC is inferior, building codes that mandate virgin materials, and the material’s relative scarcity. “I could sell more if I had it,” Burgess said. Recyclers often can acquire used PVC free from demolition firms that would otherwise have to pay to landfill it, he added. “All you have to do is understand what you’re getting, keep it separate, bale it, ship it—it’s very easy.”

As a PVC consumer, Feliks Bezati, ecodesign project manager for flooring manufacturer Tarkett North America (Solon, Ohio), countered some of the charges environmentalists level at PVC. For example, manufacturers have largely phased out the use of phthalates as plasticizers and have reduced emissions. But he also called for manufacturers to look at the entire product life cycle. “It’s important that the material is designed safely in the beginning.”

Increasing the value of recycled plastics. Plastics handlers who want to reduce rejections and increase the value of what they recover must know not only what they have, but also what their customers want, said Louis Tacito, president of Plastics Forming Enterprises (Manchester, N.H.). PFE does testing, research, and development on plastics recyclability.

Those handling the postconsumer plastics in a typical curbside system must be able to separate and wash the material, Tacito said. The price you get for a PET bale, for example, will vary according to the PET yield compared with its total weight. PE bales are evaluated similarly, but also based on what proportion of the bale is natural-color PE, such as from milk jugs. That material is fairly valuable, but it’s a small part of most PE bales, he said. Some curbside collection systems are starting to take bulky rigid plastics such as crates and buckets, which also have good value. By getting familiar with ISRI’s plastic bale specifications, recyclers can “get closer to what the customer wants,” he added.

Tacito cautioned recyclers about taking plastic film, which he called “more complicated.” Film from materials recovery facilities tends to have low value due to contamination, he said, whereas film from “good, reliable sources,” such as store return programs, has good value.

Three different technologies can identify plastics on the spot, Tacito said: FTIR technology (Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy) uses the infrared spectrum; DSC technology (differential scanning calorimetry) finds the melting point, which is different for each polymer; and Raman spectroscopy “looks at the vibration of molecules when you excite them,” he said. These tools “cost a lot of money, but they do the job.” Without such tools, recyclers can still identify what plastics they have by knowing four properties that differ among them: melting temperature, density, clarity, and odor. The chasing-arrows code on a container also provides some guidance, he added.

Plastics reclaimers put recovered material through numerous processes to create a clean, salable product, Tacito said. Resin companies are always “trying to figure out the next innovation” in plastic packaging, he added, but he believes they’re doing a better job of testing new designs for recyclability.

Diversifying and Protecting Tire Markets

At the Tire Spotlight, John Sheerin, end-of-life tires director at the Rubber Manufacturers Association (Washington, D.C.), credited the free-market, shared-responsibility approach for reducing U.S. tire stockpiles from more than 1 billion tires in 1990 to 75 million tires in 2013—and boosting the proportion of scrap tires sent to beneficial end-use markets from 11 percent to more than 95 percent.

Most states have instituted plans to eliminate abandoned-tire stockpiles, but they often defund those programs once the stockpiles are gone, Sheerin pointed out, which eliminates funding for further end-use market development.

Looking at the various end-use markets, Scrap Tire News (Leesburg, Va.) Publisher Mary Sikora warned that many processors rely too heavily on their current markets. “The trend is, in markets across the board, for processors to diversify to avoid economic collapse if any one market drops significantly,” Sikora said. Rubberized asphalt, which consumes more than 200 million pounds of crumb rubber each year, has perhaps the largest future potential, she said. She recommended that processors seek out new opportunities more aggressively and engage in public outreach and educational campaigns. The industry also could benefit from better communication between tire manufacturers and processors, she added.

Responding to synthetic turf myths. In a story that aired last September on the NBC Nightly News, a college soccer coach suggested there might be a link between the crumb rubber infill in synthetic turf fields and a blood-related cancer. Similar stories followed, creating what Rick Doyle, president of the Synthetic Turf Council (Atlanta), called a “crisis of confidence” in what had been a thriving industry.

