Scrap Beat: May/June 2010

May/June 2010

U.S. Hits Record Paper Recovery Rate

The United States recovered 63.4 percent of the paper it consumed in 2009, up from 57.4 percent in 2008, according to the American Forest & Paper Association (Washington, D.C.). The 2009 rate surpasses the industry's 60 percent recovery goal three years ahead of schedule, the association says. Though the 2009 recovery rate increased, the actual U.S. paper supply decreased 12 percent last year, to 78.9 million tons, and the amount of paper recovered for recycling slipped 3.4 percent, to just over 50 million tons. Visit www.paperrecycles.org.

DRI Production Declines in 2009

Global production of direct-reduced iron in the form of pellets, lump, and hot-briquetted iron totaled approximately 62 million mt in 2009, down 9 percent from 2008, according to preliminary data from Midrex Technologies (Charlotte, N.C.). (The organization had collected data from about 80 percent of the global direct-reduction industry at press time.) Despite the overall decrease in DRI production, India and Iran increased their output last year to 22 million mt and 8 million mt, respectively, thanks in part to new rotary kilns in India and new shaft-furnace production in Iran. Venezuela, which previously was the leading DRI producer, had output of 5 million to 6 million mt last year, compared with almost 7 million mt in 2008.

Looking more closely at the HBI market, global production exceeded 10 million mt in 2009, with about 6 million mt of that production shipped, according to the Hot Briquetted Iron Association (Matthews, N.C.). Essar Steel (Mumbai, India) produced the most HBI, 4.2 million mt, which it consumed in its steel operations. The association's members in Russia and Venezuela accounted for almost 4.8 million mt of production and about 5 million mt of shipments last year. Asian steelmakers, including those in India, received 2.7 million mt of HBI in 2009, marking the first time they claimed the largest percentage of shipments (45 percent). Europe, including Russia and CIS countries, received slightly more than 1.6 million mt, or 27 percent of total shipments, the association reports. South America took in 866,748 mt, or 14 percent, primarily as domestic shipments within Venezuela. The Middle East and North Africa received 502,429 mt, or 8 percent, while North America, which was the leading importer of HBI for many years, dropped to 364,668 mt in 2009, or 6 percent. Visit www.midrex.com or www.hbia.org.

DJJ Buys Florida Scrap Recycler

The David J. Joseph Co. (Cincinnati), a subsidiary of Nucor Corp. (Charlotte, N.C.), has acquired Ocala Recycling (Ocala, Fla.), a 90-employee company that handles 100,000 tons of scrap annually at its four facilities, which include an automobile shredder. DJJ plans to operate Ocala Recycling as part of its Trademark Metals Recycling (Tampa, Fla.) division. Visit www.djj.com.

Maine Adopts Producer Responsibility Law

Maine passed what it calls the United States' first extended producer responsibility "framework" law March 25. The law establishes a process for creating product stewardship programs for hard-to-recycle products and packaging, making producers, consumers, and others who benefit from the products responsible for their collection and recycling. According to the Product Policy Institute (Athens, Ga.), the law sets a precedent for other states to adopt similar framework laws to address the growing, expensive problem of managing consumer product waste. Visit www.legislature.maine.gov.

New Center to Focus on Sustainable Metal Recovery

The Worcester Polytechnic Institute (Worcester, Mass.) and Colorado School of Mines (Golden, Colo.) have established the Center for Resource Recovery and Recycling, the first national research center for developing new technologies to maximize the recovery and recycling of metals used in manufactured products and structures. Faculty and students associated with CR3 will conduct research with industry partners on recycling and recovery technology to maximize the capture and reuse of postconsumer scrap and minimize the generation of manufacturing scrap. The center will have facilities at both institutions: WPI will focus on metals used in structural applications, such as steel in buildings and aluminum in automotive components, while CSM will focus on metals used in functional applications, such as high-value and rare-earth metals in computers, electronics, and photovoltaic products.

A five-year, $400,000 award from the National Science Foundation (Arlington, Va.) will fund the costs of establishing the new CR3 center and recruiting corporate members from the metals supply chain, including scrap recycling companies, dismantlers, smelters, foundries, and manufacturers. The center plans to recruit 30 to 40 corporate members, each of which initially will contribute $30,000 a year. The center also will develop material recycling and recovery curricula at WPI and CSM, and it plans outreach to other students and institutions to build participation in the center. Visit www.wpi.edu/academics/research/CR3/index.html.

Recycling of Nonbottle Rigid Plastics Rises in 2008

More than 361 million pounds of postconsumer nonbottle rigid plastics were collected for recycling in the United States in 2008, up 11 percent from 2007, according to an American Chemistry Council (Arlington, Va.) report. Most of the recycled material went to make new products such as pallets, crates, composite lumber, and gardening items, the report says. The nonbottle rigid plastics category encompasses nondurable items (or packaging)—such as high-density polyethylene tubs, polypropylene cups, and similar food containers—and durable items, including pallets, 5-gallon buckets, crates, carts, and electronic housings. The number of communities that collected and recycled nonbottle rigid plastics also grew in 2008, the report states, with 28 of the 100 largest U.S. cities collecting the material through curbside programs. Visit www.americanchemistry.com/plastics.

