Scrap Beat: March/April 2009

March/April 2009

Steel Production Declines 1.2 Percent
World crude steel output reached 1.33 billion mt in 2008, a 1.2-percent decrease from 2007 but the second consecutive year that production exceeded 1.3 billion mt, the World Steel Association (Brussels) reports. Steel production declined in the European Union, North America, South America, and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Asia—especially China—and the Middle East experienced an increase, however. Worldwide, the decline accelerated from September 2008 to the end of the year. World crude steel output for December was down 24.3 percent compared with that month in 2007.

China became the first country to produce more than 500 million mt in one year, hitting 502 million mt in 2008, up 2.6 percent from 2007 and more than doubling within the past five years. Its share of world steel production continued to grow in 2008, accounting for 38 percent of the world total. Asia as a whole produced 770 million mt of crude steel in 2008, 58 percent of the world total and 1.9 percent more than in 2007. South Korea and India recorded increases of 3.8 percent and 3.7 percent, respectively. The EU-27 produced 199 million mt of crude steel in 2008, down 5.3 percent compared with 2007. In 2008, North America's steel production was 5.5 percent below 2007. The United States produced 91 million mt of crude steel, a decrease of 6.8 percent. Overall, the CIS made 8.1 percent less steel than in 2007.

Visit www.worldsteel.org.

PET Bottle Collection Reaches New Highs
In 2007, the United States collected nearly 1.4 billion pounds of PET bottles—the highest volume recorded to date, according to a National Association for PET Container Resources (Sonoma, Calif.) and Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers (Washington, D.C.) report. That's a 10-percent increase over 2006, resulting in a recycling rate of 24.6 percent. The rate has grown for four consecutive years. The volume of PET containers sold in the United States jumped to 5.7 billion pounds in 2007, a 5-percent increase over 2006. The rise is credited to strong sales in still water, teas, energy drinks, and isotonic beverages. Manufacturers used a record 900 million pounds of recycled PET in a variety of applications in 2007, the associations report.

Visit www.napcor.com or www.plasticsrecycling.org.

Paperboard Facilities Shut Down
Sonoco (Hartsville, S.C.) and Caraustar Industries (Atlanta) both recently closed paperboard mills due to market conditions. Sonoco has closed its Rockton, Ill., uncoated recycled paperboard mill, which produced 38,000 tons of paperboard annually. The firm will continue to operate 22 uncoated recycled paperboard mills and 32 paper machines globally, including 12 mills and 20 machines in the United States and Canada. Sonoco plans to use capacity from its remaining mill system to meet customers' supply needs. In 2008, Sonoco closed its 48,000-ton Montréal mill and closed a smaller 5,000-ton specialty paperboard machine at its Holyoke, Mass., mill.

Caraustar has closed its Richmond Paperboard mill in Richmond, Va., an uncoated recycled boxboard manufacturing facility with an annual capacity of 49,000 tons. The company also idled its Carolina Paperboard mill in Charlotte, N.C., a URB manufacturing facility with an annual capacity of 62,000 tons. The company expects to decide by the end of the first quarter when it will restart production at the Carolina mill.

Visit www.sonoco.com or www.caraustar.com.

Alcoa Cuts More Production and Employees
Alcoa (Pittsburgh) announced in January it is cutting smelting operations by more than 135,000 mt per year, which, when combined with reductions in October and November of 615,000 mt per year, total 18 percent of Alcoa's annualized output, or 750,000 mt. The company also will reduce alumina production accordingly across its global refining system to 1.5 million mt per year. Alcoa expects to implement the cuts by the end of the first quarter of 2009.

In further news, Alcoa and Orkla (Oslo, Norway) have exchanged their stakes in a Norwegian smelting partnership and a Swedish extrusion joint venture. Alcoa has gained 100 percent interest in Elkem Aluminum, which includes aluminum smelters in Lista and Mosjøen, Norway, with a combined output of 282,000 mt per year. Alcoa also received Elkem's stake in a newly opened anode plant in Mosjøen, in which it already had about an 82-percent interest. In exchange, Orkla received Alcoa's 45-percent stake in the SAPA extrusion profiles business (Lichtervelde, Belgium). Alcoa also plans to sell four noncore downstream businesses: electrical and electronic systems, global foil, cast auto wheels, and transportation products Europe.

Visit www.alcoa.com.

Smurfit-Stone Declares Bankruptcy
Recycler and packaging manufacturer Smurfit-Stone Container Corp. (Creve Coeur, Mo.) and its U.S. and Canadian subsidiaries have filed voluntary petitions for reorganization under Chapter 11 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court and its Canadian equivalent. The company plans to restructure its debt to support its long-term growth and profitability, it says, adding that day-to-day operations will continue as usual. The court has authorized the company to honor customer obligations and continue its cash management systems and other business operations. Smurfit-Stone's stock was delisted from NASDAQ on Feb. 4.