The market for synthetic turf sports fields has been growing steadily, with up to 1,300 fields installed each year, about 98 percent of which contain crumb rubber infill, Doyle said. Even with these new concerns, “2015 could be a record year,” he said, particularly for schools with limited play areas that are constantly in use. “They can’t maintain grass fields, so synthetic turf represents a significant option.”

Terry Leveille, president of TL & Associates (Fair Oaks, Calif.), a lobbyist for a coalition of companies in the synthetic turf industry, pointed to a major consequence of the bad press: A bill in California had proposed a moratorium on the use of scrap crumb rubber in schools’ synthetic turf fields until Jan. 1, 2018, while the state conducts a study of the material’s safety. The coalition was able to modify the proposed bill to suspend the moratorium while the study is underway.

“Even if the bill doesn’t outright ban crumb rubber, [it implies] that there’s something wrong with crumb rubber,” Leveille said, but the evidence says otherwise. He referred to studies posted on STC’s website, “all of which validate that there are no human health or environmental risks from synthetic turf with crumb rubber—including cancer—from dermal contact, inhalation, or ingestion.”

“Synthetic turf allows millions of children and people of all ages to participate in athletics year-round and in virtually all weather conditions,” Doyle said. “And it’s an environmental success story because it diverts 30 million used car and truck tires from landfills [a year], conserves billions of gallons of water, and avoids use of pesticides and herbicides.”

Managing in Down Markets

Companies use four excuses to explain their bad performance during challenging times, said business management guru Stan Slap, CEO of Slap Co. (San Francisco), at the opening general session April 23: The economy is in ruins; the competition is killing us; we have to do more with fewer people; and our customers have changed. Discounting those excuses, Slap told recyclers that “good management will always defeat a bad economy.” And competition is no excuse, either: “You are your own competition,” he said. “There’s nothing your competitors can do to you that would be as damaging as what you can do to yourself. Forget the rest, and do what you do best.”

Slap, author of Under the Hood: Fire Up and Fine-Tune Your Employee Culture, emphasized the importance of a company’s employee culture, noting that “the more you know about the culture, the more successful you’ll be in good or bad times.” Any business strategy needs the “hard-core support” of employees to succeed, and you earn that support by showing your employees “deep respect” and inspiring them, he said.

Slap also encouraged recyclers to establish their company as a brand, regardless of company size. Branding captures why the world should care about your company and product, he explained. Leading-brand companies have a “deep, driving passion” for what they do—aside from making money. “If your passion is to make money, your customers will sense that and be less dedicated to your company,” he said.

A brand is about more than achieving trust; it’s about achieving faith among customers and employees. “You must be a brand for what you sell and how you sell it,” Slap said. A brandable customer experience must be spectacular, distinctive, and sustainable. In other words, “You’d better find the rock’n’roll in what you do,” he said.

Slap offered his five “rules of the road” for business success: (1) Focus on solutions, not excuses. (2) Don’t live in denial. (3) Raise the bar regarding your company’s value and relevance. (4) Don’t plan strategies “like bad kung fu movies,” expecting competitors to be easily defeated. (5) Look backward, recognizing that the bad times won’t last forever but the story of how you stand up to them will.

Manage your way to leadership. Although his session was titled Building a Better Manager, Jason Linkes, district sales manager for AMG Resources (Pittsburgh), instead spoke about becoming a leader. What’s the difference? “Leadership is not a title,” he explained. Any person in an organization can be a leader. It’s not the result of the right personality or charisma, he said. It begins with respect. He quoted Colin Powell, former four-star general and U.S. secretary of state, who said, “The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them.”

Managers can fall short as leaders in several ways, Linkes said. They don’t communicate with and listen to their employees. They either don’t make decisions or keep changing their expectations and goals. They lose the support of their team by taking credit for others’ work or preventing their employees’ advancement. Or they micromanage people, preventing their growth.

Employees want a chance to advance; they want someone “in the trenches with them,” willing to do any job that needs to be done; and they want someone who will be loyal and remove obstacles to their success, he said. But leaders also need to be teachers who help their employees find their own solutions to problems.

