Top Stories

January/February 2012

Bottle Recycling Inches Upward, Report Finds
The U.S. plastic bottle recycling rate reached 28.8 percent in 2010, up 1 percentage point from the previous year, while the volume collected grew by 123 million pounds, or 5 percent, to a record of nearly 2.6 billion pounds, according to the “2010 United States National Post-Consumer Plastics Bottle Recycling Report” from the American Chemistry Council and Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers, both based in Washington, D.C. The United States has increased the volume of plastic bottles collected for recycling each year for the past 21 years, the report says.
Looking at the 2010 results by resin type, the recycling rate for polyethylene terephthalate bottles was 29.1 percent in 2010, up 1.1 percentage point, while the volume recycled grew by 113 million pounds to 1.6 billion pounds, the report says. High-density polyethylene bottles saw their recycling rate inch up 0.7 percentage point, to 29.9 percent, while the collected volume grew by 2.5 million pounds to 984 million pounds. Together, PET and HDPE bottles make up roughly 97 percent of the U.S. plastic bottle market and about 99 percent of the bottles recycled, the report says. The next-most-prevalent resin—polypropylene—has a 2.2-percent share of the plastic bottle market. In 2010, PP bottles had a recycling rate of 18.3 percent, up 4.2 percentage points, while their recycled volume grew by 8.4 million pounds to 35.4 million pounds, according to the report. Visit www.americanchemistry.com (under the “Reports and Publications” section) or www.plasticsrecycling.org.

More Recycling Means More Jobs, Report Says
Recycling 75 percent of municipal solid waste and construction and demolition debris nationwide by 2030 would create nearly 1.5 million more jobs than the United States had in 2008, reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 276 million mt, improve public health, and create strong local economies with stable employment bases, according to a Tellus Institute (Boston) report titled “More Jobs, Less Pollution: Growing the Recycling Economy in the U.S.”
Tellus created the report for the BlueGreen Alliance (Minneapolis), Service Employees International Union (Washington, D.C.), Natural Resources Defense Council (New York), International Brotherhood of Teamsters (Washington, D.C.), Recycling Works!, and Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (Berkeley, Calif.). Visit www.bluegreenalliance.org/morejobslesspollution.

Competition Recycles 3 Million Aluminum Cans
The aluminum beverage can industry collected more than 3 million cans and raised nearly $75,000 for charity through its 2011 Great American Can Roundup Industry Challenge, according to the Can Manufacturers Institute (Washington, D.C.). The industry group selected the winners based on the weight of aluminum they collected per plant employee. The Elk Grove Village, Ill., facility of Rexam Beverage Can Co. (Chicago) won first place, collecting 614,261 cans, with second and third place going to the Findlay, Ohio, and Monticello, Ind., operations of Ball Corp. (Broomfield, Colo.), which collected 723,360 cans and 249,249 cans, respectively. The contest ran for 108 days, ending on America Recycles Day (Nov. 15), and it involved 68 facilities, which worked with schools and local organizations to collect used beverage cans. Proceeds from the competition went to charitable organizations that included Food for All (Alexandria, Va.), Habitat for Humanity International (Americus, Ga.), the American Red Cross (Washington, D.C.), Boys & Girls Clubs of America (Atlanta), Boy Scouts of America (Irving, Texas), Girl Scouts of the United States of America (New York), and Toys for Tots (Triangle, Va.).
In related news, the second annual Great American Can Roundup School Challenge began Nov. 15. The competition encourages grade school students to recycle aluminum beverage cans, with winning schools selected based on the weight of cans collected per enrolled student. CMI will award $1,000 to the winning school in each state and an additional $5,000 to the national champion. The contest runs until Earth Day, April 22, 2012. Visit www.cancentral.com.

Mergers and Acquisitions
--Nyrstar (Zurich) and Sims Metal Management (New York) are selling their respective interests in the Alexandria, Australia-based secondary lead smelting facility of Australian Refined Alloys, their 50/50 joint venture company, to companies associated with Renewed Metal Technologies (Wagga Wagga, Australia), a firm that recovers renewable resources. Nyrstar and Sims will continue to operate ARA’s secondary lead smelting facility in Laverton North, Australia, which produces about 17,200 mt a year of secondary lead. Visit www.rmt.au.com, www.nyrstar.com, or www.simsmm.com.
--PSC Metals (Cleveland) has expanded its operations in Knoxville, Tenn., by acquiring the assets of Metals Solutions, a secondary aluminum producer, and Knox Recycling, which will buy material for processing at other PSC regional locations. Metals Solutions will relocate to PSC Metals’ scrap buying center at 5336 Counselor Lane in Knoxville, while Knox Recycling will remain at its current location. Visit www.pscmetals.com.
--ReCommunity Recycling (Charlotte, N.C.) has acquired recycling and material recovery facilities from Great Lakes Recycling (Roseville, Mich.) in Huron Township and Roseville, Mich., bringing the total number of ReCommunity facilities to 20 MRFs and one transfer station operating in 10 states. GLR continues to operate three facilities in Michigan and one in New York. Visit www.recommunity.com or www.go-glr.com.
--Cascades (Kingsey Falls, Québec) has purchased the remaining shares of its affiliate, Papersource Converting Mill Corp. (Granby, Québec), for about $60 million. Papersource, a tissue paper converting plant, manufactures products for the away-from-home market. According to Cascades, the plant’s technology will make it a model plant within its tissue group. Visit www.cascades.com or www.papersourcecorp.com.
--INTL FCStone (Europe) (London), the wholly owned subsidiary of INTL FCStone (New York), has acquired the metals division of MF Global UK. As part of the agreement, INTL FCStone (Europe) has received approval from the London Metal Exchange to upgrade its LME Category Two membership to an LME Category One ring-dealing membership. The MF Global UK metals division has staff based in London, New York, Hong Kong, and Sydney and serves institutional investors and financial services firms in the Americas, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region. Visit www.intlfcstone.com or www.mfglobal.com.
--KapStone Paper and Packaging Corp. (Northbrook, Ill.) has acquired some of the assets of U.S. Corrugated (Newark, N.J.), including 14 of its 20 converting facilities in the East and Midwest as well as its recycled containerboard paper mill in Cowpens, S.C., which can produce 240,000 tons a year. USC will continue to operate its plants in Lancaster and Bethesda, Ohio; Cleveland; Coal Center, Pa.; Milwaukee; and Tullahoma, Tenn. Visit www.kapstonepaper.com or www.uscorr.com.