CMC Exits Joist and Deck Business

Commercial Metals Co. (Irving, Texas) has sold or closed its facilities serving the joist and deck business due to low demand, depressed prices, and shrinking margins, it says. With its joist and deck facilities posting "unacceptable losses" and the outlook for joist consumption in North America "weak," CMC says it can better deploy the capital invested in those operations in its other downstream fabricating facilities. Visit www.cmc.com.

Efforts Seek to Increase Aluminum Can Recycling

Participants in the America Recycles Day Challenge, an event of the Aluminum Can Council (Washington, D.C.), helped recycle more than 3 million pounds of aluminum cans, raising $2.3 million for nonprofit groups, schools, and recycling programs. The challenge is a competition among aluminum suppliers and beverage can manufacturers to see which facility can recycle the most aluminum cans per employee over a 12-week period. Participating firms included Alcoa (Pittsburgh), Arco Aluminum (Louisville, Ky.), Novelis (Atlanta), Ball Corp. (Broomfield, Colo.), Metal Container Corp. (St. Louis), and Rexam (Chicago), which together had 30 facilities compete in the contest.

The participating facilities recycled roughly 106 million aluminum beverage cans, 679 percent more than in the 2008 challenge. Rexam claimed the top three spots in the challenge: Its Chatsworth, Calif., beverage can plant finished first by recycling more than 1 million pounds of aluminum cans, followed by its Fairfield, Calif., plant (560,788 pounds) and its St. Paul, Minn., facility (565,087 pounds).

Novelis' LaGrange, Ga., plant won the mayor/municipal recycling outreach category, recycling 12,963 pounds of used beverage cans, or 1,296 pounds per employee. Arco took second place in that category by recycling 17,580 pounds, or 517 pounds per employee. Visit www.aluminum.org.

In another effort to increase aluminum can recycling, Alcoa plans to provide 50,000 recycling bins to organizations and communities nationwide as part of its 2010 recycling bin program. The company is partnering with state recycling organizations to allocate the bins based on local needs. States earmarked for bins include Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah. This program is part of Alcoa's effort with the Aluminum Association (Arlington, Va.) to increase the U.S. aluminum can recycling rate from 54 percent to 75 percent by 2015. Visit www.alcoa.com.

Equipment Sales and Installations

• American Iron & Metal Co. (Pueblo, Colo.) has bought a TSH100 shredder from Metso Texas Shredder (San Antonio) to install at a 15-acre site in Belen, N.M. The 100/116 complete shredding system includes a 5,000-hp DC drive system from Quad Plus (Joliet, Ill.) and an infeed conveyor, downstream system, and controls from Metso Texas Shredder. The system, expected to go online this fall, will have the capacity to produce 250 tons an hour. Visit www.metso.com/recycling.
• Aceria del Ecuador (Quito, Ecuador) has purchased a TXC 80 SXS shredding plant from The Shredder Co. (Canutillo, Texas) that the minimill steelmaker will use to process an estimated 180,000 tons annually of locally generated scrap. The shredder, slated to be completed this September, is part of the steelmaker's efforts to increase the use of recycled material in its steel products and improve the productivity and efficiency of its steelmaking equipment. Visit www.theshredderco.com.
• Giordano's Recycling (Vineland, N.J.) has installed a GS9 baler/logger/shear from Harris (Peachtree City, Ga.) on a 5-acre site adjacent to its existing location. The recycler, which processes ferrous and nonferrous metals, high-temperature alloys, plastics, OCC, and other paper grades, already operates a Harris HRB 8 baler for scrap paper. Visit www.harrisequip.com.
• Bahrain-based United Steel Co. plans to install a Midrex direct-reduction plant with an annual production capacity of 1.5 million mt. The plant, developed by Midrex Technologies (Charlotte, N.C.), will be in the Hidd Industrial Area of Bahrain, with commissioning expected in early 2013. Midrex parent company Kobe Steel (Tokyo) will be responsible for design, equipment supply, construction, and startup of the facility, which will make direct-reduced iron. Visit www.midrex.com.

Airline Recycling Isn't Flying High, Report Says

Airlines could improve their recycling efforts significantly, according to a report from Green America's (Washington, D.C.) consumer watchdog Web site, responsibleshopper.org. The report, "What Goes Up Must Go Down: The Sorry State of Recycling in the Airline Industry," asserts that nearly 75 percent of in-flight waste is recyclable, but airlines recover only about 20 percent. Airlines could recycle nearly 500 million more pounds of material annually, including 250 million pounds of in-flight material, the report says. None of the airlines recycles all of the major recyclables—aluminum cans, glass, plastics, and paper—and none has a comprehensive program for minimizing waste from snack packages, it states. The report ranks airlines' recycling performance, with Delta Airlines (B-) and Virgin America (B-) at the top, followed by Virgin Atlantic (C), Southwest Airlines (C), Continental Airlines (D), Jet Blue (D), American Airlines (D), British Airways (D), Air Tran (D), United Airlines (F), and US Airways (F). In its 38 pages, the report reviews the variety of materials recycled, future in-flight recycling plans, size of in-flight recycling programs, education/encouragement of employees in onboard recycling programs, other in-flight sustainability initiatives, and overall rankings. Visit www.greenamericatoday.org/go/airlinerecyclingreport.