Linkes named seven characteristics managers can exhibit to become leaders: vision, confidence, people skills, motivation, responsibility, integrity, and a strong work ethic. With those seven characteristics, you’ll earn your employees’ respect, Linkes said, recommending a process of self-evaluation, peer evaluation, behavior modification, and follow-up to improve your leadership skills.

Is it time to sell your company? Two speakers reached very different conclusions as to whether these are the best of times or the worst of times to sell your business.

“Never [before] in my time have I seen an opportunity like this … to move assets from one generation to another generation because of the historical low valuations,” said Tim Kneen of IFAM Capital, a consultant primarily for family-owned businesses.

Kneen outlined options for maximizing the benefits of transfer to three likely recipients. If you sell the company to your children, you can soften the tax burden by establishing a legal instrument known as an intentionally defective grantor trust. To transfer your firm to a charity, you can create a charitable support organization that lets you continue to run the company as a charitable entity. Or you can sell shares of your company to your employees at today’s discounted values.

“The message is, if you own a business that may not be making a ton of money on paper but is doing pretty good underneath the sheets, we have an opportunity right now to do some pretty great things,” Kneen said.

Not so fast, cautioned Vince Pappalardo, managing director of investment banking at Stout Risius Ross (Chicago). “What we’re seeing … is people saying, ‘I don’t want to sell today and want to try for more value later. So, what things are potential buyers going to look at?’”

He enumerated key factors in a company evaluation that are likely to grow in importance over time: a company’s access to transportation corridors, its processing capabilities, the existence of long-term material supply relationships, the type of material flow, the strength and sustainability of its margins, its product or service offerings, its market position and reputation, the quality of its customer and supplier relationships, its management capability, and the potential synergies and savings of a merger.

“My advice is that today is not the best time to make a sale,” Pappalardo said. “Buyers are very skittish, so the timing’s not perfect.”

Considering Equipment Options

In these market conditions, you might not want to tie up your cash in a big equipment purchase. Borrowing can help your cash flow and also establish your creditworthiness, said Market Development Consultant Robert Hughes of Caterpillar Financial Services Corp. (Nashville, Tenn.).

Banks, independent finance companies, and captive finance companies such as his own all provide financing, Hughes said. The latter might offer favorable terms, such as zero interest, for their own equipment, he said. When comparing lenders, look at fees, restructuring options, terms, collateral required, and whether they offer a grace period on payments.

Banks have a couple of advantages over other financing companies, Hughes said: They take deposits, giving them a supply of money to lend, and they lend to many different businesses and industries, which can help them weather business cycles that hit one industry but not another. Those advantages mean they typically can offer the best rates, but they’re also more heavily regulated; thus they might have more stringent lending requirements. Financing companies try to provide more flexibility or better service.

Financing options include loans, finance leases, tax or operating leases, and rentals. Finance leases provide some equity and allow you to take depreciation, but at the end of the lease you will not own the equipment outright, Hughes explained. You must refinance, pay the loan in full, or return the equipment. Tax or operating leases have the lowest monthly payments, but you’re not building equity, he said. They’re best for equipment you want to replace frequently. These lease terms are based on hours of use, so it’s essential to monitor that data.

Leasing’s benefits are lower payments and the ability to keep the equipment off your balance sheet, to replace it frequently, or to get something you need for a specific project, Hughes said. By comparison, buying’s benefits are equity, owning the equipment outright, and the ability to take depreciation and build your borrowing capacity. 

Recovering more and better Zorba. When China introduced its Green Fence initiative, buyers started demanding Zorba 98—shredded mixed nonferrous that is 98-percent metal—as opposed to what had been the industry standard, Zorba 90, said Tim Shuttleworth, president and CEO of Eriez (Erie, Pa.). Meeting that standard was difficult, however. “Higher grades historically meant greater losses of metals,” Shuttleworth said, and more metal recovery meant lower grades. His company wanted to develop equipment that could produce high grades with little loss.