Visit www.smurfit-stone.com.

Glass Container Industry Raises Recycled-Content Bar
Glass Packaging Institute (Alexandria, Va.) members have pledged to use at least 50-percent recycled glass in the manufacture of glass bottles and jars by 2013. Glass recycling reached 28 percent in 2007, up from 25 percent in 2006, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (Washington, D.C.). The United States recovered about 3.2 million tons of glass packaging in 2007 compared with 2.9 million in 2006. Using the EPA's benefits calculator, GPI estimates that using 50-percent recycled content in U.S. glass packages could save enough energy to power more than 45,000 households for a year.

In other GPI news, a group of four Michigan State University School of Packaging students won $5,000 for themselves and $5,000 for their school in the first GPI Recycle Glass Day YouTube video competition, held in December. GPI held the contest to bring national awareness to glass recycling.

Visit www.gpi.org.

Most Beverage Containers Not Recycled
Beverage container recycling in the United States has not kept pace with container sales, according to a new report. The Container Recycling Institute's (Glastonbury, Conn.) Beverage Market Data Analysis reports that beverage container packaging sales have increased significantly since CRI's initial 2000 analysis; beverage container recycling rates, however, have stagnated. As a result, the beverage container wasting rate has grown 5 percent since 2000, to 66 percent.

Visit www.container-recycling.org.

Report Critical of Beverage Company Recycling
None of the major U.S. beverage companies' recycling practices scored better than a C in a report released in December by As You Sow (San Francisco). Of 23 companies evaluated, Coca-Cola received the highest grade, a C, followed by Anheuser-Busch, PepsiCo, and Nestlé Waters, which all received C minuses; 16 of the 23 companies failed. Waste and Opportunity: U.S. Beverage Container Recycling Scorecard and Report evaluates the companies using four criteria: reducing the use of virgin packaging materials; use of recycled content; beverage container recycling; and transparency of their goals and commitments to the other three criteria.

The report offers seven recommendations the beverage industry can follow to improve its recycling practices, such as using the highest possible level of postconsumer recycled content in beverage containers, publicly reporting container recycling progress made each year, and supporting public policies that increase the recycling of beverage containers. Container recovery averages 70 percent in states with container legislation, more than twice the rate of states without bottle bills, As You Sow says.

Visit www.asyousow.org.

New York Mandates Plastic Bag Recycling
New York retailers with more than 10,000 square feet of retail space or that are part of a chain with more than five stores—each with more than 5,000 square feet of retail space—must provide collection bins for used plastic bags as well as recycle the bags they collect, effective this year. The stores must also keep records for three years describing the amount of plastic bags collected and recycled. The state law prevents cities or counties from imposing their own laws on the subject, but it will allow New York City to retain its recycling program for plastic carryout bags and plastic films. The state plans to require the recycling of film plastics statewide.

Visit www.dec.ny.gov.

California Container Recycling Rate Reaches 76 Percent
Californians recycled 7.6 billion beverage containers from January through June 2008, raising the six-month California Refund Value recycling rate to 76 percent—about 600 million more containers than in the same period in 2007, according to the state's Department of Conservation. Recycling rates rose for all material types during that period compared with the year before: aluminum recycling was up to 85 percent from 83 percent; glass, up to 79 percent from 71 percent; and No. 1 PET, up to 63 percent from 58 percent. The recycling rate has grown by 16 percentage points since the state increased the CRV payout in 2007 from 4 cents to 5 cents for beverage containers under 24 ounces and from 8 cents to 10 cents for containers 24 ounces or greater.

Visit www.conservation.ca.gov.

Oregon Increases Plastic Recycling Rate
Oregon's recycling rate for rigid plastic containers increased from 28 percent in 2006 to 30 percent in 2007, according to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. Oregon residents recycled 19,887 tons of rigid plastic containers and disposed of 46,182 tons compared with 17,675 tons recycled and 45,905 tons discarded in 2006. The department credits the growth to the increased use of large roll carts for collecting commingled recyclables. The state expects the rate to remain high as more jurisdictions add roll carts to their programs and following the addition of plastic water bottles to its bottle bill this year.

Visit www.deq.state.or.us.

Cell Phone Made From Recycled Water Bottles
Motorola (Schaumburg, Ill.) has unveiled the Moto W233 Renew—the world's first mobile phone made from recycled water bottles. The plastic body of the phone is 100-percent recyclable. The box the phone comes in and all of the materials inside are made of 100-percent postconsumer recycled paper, and the package includes a postage-paid envelope for recycling the owner's previous phone.