Recycler Aids Local Firefighters

New York's Newark Valley Fire District purchased an ITS Xtreme intelligent fire extinguisher training system thanks to a donation from Adam Weitsman, president of Upstate Shredding (Owego, N.Y.). The training system simulates Class A, B, and C fires and can be set at four levels of intensity that require more skill to extinguish. Trainees use a SmartExtinguisher to sweep the flame with compressed air and water to learn the proper firefighting technique. The system reportedly allows faster, more comprehensive training without the need for cleanups or the cost of recharging dry-chemical or CO2 extinguishers. This marks Weitsman's second donation to firefighters this year. In March, he gave more than $10,000 to the Village of Owego Fire Department to purchase six Globe G-Xtreme firefighting suits. In other Upstate news, the Tioga County (N.Y.) Chamber of Commerce named the company business of the year in February. Visit www.upstateshredding.com.

Research Could Improve Plastic Recycling

Scientists from IBM (Armonk, N.Y.) and Stanford University (Palo Alto, Calif.) say they have made a breakthrough that could lead to the development of new types of biodegradable, biocompatible plastics. The discovery, which involves the development of new families of organic catalysts, also could lead to a new recycling process that would significantly increase the recyclability and reuse of PET and plant-based plastics. The process would reverse the polymerization process to regenerate monomers in their original state, reducing waste and pollution significantly, the groups state. The scientists describe their research in the paper "Organocatalysis: Opportunities and Challenges for Polymer Synthesis," published in Macromolecules, the journal of the American Chemical Society (Washington, D.C.). Visit www.ibm.com/research.

Postal Service Expands Recycling Program

The U.S. Postal Service (Washington, D.C.) recycled more than 200,000 tons of paper, plastics, and other materials in 2009 through its lobby recycling program. That initiative covered about 5,629 post offices last year, with plans to expand to an additional 2,435 locations. The program encourages customers to "Read, Respond, Recycle" their post-office-box mail in secure bins in post office lobbies instead of taking the mail home to discard. To find participating post offices, go to earth911.com and enter "mail" into the search engine for a list by ZIP code.

First Environment Relocates Two Offices

First Environment has moved its New York office to 304 Park Ave., 11th Floor, New York, NY 10010 and its Mississippi office to 1020 W. 4th St., Wesson, MS 39191. Contact numbers for the offices are 212/590-2403 and 601/643-9997, respectively.

Pro Sports Get Behind Recycling

More than 60 percent of professional sports teams place a moderate or high emphasis on recycling at games and office facilities, according to a ProGreenSports (Falmouth, Mass.) survey of more than 50 teams in the National Football League, National Basketball Association, National Hockey League, and Major League Baseball. Recycling ranked as the most emphasized sustainability initiative, ahead of energy conservation, energy efficiency, green building, and other issues. About 75 percent of the teams state they measure or plan to measure recycling rates in some or all of their operations; more than 60 percent say they conduct or plan to conduct waste audits; and more than 40 percent say they are setting recycling rate goals, the survey says. ProGreenSports estimates that these four professional sports generate more than 80,000 tons of paper, plastic, and food scrap annually. Visit www.progreensports.com.

Plastic Bag Recycling Reaches New High

The United States recovered about 832.4 million pounds of postconsumer film, including plastic bags and product wraps, in 2008, marking a 28-percent increase since 2005, according to the National Post-Consumer Recycled Plastic Bags and Film Report from the American Chemistry Council (Arlington, Va.). The 2008 total grew due to the rapid spike in in-store collection programs for postconsumer plastic bags and product wraps, the report says, noting that such programs now exist in all 50 states. The recovery total most likely understates the actual quantity of bags and film recycled because there was a shift toward export markets in 2008 and export data is difficult to obtain, according to the report, conducted by Moore Recycling Associates (Sonoma, Calif.).

Seventy-nine domestic processors, end users of film material, and exporters provided data for the report. About 13 percent of plastic bags and film are recycled annually, according to 2008 figures from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (Washington, D.C.). Visit www.americanchemistry.com.