The company collaborated with researchers at Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, Va.) to come up with a solution, which applies mining technologies to recycling. Scott Koermer, a Virginia Tech grad student who worked on the project, described a theoretical partition curve that shows how different objects and materials behave when they go into a separator. Understanding this behavior could substantially improve the nonferrous metals separation process by “cleaning”—which improves grade but reduces recovery—and “scavenging”—which improves recovery but reduces grade. Eriez used this research to produce the Eriez RCS (Rougher-Cleaner-Scavenger), Shuttleworth said.
 

The rationale for ASR drying. Dick Reeves, market director for resource recovery, and Ron Fruit, applications manager, at General Kinematics Corp. (Crystal Lake, Ill.) described how the drying process could enhance metals recovery from automotive shredder residue. For instance, even a thin layer of water affects aluminum, Reeves said, so drying it can preserve its properties. The speakers detailed the differences among rotary dryers, fluid-bed dryers, and fluid-bed dryers with mechanical mixers.

—Theodore Fischer, Kent Kiser, Adam Minter, Rachel H. Pollack, and Katie Pyzyk.

Gates on China: Bullish Expectations Ignore Weaknesses

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates spoke at the convention’s closing general session about the years he spent dealing with global instability. In addition to speaking in depth about U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, Gates touched on a topic particularly relevant to the scrap recycling industry: China’s economy and leadership. China’s leaders are investing part of the country’s cash reserves in military capabilities and technologies, he said.

“Despite China’s growing power and influence, its leaders continue to exhibit paranoia and hypersensitivity to the smallest international challenge or internal political criticism,” Gates said. “Chinese leaders are keenly aware that the country’s bullish macroeconomic numbers conceal major underlying weaknesses.”

China’s continued success requires at least 9- to 10-percent GDP growth each year, Gates noted, and this year’s growth is estimated at 7 percent. “The credibility of the Chinese government … depends on sustaining an economic performance that is unsustainable,” he said.

Despite global uncertainty and turbulence, Gates expressed confidence in the ability of the United States to overcome its current obstacles as it has overcome greater struggles in the past. “For all—including all of you—dependent on international commerce, on freedom of navigation, on nations fulfilling their economic and commercial obligations,” he said, “much rides on the American leaders’ choices on these matters.”

Shine, Newell Recognized for Lifetime Achievements

Toby Shine, president of Shine Bros. Corp. (Spencer, Iowa), and Scott Newell, founder and CEO of The Shredder Co. (Canutillo, Texas), received ISRI’s Lifetime Achievement Award at the April 24 general session in recognition of their contributions to the recycling industry, their companies, and their communities.

Shine, the third generation to enter his family’s scrap business, joined Shine Bros. Corp. in 1960. In the early 1980s, he bought the company and focused its activities on wire chopping. Since then, the firm has become one of the top-five wire chopping operations in North America. He also has been active in his community and in scrap industry leadership, serving on ISRI’s national board of directors, two terms as president of ISRI’s Northwest Chapter, and on both the Wire Choppers and Government Relations committees, among others. He also was chair of the National Association Supply Cooperative (New Philadelphia, Ohio).

Newell began his career working with his father, Alton Scott Newell Sr., in the family’s Texas scrap recycling operations. After college, he served as manager of the Phoenix-based Newell Salvage Co. from 1959 to 1965. While in Arizona, he told his father about the market potential of using shredded tin cans in the copper mining industry. In response, Alton Newell designed a shredding machine, building and patenting it in 1960. Scott Newell built the family’s second shredder in 1961, and he has designed, built, and operated shredding systems ever since. In 2000, Newell and his son, Alton Scott Newell III, formed The Shredder Co., which makes shredding systems and casts shredder wear parts. Newell has served on ISRI’s national board of directors and as vice chair of the association’s Ferrous Division and Shredders Committee. He also has served on the Shredder Committee of the Bureau of International Recycling (Brussels).

Duran Receives ISRI’s First Vehicle Maintenance Award

Frank Duran of the Lima, Ohio, facility of OmniSource Corp. (Fort Wayne, Ind.) won ISRI’s first Golden Wrench Award for outstanding efforts, achievements, and contributions during his 35-year career in vehicle maintenance. Among his career contributions, Duran worked with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Washington, D.C.) and others in the industry to develop a compliant handrail for material handlers to eliminate the need for full-body fall protection. Below right, Duran displays his award with Commodor Hall (left), ISRI’s transportation safety director.