Visit www.motorola.com.

Canadian Program Aims to Scrap Polluting Vehicles
The Clean Air Foundation (Toronto) has partnered with the Automotive Recyclers of Canada (London, Ontario) and other Canadian nonprofits to lead and expand the Car Heaven program, which gets older, high-polluting cars off the road. The program, which began in 2000, offers new incentives for Canadian residents who recycle their old cars and trucks—especially those built before 1995. The incentives include free towing, a charitable tax receipt, and a guarantee that their vehicle will be recycled in an environmentally friendly way. In Ontario, some donors are eligible for $300 cash.

Visit www.carheaven.ca.

Mergers and Acquisitions

• Industrial Services of America (Louisville, Ky.) has expanded into the stainless steel recycling market by purchasing about $9 million in inventory from Venture Metals, also based in Louisville. It also hired two of Venture's key executives—co-founders Steven Jones, who oversaw the Louisville operations, and Jeffrey Valentine, who served as general manager of the firm's Mobile, Ala., facility. About 20 other Venture employees joined ISA in their existing positions. ISA will use Venture Metals' 5-acre processing site in Louisville and plans to take over Venture's lease on a 3-acre site in Mobile. ISA plans to expand the west Louisville site into a full-service facility with stainless steel recycling operations supplemented by a retail center that purchases ferrous and nonferrous metals and automobiles. ISA currently has processing and sorting facilities in Louis­ville, Ky., and New Albany and Seymour, Ind. The company formed a new division, ISA Alloys, to focus on the new stainless steel recycling business.

Visit www.isa-inc.com.

• Schnitzer Steel Industries (Portland, Ore.) has acquired ferrous and nonferrous metals recycler Arrow Metals Corp. Woodinville, Wash.).

  Visit www.schnitzersteel.com or www.arrowmetalscorp.com.

• Terex Aerial Work Platforms (Redmond, Wash.) has acquired a refurbishment facility from United Rentals (Modesto, Calif.), which will serve customers of Genie aerial equipment and, later, Terex equipment. The facility's 32 employees will remain.

  Visit www.terex.com.

• Hypertherm (Hanover, N.H.) has acquired the core assets of MTC Software (Lockport, N.Y.), a developer of computer-aided manufacturing software for the sheet and plate processing industry. The company does not plan significant changes to MTC's operations, it says.

  Visit www.hypertherm.com or www.mtc-software.com.

Openings and Expansions

• Adirondack Plastics & Recycling (Argyle, N.Y.) has launched a new company, Valley Plastics & Paper Recycling (McAllen, Texas). The 20,000-square-foot facility in a free-trade zone on the Texas-Mexico border provides its customers with access to recycling opportunities in Central and South America as well as the U.S. Southwest, the company says. The facility is equipped with state-of-the-art grinding and baling equipment and also provides warehousing, transportation, brokering, and consulting services.

  Visit www.plasticsworldwide.com.

• Scrap Aluminum Processors (Jacksonville, Fla.) has opened its second facility, Scrap Aluminum Processors Two, on Jacksonville's south side. The facility processes nonferrous materials, including aluminum, brass, bronze, copper, stainless steel, and lead.

  Call 904/997-7096.

• Grossman Environmental Recycling (Westerville, Ohio) has reopened as a national broker of paper and plastics after an October 2008 fire destroyed its paper and plastic processing facility. A former competitor will process material from many of the company's local accounts.

  Visit www.grossmanenvironmentalrecycling.com.

• In a joint venture with Coca-Cola Co. (Atlanta), New United Resource Recovery Corp. (Spartanburg, S.C.) has opened a new plastic bottle-to-bottle recycling facility. The company expects the 30-acre site to recycle 100 million pounds of plastic annually—the equivalent of nearly 2 billion 20-ounce plastic bottles. The expansion allows NURRC to increase its patented plastic recycling operations tenfold this year, the company says. NURRC also made improvements to its existing facility such as adding processing equipment, power, lighting, utilities, equipment supports, and a 3,000-square-foot, 60-foot-tall processing tower.

  Visit www.urrc.net or www.thecoca-colacompany.com.

• West Coast Recycling Group (Minneapolis) has entered a 12-month negotiating agreement with the Sacramento-Yolo Port Commission for the construction of a metals recycling and export operation at the Sacramento port, which would serve as its headquarters. If approved, West Coast Recycling Group would create a 15-acre facility with an automobile shredder for processing and exporting up to 240,000 mt of scrap annually. The plant would employ 15 to 20 people and could expand to 60 more, the company says.