In related news, the American Chemistry Council's Progressive Bag Affiliates gave plastic bag recycling a boost in April through three partnership projects in Pennsylvania, Washington, and Florida. In Philadelphia, Temple University, Keep Philadelphia Beautiful, and the Pennsylvania Food Merchants Association launched a citywide plastic bag recycling education campaign titled "Bring It Back Philly." On the other side of the country, city and school officials in King County, Wash., joined with PBA for the "Bag Your Bags, Bring 'em Back" collection challenge at Kennydale Elementary School. In that project, students weighed plastic bags they collected, with the winning group receiving a "green" pizza party. In Florida, PBA kicked off "A Bag's Life," a public education campaign on the growing number of recycling options for plastic bags in the state. Visit www.plasticbagfacts.org.

 
Openings and Expansions

• Western Metals Recycling (Sandy, Utah), a subsidiary of The David J. Joseph Co. (Cincinnati), plans to open a scrap metal recycling plant this summer at 4560 Broadway Blvd., Albuquerque, NM 87105, on the 50-acre property of its sister company, U-Pull-&-Pay. In the first phase of its two-part development, the facility will buy common household ferrous and nonferrous scrap and employ five to 10 full-time workers. WMR will pay customers on site for the material, which it will sort and transport for processing off site. In phase two, the company plans to begin on-site processing, including installing a 4,000-hp automobile shredder, which will process end-of-life autos from UPAP. Visit www.wmrecycling.com.
• J. Solotken & Co. has moved to a 140,000-square-foot facility at 6701 English Ave., Indianapolis, IN 46219. The completely renovated facility, which underwent a $4.5 million facelift, now features energy-efficient lighting, new fire-suppression and security systems, an advanced HVAC system, and a new baler, the company says. The plant, which has two scales inside and a third scale outside, accepts material at three receiving docks, including a bulk storage area with drive-through access to ease loading and unloading. Visit www.jsolotken.com.
• Niagara Metals (Niagara Falls, N.Y.) plans to open a 10-acre feeder yard in Royalton, N.Y., about 45 minutes east of its 50-acre headquarters plant. Plans are for the new yard, slated to open this summer, to have five full-time employees. It will consolidate and transfer its scrap inventory to the company's Niagara Falls plant daily for processing, sale, and shipment. In other news, Niagara Metals—named 2010 business of the year by the Niagara USA Chamber of Commerce—plans to install a state-of-the-art, custom-engineered nonferrous metal processing line in a new building at its main processing yard. The company already has hired nonferrous specialists to buy and sell certain grades of scrap for the new operation, which could be up and running in early 2011. Visit www.niagarametals.com.
• Pratt Industries (Conyers, Ga.), the sixth-largest U.S. paper and packaging company, has opened a recycling operation in Denton, Texas. The operation, on a 6-acre site at the Denton landfill, will accept recyclables collected through the city's curbside program as well as material from commercial accounts, including manufacturers, retailers, and distribution centers. Pratt will consume the recovered paper at its Shreveport, La., mill and sell the plastic and metal recyclables to other customers. The new recycling facility, Pratt's 10th in the United States, will operate under a 20-year agreement with the city. Visit www.prattindustries.com.
• The recycling division of Smurfit-Stone Container Corp. (Creve Coeur, Mo.) has opened an office in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The office is part of Smurfit-Stone Recycling International, which represents the company's recycling business outside North America. The Rotterdam location will source European recovered paper to sell in China through the company's Shanghai office and elsewhere in Asia, Europe, and Central and South America. Visit www.smurfit-stone.com.
• The U.S. Shredder and Castings Group (Trussville, Ala.) has launched a new division to design, develop, and manufacture its shredder-related nonferrous separation systems. The division will focus on upgrading existing systems and incorporating new technologies. Visit www.usshredder.com.
• Sennebogen has opened a new 54,000-square-foot U.S. headquarters at 7669 Old Plank Road, Stanley, NC 28164. The secure, 32-acre site is close to Charlotte Douglas International Airport and offers ready access to air and truck transportation, the company says. The plant is divided into two main areas: one for warehousing replacement parts for distribution to equipment dealers and one for training dealers' and customers' employees on the operation and maintenance of Sennebogen equipment. The warehouse portion contains thousands of hydraulic and mechanical components as well as a large inventory of engines. The two-level training facility offers meeting rooms, classrooms, and an upper area overlooking a large machine bay. Visit www.sennebogen-na.com.
• Company Wrench (Carroll, Ohio) has opened two new branches. The branch at 1252 Old Kimbill Trail, Aiken, SC 29805 will serve North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia customers. The branch at 1220 Southside Drive, Cookeville, TN 38506 will serve Tennessee and Kentucky customers. Phone numbers for the new branches are 803/642-0060 and 931/526-6222, respectively. Visit www.companywrench.com.
• Redemption Recycling (Greencastle, Pa.), a new company founded by brothers Shon and Stacy Duty, Derek Paulo, and Joshua Angulo, will offer scrap-specific software and hardware products for recyclers of metals, electronics, plastics, paper, and other materials. The firm offers the SpeedSnap driver's license scanner and the Outdoor IP camera, and it planned to begin beta testing its new software solution early this year. Visit www.redemptionrecycling.com.
• CNH Parts & Service (Racine, Wis.) opened its new 246,000-square-foot parts distribution center in Portland, Ore., in late February. Among its features, the facility has the newest, most efficient handling, tracking, and shipping technology, the firm says. When fully operational, the center will have a $17 million inventory and a staff of 35 to 40 employees. The facility, which received a Leadership in Energy and Environment Design gold rating, will serve more than 140 New Holland, Case IH, and Case Construction equipment dealerships in the Pacific Northwest. Visit www.cnh.com.
• Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers (Vancouver, British Columbia) has opened a 37-acre regional auction site near Salt Lake City in the Salt Point Commerce Center at 1428 E. Hardy Road, Lake Point, UT 84074. The site, along Interstate 80 near the Salt Lake International Airport, gives the company a more permanent leased location for auctions in Utah. For the previous 25 years, the company held public auctions in the state at temporary locations. Visit www.rbauction.com.