Harry Squires of Schnitzer Steel Industries (Portland, Ore.) won the Safe Driver of the Year Award for the second consecutive year. Squires has driven more than 3 million miles in his 40-plus years on the road, without a single preventable accident. Schnitzer also won six ReMA fleet safety awards in different class sizes. (For a complete list of fleet safety award recipients, see the Safety Spotlight section in the May/June 2015 issue.)

LG Takes Home DfR Honors

LG Electronics (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.) received the 2015 Design for Recycling® Award for new TV products that emphasize recycling at every life-cycle phase. The annual award recognizes manufacturers that incorporate DfR principles into their products and processes. ReMA recognized LG specifically for its 4K ULTRA HD organic light-emitting diode and LED TVs, which have mercury-free display panels and components with no polyvinyl chloride or brominated flame retardants. They are constructed of recycled and recyclable plastics, use standardized materials and connection types, are designed for easy disassembly and label/seal separation, and come in small and lighter packaging. LG received the award April 25 at the closing general session of the Vancouver convention. 

Video, Poster Contest Focuses on Car Recycling

During the April 23 opening general session, ReMA and JASON Learning (Ashburn, Va.) recognized the winners of their second annual recycling-focused video and art contest, which this year had an automobile recycling theme. Georgina Cahill, an 11th-grade student from Greenwich, Conn., won the grand prize in the video category, while Caitlin Tynanes, a seventh-grader from Kapolei, Hawaii, was the grand prize winner in the poster contest. In addition, Elizabeth Korn, a seventh-grade student from Plainview, N.Y., won top honors in the middle school video competition.

The contest invited students in grades 5–12 to create a video or poster in the style of a public service announcement to raise awareness that nearly every commodity used in automobiles is recyclable. Contestants had to research one or more of the commodities used in automobiles and find out what happens to it as it goes through the recycling process. Judges evaluated entries based on the interpretation and clarity of the theme to the viewer, the persuasiveness of the message, creativity and originality, and the entry’s quality and overall impression. The winners received a trip for themselves and a parent or guardian to the ReMA convention, a year of JASON online access for the entrants and a parent or teacher/facilitator, a certificate, and a contest T-shirt. Honorable mention winners each received a certificate and contest T-shirt. View the winning videos and poster at www.isri.org. Click on About ISRI, Awards, and Youth Video and Poster Contest.

Silent Auction Supports RRF Research, Scholarships

The Recycling Research Foundation silent auction at the Vancouver convention raised almost $20,000 to support the group’s recycling-related research projects and academic scholarships through certain ReMA chapters and for U.S. military veterans. That total outpaced last year’s by nearly 43 percent. This year’s auction showcased 38 items, including artworks and jewelry made from scrap materials, hotel stays, sports paraphernalia, a Hudson Bay Pointe blanket, a collection of ReMA safety DVDs, and ads in trade publications (including Scrap). A Roll-Rite DC 203 tarp fetched the highest bid, at $2,175, among all the auction items. For more information on the RRF auction—including plans for the next event at the ReMA 2016 convention in Las Vegas—contact Jonathan Levy, 202/662-8530 or jonathanlevy@isri.org.

A Shout-Out to Our Sponsors

The generous support of sponsors is what gives the ReMA convention those special touches—small and large—that make the event truly memorable and worthwhile. ReMA thanks the following 10 companies for their sponsorships at the 2015 convention in Vancouver.

Caterpillar: Chair-elect’s general session featuring Robert Gates

Hammel: Understanding Steelmaking session

Harris: Convention program

LBX Co.: Tote bags

Liebherr: Outdoor equipment display in Jack Poole Plaza

Mallin Cos.: Spotlight on Aluminum

RecycleGuard®: Opening general session featuring Stan Slap

Royce Corp.: Lanyards

Sennebogen: Highlighter pens

Sierra International Machinery: Hotel key cards