• GLR Recycling Solutions (Roseville, Mich.) has opened its second single-stream recycling processing center in Huron Township, Mich., to process commodities collected in curbside programs. The company expects the 50,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility to create up to 42 new full-time jobs. The plant includes a viewing area, walkway, and multimedia room for educational tours of the recycling process.

  Visit www.go-glr.com.

• Giordano's of Vineland (Vineland, N.J.) has purchased 10 acres of land to double its recycling plant. The expansion includes the hiring of 15 to 20 new employees, adding two scales, and using the adjacent rail line to transport goods, the company says. Giordano's also has ordered a stationary shear that breaks down products three to four times faster than its mobile shear.

  Visit www.giordanosrecycling.com.

• Reklaim Technologies (Bellevue, Wash.) plans to open a tire recycling plant at the Port of Morrow industrial park near Boardman, Ore., which will break down clean scrap tires into steel, oil, and carbon black. The plant will capture the oils and gases using a patent-pending process. It expects to generate about two-thirds of its own power from the captured gases after its six production lines are up and running. The facility expects to hire 40 employees and to recycle 5.4 million tires annually. It will run 24 hours a day and be monitored on site as well as remotely by an operations center.

  Visit www.reklaim.com.

  Metso Recycling North America (Medina, Ohio) has expanded the production of rotors at its new Medina, Ohio, manufacturing facility. The company plans to rebuild three to four rotors from a variety of manufacturers each month.

  Visit www.metsominerals.com/recycling.

• Sennebogen (Charlotte, N.C.) plans to open a new 53,000-square-foot training, technical support, and parts distribution center in eastern Lincoln County, N.C., in early 2009. The facility should add 25 new jobs to the county.

  Visit www.sennebogen-na.com.

  Northshore Manufacturing (Two Harbors, Minn.) is adding nearly 29,000 square feet of manufacturing and office space to its headquarters. The expansion includes a state-of-the-art painting facility, new assembly area, and more room for CNC machining centers and future robotic welding centers.

  Visit www.builtritehandlers.com.

• Sargent's Equipment & Repair Services (South Chicago Heights, Ill.) has moved into its new office building (below) after completing a second 5,000-square-foot shop addition. Both are located on a 6-acre site at 21 E. Sauk Trail.

  Visit www.sargentsequipment.com.

• Alexin (Bluffton, Ind.) has opened a $58 million state-of-the-art aluminum casthouse. The company says scrap will account for 80 percent of the content of its final aluminum, and it will provide LEED-certifiable aluminum to its customers.

  Visit www.alexinllc.com.

• CP Group (National City, Calif.) has opened a sales and service office in Littleborough, England. The new office, named CP Manufacturing (Europe), will serve the United Kingdom, Ireland, and other Western European countries. It will represent all of CP Group's companies and product lines, including CP Manufacturing, Krause Manufacturing, MSS, IPS Balers, and Material Sales.

  Visit www.cpmfg.com.

• Cascades (Kingsey Falls, Québec) has invested $5 million into its Kingsey Falls Norampac plant, which produces linerboard from 100-percent recycled fiber, to expand the building and replace the winder as well as create more space for future investments, the company says. The expansion, which has subsequent phases scheduled for 2010 and 2011, will increase the facility's production capacity from 90,000 mt to more than 125,000 mt, the company says.

  Visit www.cascades.com.

New PET Bottle Is Biodegradable and Recyclable
Enso Bottles (Phoenix) has introduced a 100-percent biodegradable and 100-percent recyclable PET plastic bottle. The bottles will deteriorate in anaerobic or aerobic compostable environments, the company says.

Visit www.ensobottles.com.

Electronics Roundup

• Metech International (Gilroy, Calif.) has opened a new 30,000-square-foot facility in Durham, N.C., that provides demanufacturing, certified destruction, and material recovery services for electronic systems and components.

  Visit www.metechgroup.com.

• Round2 (Grand Prairie, Texas) has acquired Monitex, a specialist in reuse and glass-to-glass recycling of computer monitors, televisions, and other cathode-ray tubes, renaming the company Round2 Monitex. The acquisition enables Round2 to deliver a comprehensive, wholly-owned electronics recycling solution from its 183,000-square-foot facility in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, the company says. Monitex processed more than 36 million pounds of CRT products in 2008.

  Visit www.round2monitex.com.

• Australia's first television and computer monitor recycling company, CRT Recycling Australia (Gepps Cross, South Australia), broke ground in January. The firm is installing specialized equipment for glass-to-glass processing of the estimated 1.5 million CRTs that end up in Australia's landfills each year, it says.