Electronics Recycling Roundup

• Full Circle Wireless has moved its headquarters from Laguna Hills, Calif., to a larger, 14,773-square-foot facility at 8900 Research Drive, Irvine, CA 92618. The new two-story location gives the company additional office space as well as an expansive, high-security warehouse facility, where it handles wireless devices and accessories. Visit www.fullcirclewireless.com.
• Garb Oil & Power Corp. (Salt Lake City) has formed a consortium, eWaste USA, with six other companies to build 10 electronic scrap processing plants in the eastern United States. Garb Oil, which owns 51 percent of the consortium, will own, manage, and operate them, it says. The plants, slated to open over the next two years, will jointly process 300,000 mt of electronic scrap using Garb Oil's shredder technology, the firm says. Other companies in the consortium include Soil Remediation (Lowellville, Ohio), LMW Holding Co. (Lake Ridge, Va.), Odyssey Environmental (Mineral Ridge, Ohio), Robert D. Carcelli (Struthers, Ohio), Liberian Holding Corp. (Gbarnga City, Liberia), and Three C's Distributing (Lowellville, Ohio). Visit www.garbop.com.
• Earth911.com (Scottsdale, Ariz.) saw a 12 percent increase in electronics recycling searches compared with 2008, according to its 2009 annual recycling report. Visitors to the group's Web site most often searched for recycling information on computers. Also in the top 10 were batteries, televisions, paint, aluminum cans, used motor oil, compact fluorescent light bulbs, glass, fluorescent lamps, and Christmas trees. Earth911.com also reports that 40 percent of respondents to an online poll state that they consider recyclability when they purchase a product, and 35 percent say money is their biggest obstacle to adopting more green practices. Visit www.earth911.com.

LME Merging Steel Contracts

The London Metal Exchange plans to create a global steel billet futures contract by merging its Mediterranean and Far Eastern steel billet contracts. As of July 28, trading will cease in the Far Eastern contract and additional delivery locations will be available for the Mediterranean contract. Holders of Mediterranean contracts will not need to take any action, while Far Eastern contract holders will have their contracts re-created under the Mediterranean contract for the relevant location. The LME says it will integrate the delivery locations affiliated with the Far Eastern contract—Johor, Malaysia, and Incheon, South Korea—with the Mediterranean contract delivery points. Visit www.lme.com.

Awards and Honors

• Sustainable business publication Corporate Knights (Toronto) included Sims Metal Management (New York) in its list of the Global Top 100 Most Sustainable Corporations for the second consecutive year. The list identifies companies that consistently demonstrate superior leadership and performance on a range of environmental, social, and governance policies compared with their industry peers, the company says. The list also takes into account factors such as ethical and responsible decisionmaking, recognizing the interests of stakeholders, respecting the rights of shareholders, and communication with customers, investors, regulators, and policymakers. Visit www.simsmm.com.
• The Federal Metal Co. (Bedford, Ohio) has met the ANSI/ISO/ASQ Q9001:2008 standard, a designation certifying that the company's quality system for the production of secondary copper-base alloy ingot complies with the revised ISO 9001 requirements, according to NQS Registrar (Park Ridge, Ill.). The company has maintained its registration to the standard for more than five years. Visit www.federalmetal.com.

Program Collects No. 5 Plastic Products

Preserve (Waltham, Mass.) collected more than 45,000 pounds of polypropylene No. 5 plastic in the first year of its Gimme 5 program, the company says. This year, the program expects to collect three to four times that amount, thanks to additional drop-off locations at Whole Foods Market stores nationwide and anticipated higher levels of participation at existing drop-off sites. The program accepts No. 5 plastic products such as yogurt cups, take-out containers, and water filters, which Preserve recycles into toothbrushes, razors, tableware, and kitchen products. In the program, consumers bring their No. 5 recyclables to a drop-off site or mail their clean plastic directly to Preserve. Gimme 5 program partners include Tom's of Maine (Kennebunk, Maine), Stonyfield Farm (Londonderry, N.H.), Brita (Oakland, Calif.), and Whole Foods Market (Austin, Texas). Visit www.preserveproducts.com.