  Visit www.ecyclerecovery.com.au.

• The Salley, S.C., facility of Global Investment Recovery (Tampa, Fla.), a subsidiary of Sims Recycling Solutions (West Chicago, Ill.), has achieved ISO 14001:2004 certification. GIR provides electronics recycling and secure data destruction services.

  Visit www.girpm.com or www.simsrs.com.

• Michael Keough, founder and president of electronics recycler E-Structors (Elkridge, Md.), has received the entrepreneur of the year award from the Greater Washington Board of Trade for improving company performance, exhibiting integrity, and being involved in greater Washington's business and civic communities. Baltimore SmartCEO magazine also has recognized the company as one of the 50 fastest-growing companies in the greater Baltimore area in 2008 based on employee and revenue growth. This is the second year the company made the list.

  Visit www.e-structors.com.

• The Electronics Manufacturers Recycling Management Co. (Minneapolis) has expanded its recycling infrastructure in Texas under a new agreement with Goodwill Industries of Central Texas (Austin, Texas). Consumers can drop off end-of-life televisions from Panasonic, Sharp, or Toshiba free at Goodwill locations across 15 counties in central Texas. As of January, the MRM network had 280 locations with at least one recycling center in each state. It anticipates having 800 drop-off locations by 2011. MRM also plans 40 sites that will test a concept pioneered by Eco International (Vestal, N.Y.) that uses public storage sites for consumer electronics recycling.

  Visit www.mrmrecycling.com.

Best Buy Co. (Minneapolis) has expanded its electronics recycling program nationwide. Customers can drop off up to two devices per day at any of the retailer's 1,006 stores in the United States. The company will accept many electronics for free; most items with a screen are $10, but the company provides a $10 Best Buy gift card in exchange for the fee. It does not accept televisions with screens larger than 32 inches.

Visit www.bestbuy.com.

• Verizon Wireless (Basking Ridge, N.J.) collected 1.13 million used cell phones in 2008 through its HopeLine phone recycling and reuse program—a 6-percent increase over the previous year, and the second consecutive year the program exceeded 1 million phones collected. Consumers and businesses across the nation donated the phones, batteries, and accessories to the program, which supports domestic violence prevention and awareness programs nationwide and which will award more than $1.5 million in cash grants, generated by the sale of refurbished phones, to nearly 350 domestic violence agencies and organizations.

  Visit www.verizonwireless.com/hopeline.

• Hewlett-Packard (Palo Alto, Calif.) has introduced a program that pays consumers cash for used PCs, monitors, printers, digital cameras, PDAs, and smartphones of any brand with residual value. Consumers also can recycle HP and Compaq products with no value for free and other products for a fee through the program. Market Velocity (Buford, Ga.) manages the HP Consumer Buyback and Planet Partners Recycling Program.

  Visit www.hp.com.

• Plug-In to eCycling partner companies have expanded their electronics recycling programs and collected and recycled more than 66.5 million pounds of electronics in 2008, a nearly 30-percent increase from the previous year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (Washington, D.C.) reports. Plug-In to eCycling is a partnership between the EPA and consumer electronics manufacturers and retailers.

  Visit www.epa.gov/plugin.

New Ventures

• MBA Polymers (Richmond, Calif.) and European Metal Recycling (Warrington, England) are jointly launching MBA Polymers UK (Worksop, England). The companies expect the facility to produce 80,000 tons of recycled plastic a year for the European automotive and durable goods markets. It will process shredder residue upgraded by EMR from its UK operations using MBA's proprietary process to recover, separate, and purify high-value plastics from this complex feed stream, the companies say.

  Visit www.mbapolymers.com or www.emrltd.com.

• The Institution Recycling Network (Concord, N.H.), a recycling cooperative, has partnered with North Shore Recycled Fibers (Salem, Mass.) to offer IRN's members more recycling options. The affiliation allows New England IRN members to recycle bottles, cans, computers and monitors, fluorescent lamps, scrap metal, plastics, and other materials.

  Visit www.ir-network.com or www.newarkgroup.com.

ECO2 Plastics (San Francisco) has entered into a long-term supply agreement with Peninsula Packaging (Exeter, Calif.). Peninsula agrees to purchase a minimum of 1.5 million pounds per month of recycled PET flake from ECO2 for three years.

Visit www.eco2plastics.com or www.penpack.com.

• Alan Ross Machinery Corp. (Northbrook, Ill.) and Great American Group (Deerfield, Ill.) have joined forces to deliver liquidation, auction, and appraisal services to scrap processors. The effort combines Alan Ross Machinery's expertise in used scrap processing equipment sales and Great American's asset management, disposition, and financial services, the companies say.