Misuse of Plastic Codes Could Disrupt Market, Groups Claim

The Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers (Washington, D.C.) and the National Association for PET Container Resources (Sonoma, Calif.) are concerned about the misuse of the Resin Identification Code, created by the Society of the Plastics Industry (Washington, D.C.) for all rigid plastic packaging. Their primary concern is that mislabeled material will be combined with properly labeled material, contaminating the entire bale. Some bottles, they note, have labels with undefined phrases such as "compatible with PET recycling" or are marked as "#1 PETE" when they are not made of that resin. "Misuse and mislabeling of a package is a significant problem for reclaiming that category of packaging and ultimately will cause considerable disruption in the markets for recycled plastic materials," the groups say. Visit www.plasticsrecycling.org or www.napcor.com.

New Ventures and Partnerships

• A project led by wTe Corp. (Bedford, Mass.) has received funding under the technology innovation program of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (Gaithersburg, Md.). The $11.5 million research project will develop advanced sensor technologies for recycling aerospace metals such as titanium and nickel-cobalt superalloys. Project partners wTe, National Recovery Technologies (Nashville, Tenn.), and Energy Research Co. (Staten Island, N.Y.) will develop, scale up, and integrate transformational technologies for high-speed sorting of mixed machining chips and small solids by alloy type and for real-time, molten analysis of high-temperature alloys. The project will apply proprietary advanced compositional sensor technologies that identify and automatically sort aerospace metals at ultra-high speeds as well as enhance capacity for existing melting furnaces by measuring composition in real time at high temperatures. Visit www.wte.com or www.nist.gov/tip.
• The Harsco Metals business group of Harsco Corp. (Harrisburg, Pa.) has received a $6 million environmental services contract for byproduct recycling that will expand the company's relationship with BaoSteel (Shanghai, China). Harsco Metals will implement a new zero-waste byproduct recycling service at BaoSteel's integrated carbon steelmaking facility in Ningbo, China. Harsco will install and operate a facility that will recycle byproducts from the mill's steelmaking processes and use them to produce new steel. Harsco expects to begin its new recycling ser­vices in July. In other company news, Harsco Metals and the University of Science and Technology (Beijing), a technical institute for iron and steelmaking technologies, will conduct joint research into the physical, metallurgical, and mineralogical properties of steelmaking byproducts to develop innovative market uses and enhanced economic viability for these materials. Visit www.harsco.com.
• Progress Energy (Raleigh, N.C.) has hired Appliance Recycling Centers of America (Minneapolis) to offer refrigerator and freezer recycling services to the company's residential-electric customers in North Carolina and South Carolina. Beginning in April, customers who recycle a qualifying refrigerator or freezer in the program—with a limit of two per year—will receive $50 from the utility company. Visit www.arcainc.com.
• Rockport, Mass., has joined the Fishing for Energy program, which collects used fishing gear at the port for reuse or recycling. Schnitzer Steel Industries will recover metal from the collected gear, with the remaining material going to the Covanta Energy waste-to-energy facility in Haverhill, Mass. The program is an initiative among Schnitzer, Covanta, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (Washington, D.C.), and the marine debris program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Washington, D.C.). Visit www.nfwf.org/fishingforenergy.
• Equipment manufacturer AMNI Maschinenbau (Menden, Germany) has partnered with Pacific Central Steel (Price, Utah) to form AMNI-Pacific, which will specialize in turnkey, design-to-operation facilities for recycling tires, electronics, white goods, and municipal solid waste. Pacific Central Steel brings 28 years of field construction experience to the partnership, including design, build, fabrication, and erection services. The new company, which initially will serve the United States, Canada, and Mexico, offers a full-scale mechanical and electrical engineering department, on-site construction permits for all 50 states, factory-trained technicians, a full inventory of spare parts in AMNI's eastern and western warehouses, and rebuild and machining services for cutting disks and shafts. Visit www.amni.de.
• Axion International Holdings (New Providence, N.J.) has won a $957,000 U.S. Army contract to construct two railroad bridges—measuring approximately 40 feet and 80 feet, respectively—designed from nearly 100-percent recycled plastics, according to news reports. Axion will build the bridge's main structural components at Fort Eustis, Va., from recycled consumer and industrial plastics using its proprietary immiscible blending. The firm's recycled structural composites will give the bridges a load rating capacity of 130 tons, reportedly a record for such thermoplastic structures. Visit www.axionintl.com.
• The city of Houston has added 54,000 more households to its single-stream collection system that features the RecycleBank rewards-for-recycling program, raising the total to 76,000 households. The success of the program's first phase led the city to approve this latest expansion, it says. Within four months, participating households had more than doubled the amount they recycled, the city notes. Each recycling cart in the participating areas has an identification tag the hauler scans to track recycling activity. RecycleBank converts the amount recycled into points the households can use for discounts at local and national retailers. Visit www.recyclebank.com.
• MedClean Technologies (Bethel, Conn.), which provides document destruction services, and Green Umbrella Solutions (Atlanta), which provides technology and services for HIPAA document destruction and recycling, will market their services jointly. Visit www.medcleantechnologies.com or www.greenumbrellasolutions.com.
• U.S. Rubber Reclaiming (Vicksburg, Miss.) will use Equity Partners (Easton, Md.) to find a buyer for its rubber mulch and rubber reclaiming business, which includes reclaiming butyl rubber and manufacturing rubber mulch for playgrounds, landscaping projects, and other uses. The company's management seeks to continue operations with a new owner or partner and focus on the natural rubber mulch business. Visit www.usrubberreclaiming.com.
• Nucor Corp. (Charlotte, N.C.) and Mitsui Co. (USA) (New York) have formed NuMit, a jointly owned company in which each company holds a 50-percent interest. NuMit will invest in steel and steel-related activities, starting with Steel Technologies (Louisville, Ky.). The new company will own all of the Steel Technologies assets, operations, and business that Mitsui previously held. Steel Technologies, which operates 23 sheet-processing facilities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, will continue to operate independently with its existing management team, allowing Nucor to continue its supply-chain relationships with other sheet-processing companies. Steel Technologies also will construct a greenfield flat-rolled processing center in Monterrey, Mexico, a project that Nucor previously announced. Visit www.nucor.com.
• Terex (Southaven, Miss.) is partnering with Neal Brothers (Charleston, S.C.) to improve customer service and reduce lead times for its construction products sold in North America. In February, Neal Brothers began offering logistics support and machine configuration at its facilities in the port of Charleston. The company operates two locations in the city that are dedicated to staging and dispatching Terex construction equipment. Visit www.terex.com or www.nealbrothers.com.
• The founders and former principals of JRB Co. (Akron, Ohio), which Paladin acquired in 2004, and Keith, Gary, and Jacqui Miller of Miller UK (Cramlington, England) have formed MillerBaird (Akron, Ohio). The company will provide couplers, buckets, and associated work tools for all brands of loaders and excavators in the North American market, including its Pin Grabber Advanced fully automatic coupler for hydraulic excavators. Visit www.millerbaird.com.

PepsiCo Works to Boost Beverage Container Recycling

PepsiCo (Purchase, N.Y.) wants to increase the U.S. beverage container recycling rate to 50 percent by 2018, according to a company report. The firm plans to work with other U.S. industry leaders to support programs and policies that increase recycling; develop innovative programs to boost the recycling of beverage containers among retail customers and consumers; partner with its U.S. bottlers, communities, suppliers, and governmental and nongovernmental entities on recycling efforts; help educate consumers on the environmental need to recycle; continue to ensure that its primary beverage packaging—namely aluminum, glass, and PET plastic containers—are easily recyclable in the United States; and continue to promote the use of recycled content in its beverage packaging. Pepsi­Co developed its commitment in cooperation with Walden Asset Management (Boston) and As You Sow (San Francisco). Visit www.pepsico.com.

"Pop-Up" Store Highlighted Green Products, Activities

TerraCycle (Portland, Ore.) partnered with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the Times Square Alliance, and the Fashion Center Business Improvement District to showcase its recycled products made from items such as food wrappers, yogurt cups, glue bottles, and writing instruments in honor of Earth Day's 40th anniversary. The company's Green Up Shop, a temporary "pop-up" store, was open March 27 through early May at a storefront at the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Beyond showcasing Terra­Cycle's products, the multipurpose shop collected material for "upcycling" and featured products and activities by Restore Clothing (New York), which makes clothes from recycled materials; RePlayGround (Brooklyn, N.Y.), which makes eco-gifts and do-it-yourself products to turn household waste into items such as lamps and trivets; Garbage of Eden (Astoria, N.Y.), which makes jewelry from used plastics; EcoSystems (Brooklyn, N.Y.), which makes furniture and shelving; and Abby Valentine (Brooklyn, N.Y.), which makes coffee sleeves, drink cozies, and key holders out of scrap materials. The store also hosted weekly events to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day and donated 1 percent of its sales to Riverkeeper (Tarrytown, N.Y.), which advocates for clean water in New York. Visit www.terracycle.com.

Equipment Firms Add Distributors

• LBX Co. (Lexington, Ky.) has appointed NCS Equipment (Bertrand, Neb.) its authorized dealer in central Nebraska, providing full customer and product support for LBX's Link-Belt material handlers and excavators through its six locations in the region. Visit www.lbxco.com or www.ncsequipment.info.
• Prab (Kalamazoo, Mich.) has added BHE (Ludington, Mich.) as a representative of its line of conveyors and chip and fluid management systems. Visit www.prab.com or www.bhe4me.com.
• Remorques VDS (Victoriaville, Québec) is the new exclusive distributor for Titan Trailers (Delhi, Ontario) for Québec, covering the province as far north as Rivière-du-Loup from its two locations in Montréal and Verchères. Visit www.titantrailers.com or www.remorquesvds.com.