  Visit www.rossmach.com or www.greatamerican.com.

Harsco Corp. (Camp Hill, Pa.) and Shanxi Taigang Stainless Steel Co. (Shanxi, China) are introducing new commercial applications for the Chinese mill's residual stainless and carbon steel slag. The venture marks Harsco's first Chinese application of its specialized minerals processing and utilization technologies, the company says.

Visit www.harsco.com or www.tgbx.com.

• The Preserve Gimme 5 program provides drop-off locations for polypropylene (No. 5) plastic containers often not accepted at municipal recycling centers. The program, created by Preserve (Waltham, Mass.) and offered through a partnership with Whole Foods Market, Stonyfield Farm, and Organic Valley, kicked off in January at select Whole Foods Market locations. Preserve manufactures 100-percent-recycled household products from recycled PP and other materials.

  Visit www.preserveproducts.com.

• The Curbside Value Partnership (Stamford, Conn.) will operate as a Keep America Beautiful (Stamford, Conn.) program under a joint agreement to increase participation in curbside recycling programs. The Aluminum Association and the Can Manufacturers Institute formed CVP five years ago to help communities grow and sustain residential curbside recycling programs. Under the agreement, KAB assumes operational, fundraising, and development responsibilities for the program. Steve Thompson continues as CVP executive director.

  In other news, KAB has joined with Earth911.com (Scottsdale, Ariz.) to provide resources, editorial content, and local recycling information to consumers nationwide. KAB will link to Earth911.com's national database through its Web site and connect its affiliate network activities and recycling programs to the Earth911.com database. Both organizations will seek opportunities to increase consumer access to recycling programs and increase recycling nationwide. Earth911.com's search engine allows U.S. and Canadian consumers to search more than 100,000 locations, programs, and events, providing recycling or disposal solutions for 170 different products.

  Visit www.kab.org, www.recyclecurbside.org, or www.earth911.com.

• The American Beverage Association (Washington, D.C.) has become a founding member of the Climate Group's (London) Recycle Together initiative to identify and promote effective methods to increase recycling. ABA's Full Circle Plan works to make lighter containers, to use higher percentages of recycled materials, and to make nearly all of its members' containers 100-percent recyclable.

  Visit www.ameribev.org or www.theclimategroup.org.

• The U.S. Department of Transportation's Maritime Administration has signed fee-for-service contracts to recycle four more of its obsolete ships. Two ships are from the Beaumont Reserve Fleet in Texas, and the other two are from the James River Reserve Fleet in Virginia.

  ESCO Marine (Brownsville, Texas) will recycle the Hattiesburg Victory, built during World War II, for $1 million and the Savannah, a 1970-vintage ex-Navy oil replenishment ship, for $515,726. Marine Metal (Brownsville, Texas) will recycle the Pioneer Contractor, a break-bulk cargo ship constructed in 1963, for $321,000. MARAD also sold the Milwaukee, a 1969 AOR2-class oiler, for $56,410 to Bay Bridge Enterprises (Chesapeake, Va.). Only 24 ships in the James River fleet and 10 ships in the Beaumont site remain to be recycled.

  Visit www.marad.dot.gov.

Equipment Sales and Installations

• Newell Recycling (East Point, Ga.) has installed a megashredder at its Savannah, Ga., location. The Shredder Co. (Canutillo, Texas) manufactured the 6,000-hp unit, which can process more than 2,000 tons of scrap metal a day.

  Visit www.newellrecycling.com.

• OmniSource Corp. (Fort Wayne, Ind.) has built a $2.5 million reducing mill to reduce nonferrous scrap from automobiles into 2-inch pieces. It will enable the company to remove more alumi­num, copper, and other metals from material shredded at OmniSource's 65 U.S. plants, the company says.

  Visit www.omnisource.com.

• Mid-State Recycling Co. (Glasgow, Ky.) has installed a shredder downstream package and heavy-duty shredder infeed conveyor from the U.S. Shredder and Castings Group (Trussville, Ala.) to process material from a previously purchased shredder.

  Visit www.usshredder.com.

• The Billings, Mont., facility of Pacific Steel & Recycling (Great Falls, Mont.) has purchased a Sennebogen 835M material handler. The company says the handler is suited for that scrapyard's tight quarters and limited storage space.

  Visit www.pacific-recycling.com.

• ATM Recyclingsystems (Fohnsdorf, Austria) installed three briquetting presses in North America in January. Schupan & Sons (Kalamazoo, Mich.) installed an HSB 12 briquetter to process aluminum scrap, while two alloy recyclers that serve the aerospace market purchased HSB 10 briquetters. One of the alloy recyclers, based in California, is processing nickel alloy scrap in the unit; the other alloy recycler, in Connecticut, is producing titanium pucks.