Resources

• The World Steel Association (Brussels) has published the 2009 Steel Statistical Yearbook, which includes 2008 steel industry statistics on crude steel production by process and by product, steel trade by product, apparent steel use, and production and trade of iron ore. It's available free as a PDF download or through the association's bookshop. Visit www.worldsteel.org.
• "Who's Who in the North American Paper Recycling Industry—A Compilation of Information on the Largest Consumers and Processors" by Moore & Associates (Atlanta) encompasses two research reports that provide information on the 50 largest recovered paper processors and 20 largest consuming mills, the company says. Consumer information includes company name, headquarters, primary products made from recovered fiber, number of mills using recovered fiber, approximate volume of recovered fiber used, and the distribution of recovered fiber grades used. The information on suppliers and processors includes company name, primary business (such as material recovery facility, scrap processor, or mill), geographical operating area, number of plants, approximate volume processed, primary materials handled, and public or private ownership. The consumer report is $250; the supplier/processor report is $400; purchased together, they are $500 for both. Visit www.marecycle.com.
• The 2010 Environmental Resource Handbook from Research and Markets (Dublin) provides a range of information related to recycling and other environmental topics. The handbook lists contact information for recycling associations and groups as well as books, periodicals, and other publications on the subject. It also includes statistics and rankings, a list of abbreviations and acronyms, a glossary of terms, and much more. To order, visit www.researchandmarkets.com.
• Beaver Recycling (Hollywood, Fla.) has launched Scrap Monster, an online marketplace and information clearinghouse for scrap companies worldwide. The site provides industry news, real-time commodity prices, areas to list scrap buying and selling opportunities, a scrap company directory, and two blogs. Visit www.scrapmonster.com.

Fighting—and Recycling—for One's Life

On one side you have the multinational haulers that collect solid waste and recyclables from Cairo households, recovering 20 percent of the material and landfilling the rest. On the other side you have the Zaballeen—Arabic for "garbage people"—who collect and hand-sort Cairo's discards for a living, recovering 80 percent. The conflict between these two sectors presents a question with profound implications: Is the corporate, modern approach better than the individual, primitive approach, especially when the environmental benefits favor the latter and when the livelihood of an entire underclass is threatened?

That is the central question of Garbage Dreams, a documentary that filmmaker Mai Iskander filmed over four years in the Cairo ghetto of Mokattam, reportedly the world's largest "garbage village." The film follows three Zaballeen teenage boys—Adham, Osama, and Nabil—as they grapple with the corporate challenge to their way of life. Adham cuts the tops off beverage cans and dreams of one day opening a can-cutting factory that uses machinery, rather than hand shears, to process the material. Osama, whose father recycles plastic bottles, desperately seeks a job that both "suits" him and earns him others' respect. Nabil's illiterate father views his garbage-picking life as a dead end, so he encourages his son to pursue another career.

For most Zaballeen, a career change is unthinkable, impossible. For more than 100 years, this impoverished Coptic Christian community has collected and recycled the city's discards. An estimated 60,000 people make their living this way in Cairo, serving as living examples of the "recycle or die" ethic.

The conflict in this story stems from Cairo's decision to contract its waste management services with foreign corporations, reportedly to model itself after developed nations and distance itself from the "old-fashioned" Zaballeen garbage society. The Zaballeen respond by taking steps to modernize and teach their youth about computers, contracts, maps, and business operations. "Our only chance is to prove that we can keep up with the times," says Laila, an organizer in the waste-picking community.

Several scenes in the film illustrate that corporate and modern do not necessarily equal better. When Adham visits a corporate hauler's landfill near Cairo, he sees wasted resources everywhere. When he and Nabil earn a trip to Wales to learn about the latest recycling methods, they discover that the country recycles only 28 percent of its material, despite high-tech processes. "Here, there's technology but no precision," Adham says, watching recyclable items pass on a conveyor belt, destined for disposal.

As the corporate haulers gain broader control of Cairo's waste stream, the Zaballeen find material becoming scarcer and their lives becoming harder. Osama accepts a job at a foreign waste hauler, earning him a work uniform that, he says, reflects his true value. Adham clings to his dream of opening a can-cutting factory, asserting with resignation, "I have no choice but to endure this." Nabil, likewise, continues his Zaballeen ways, hoping for the best. They—and their entire community—dream that, one day, the Cairo government will recognize that they, not the multinationals, are "the ones with the most experience in recycling," Adham says.

Garbage Dreams aired in April as part of PBS' Independent Lens series. For more information, visit pbs.org/garbage-dreams or pbs.org/independentlens. •

The United States recovered 63.4 percent of the paper it consumed in 2009, up from 57.4 percent in 2008, according to the American Forest & Paper Association (Washington, D.C.). The 2009 rate surpasses the industry's 60 percent recovery goal three years ahead of schedule, the association says. Though the 2009 recovery rate increased, the actual U.S. paper supply decreased 12 percent last year, to 78.9 million tons, and the amount of paper recovered for recycling slipped 3.4 percent, to just over 50 million tons.