  ATM also installed five HSB 7 briquetting presses at Japan-based AISIN AW Co. facilities in February. The recycler is using the unit to recover the oils and coolants from its scrap aluminum, steel, and cast iron chips and to upgrade the scrap to fetch a higher price in the market. According to ATM, oils and coolants accounted for about 30 percent of the chips' weight before briquetting but only 2 percent to 3 percent of their weight after processing.

  Visit www.atm-recyclingsystems.com.

Milestones and Achievements

• First Environment (Boonton, N.J.) has received accreditation as a validation and/or verification body for documenting and verifying greenhouse gas emissions from the American National Standards Institute (Washington, D.C.). The company is among the first seven organizations recognized under this ANSI pilot accreditation program. The Climate Registry, the California Climate Action Registry, the Voluntary Carbon Standard, and the Chicago Climate Exchange all recognize this accreditation.

  Visit www.firstenvironment.com or www.ansi.org.

• AllShred (Witney, England) has received AAA certification for confidential document shredding from the National Association of Information Destruction (Phoenix), which establishes standards for a secure destruction process including responsible disposal.

  Visit www.allshred.uk.com.

• Green Seal has certified select away-from-home brands and retail brands of bathroom tissue by Atlas Paper Mills (Miami) as complying with the environmental and performance requirements of Green Seal's standard for two-ply, one-ply, and jumbo rolls of tissue paper. The certification also assures customers that Atlas products are made from 100-percent recycled fibers, meet EPA guidelines for postconsumer waste, and adhere to quality-control standards in manufacturing.

  Visit www.atlaspapermills.com.

Gehl Co. (West Bend, Wis.) is celebrating its 150th business year. Three generations of Gehl family members have led the company since its founding as an agricultural toolmaker in 1859. To commemorate its milestone, the company has published an illustrated hardcover book that details its evolution.

Visit www.gehl.com.

• The seamless aluminum can recently celebrated its 50th anniversary as a beverage container. The Coors Golden brewery (Golden, Colo.) introduced the first can on Jan. 22, 1959.

  Visit www.millercoors.com.

• The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design and the European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies have recognized Thermo Fisher Scientific's (Billerica, Mass.) handheld line of Niton XL3t series XRF analyzers with a Good Design award for products designed and/or manufactured between 2006 and 2008, the firm says.

  Visit www.thermo.com.

• Vecoplan (High Point, N.C.) is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. The company opened as a manufacturer of wood chippers in Bad Marienberg, Germany, and later turned its focus to designing and manufacturing recycling equipment.

  Visit www.vecoplanllc.com.

• The Automotive Recyclers Association (Fairfax, Va.) has named the Automotive Recyclers of Canada Association (London, Ontario) its affiliate chapter of the year.

  Visit www.a-r-a.org.

Moves and Name Changes

• A. Tenenbaum Co. (North Little Rock, Ark.) has become the Tenenbaum Recycling Group, effective Nov. 1, 2008.

  Visit www.trg.net.

• National Fiber Supply Co. (Chicago) has moved its offices to 303 W. Madison St., Suite 1650, Chicago, IL 60606. Its contact numbers have not changed.

  Visit www.nationalfibersupply.com.

• J. Solotken & Co. (Indianapolis) is moving into a renovated facility across Indian­apolis from the space it has occupied since 1936. Although the square footage is less than the company's current location, the new location offers at least five times the usable space, the company says. It expects to complete the move by January 2010.

  Visit www.jsolotken.com.

• R3 Safety (Wilmington, Ohio) has relocated its Sparks, Nev., warehouse to Fresno, Calif.

  Visit www.r3safety.net.

Scott Becomes Sennebogen Distributor
Sennebogen (Charlotte, N.C.) has named Scott Equipment (Monroe, La.) an authorized distributor of its purpose-built material handlers for Louisiana and portions of Arkansas and Mississippi.

Visit www.scottcompanies.com or www.sennebogen-na.com.

Resources

• Management Science Associates' (Pittsburgh) metals and advanced manufacturing division has added a new geographic boundary region for participants in its Raw Material Data Aggregation Service. The new overlay cross-border region—Northern United States & Ontario—provides participants with aggregated spot-market ferrous scrap price and volume information for mills in the eastern Michigan, northeastern Indiana, northern Ohio, western Pennsylvania, western New York, and southern Ontario, Canada, markets. MSA has contracts with several minimills and integrated steel producers in North America, which provide their actual purchase data from about 70 melting locations that represent more than 55 percent of the purchased scrap consumed in the United States each month, the company says.

  Visit www.msa.com.

• Looper Reed & McGraw (Dallas) has launched a Texas metal recycling law blog. Matthew Sanderson, a Looper Reed & McGraw attorney, started the blog with a focus on news and legal advice related to metal recycling.

  Visit www.lrmlaw.com or www.texasmetallaw.com.

• The Portland Cement Association (Skokie, Ill.) has released a report that supports previous findings that tire-derived fuel used in cement kilns does not adversely affect the kilns' emissions of various air pollutants. Air Control Techniques (Cary, N.C.) conducted the study based on data PCA collected from 31 cement plants currently firing TDF.

  Visit www.cement.org.

  The Association of Ohio Recyclers has launched an interactive product and commodity trading Web site, the Ohio Materials Exchange. Users can post free advertisements on the site for materials wanted and materials available.

  Visit www.myomex.com.

• Redemtech (Columbus, Ohio) has launched a free online tool to help companies measure their IT lifecycle and how their asset-disposal policies stack up to best practices for saving money while reducing environmental impact. The Sustainable Computing Assessment is sponsored by the Web site www.greenercomputing.com.

  Visit www.redemtech.com/sustainablecomputing.

• The Aluminum Association (Arlington, Va.) has released its 2009 Aluminum Now Buyer's Guide. The sixth annual edition includes sales contacts, addresses, and company information on more than 150 primary ingot, recycled ingot, and master alloy manufacturers; more than 200 extruders; 125 companies specializing in drawing stock, bare wire, pigments and powder, forgings and impacts, ACSR and bare cable, and insulated/covered wire and cable; almost 200 nonferrous casting foundries; 100 aluminum distributors; and more than 350 suppliers of goods and services to the industry.

  Visit www.aluminum.org.

• The Glass Packaging Institute (Alexandria, Va.) has launched a new Web site with more resources for consumers, students, and industry professionals. The site provides information about the health benefits, recyclability, and sustainability of glass containers as well as the glass packaging industry.

  Visit www.gpi.org.

• The Specialty Steel Industry of North America (Washington, D.C.) has released a report, China's Specialty Steel Subsidies—Massive, Pervasive, and Illegal, that makes the case that the Chinese government has employed an array of illegal subsidies and other interventionist measures to protect and foster the long-term development of China's primary downstream industries in its specialty steel sector.

  Visit www.ssina.com.

Super Steel Sculpture
Gerdau Ameristeel Corp. (Tampa, Fla.), a sponsor of the Tampa Super Bowl XLIII Host Committee, provided scrap steel from the demolition of the famed Orange Bowl Stadium that artists turned into one-of-a-kind works of art that celebrate the spirit of football in cities around the country. (The sculptures at right represent the Pittsburgh Steelers, top, and the Arizona Cardinals.) Gerdau displayed the sculptures, representing the NFL playoff teams, in Tampa's Cotanchobee Park during Super Bowl week to highlight the potential of recycled steel. The company then auctioned the sculptures to benefit Habitat for Humanity in the greater Tampa area.

Visit www.gerdauameristeel.com.

Concrete Goes Cementless With Tires
The Reinforced Aggregates Co. (Morgantown, W.Va.) has developed a concrete that doesn't use cement, but instead uses for stability the tensile steel found in items ranging from used tires to mesh fabrics. Mechanical Concrete combines crushed stone particles into a solid by using a thin cylinder—such as a used tire—to form a concrete building block. The process takes advantage of the natural way gravel pieces and stone flow under pressure to turn small stones into a solid concrete, the company says, at a cost that's 25 percent less than traditional concrete.

Visit www.mechanicalconcrete.com

Surfers Go Green
Green Foam Blanks and ReSurf Recycling are two efforts to find a green way of manufacturing surfboards from used, damaged surfboards and surfboard production scrap. ReSurf Recycling recycles surfboards and surfboard manufacturing scrap into various products, including asphalt for paving. The company also has created a method of producing 100-percent recycled yoga mats from wetsuit production scraps. Green Foam creates recycled polyurethane foam surfboard blanks from broken and used surfboards.

Visit www.resurf.com or www.greenfoamblanks.blogspot.com.

CMI Launches New Recycling Logo
The Can Manufacturers Institute (Washington, D.C.) has unveiled its new recycling logo and tagline “Cans: Infinitely Recyclable.” The group invites brand owners and retailers to use the symbol to increase recycling awareness.

Visit www.cancentral.com. •

World crude steel output reached 1.33 billion mt in 2008, a 1.2-percent decrease from 2007 but the second consecutive year that production exceeded 1.3 billion mt, the World Steel Association (Brussels) reports.