Event Promotes Recycled Rubber
Liberty Tire Recycling (Pittsburgh) highlighted eco-friendly, sustainable civil engineering uses for recycled tire rubber at a daylong event in Salt Lake City Dec. 14. The event, Recycle Salt Lake City: 2011, gave transportation and environmental professionals, civic leaders, and policymakers information on new applications for recycled rubber, including rubber-modified asphalt. A morning session described scrap tire collection processes and offered a tour of Liberty Tire’s Beck Street facility. In the afternoon, a technical session focused on rubber-modified asphalt for civil engineering applications, with contributions from a representative of the Rubber Pavements Association (Tempe, Ariz.).
In other news, Liberty Tire subsidiary LTR Products (Pittsburgh) donated green-colored rubber mulch to the St. Bernard Catholic Preschool in Madison, Wis., after the rubber mulch on the school’s playground was stolen. The nonprofit school wasn’t sure it could afford to replace its lost mulch due to budget constraints. Visit www.libertytire.com or www.pinnaclerubbermulch.com.

Openings and Expansions
--Niagara Metals (Niagara Falls, N.Y.) has acquired the assets and business of Ben Singer & Sons, including a scrap metal recycling facility in Buffalo, N.Y., and a rail transloading yard in Lackawanna, N.Y. Lee Singer, president of Ben Singer & Sons, will join the Niagara Metals management team, and the firm’s employees will keep their positions under the new ownership. Visit www.niagarametals.com.
--Paul Green, a former executive with ISRI and one of its predecessors, the Institute of Scrap Iron and Steel, has formed Paul Green Enterprises (Montgomery Village, Md.) to provide consulting services to the scrap recycling industry. Green says he is offering “unique and creative programs to help scrap companies obtain the highest levels of efficiency, effectiveness, and profitability” using his expertise in the scrap industry and knowledge of family business issues. The company’s services include business development, strategic planning, facilitation at executive retreats, a one-day organizational checkup, and executive management and coaching. Green, ISRI’s former assistant executive director, most recently served as senior vice president of corporate relations for the Mortgage Bankers Association (Washington, D.C.). Reach him at 202/695-2867 or pgreen@paulgreenenterprises.com, or visit www.paulgreenenterprises.com.
--The U.S. Shredder and Castings Group (Trussville, Ala.) has opened an office in Monterrey, Mexico, to support its business in that country as well as its Spanish-speaking customers in other countries. Customers can reach the new office by phone, 52/81-1875-2427; fax, 866/354-2754; or e-mail, espanol@usshredder.com, for information on all of the firm’s business areas. Visit www.usshredder.com.
--Novelis Deutschland (Goettingen, Germany) and Hydro Aluminium Rolled Products (Oslo, Norway) have opened a €14 million recycling center in Neuss, Germany, at their joint venture, Aluminium Norf. The center’s twin-chamber furnace and processing plant have the capacity to recycle 50,000 mt of aluminum scrap annually to feed Alunorf’s rolling mills. The recycling operation will process aluminum manufacturing scrap from Novelis customers across Europe as well as from its own facilities. The new center is the second phase of a recycling expansion at Alunorf that began in 2009, the firms say. The combined capacity of the plant’s integrated recycling operations is 100,000 mt a year. Visit www.novelis.com or www.hydro.com.

Equipment Makers Forge New Ventures
--Pallmann Group (Zweibrücken, Germany), a manufacturer of size-reduction technology, and Gestión Medioambiental de Neumáticos (Maials, Spain), a scrap tire recycler, are working together to develop and construct turnkey tire recycling plants they will market through a new joint venture firm, Ecotrec (Barcelona, Spain). The new company will sell all modules necessary for recycling scrap tires, including shredders, granulators, separators, conveyors, and control technology. The venture initially will focus on the European and North American markets, the partners say. Visit www.pallmann.eu or www.gmn.es.
--The U.S. Shredder and Castings Group (Trussville, Ala.) has partnered with SECTA International (Belo Horizonte, Brazil) to market, engineer, manufacture, and service automobile and scrap shredders in Brazil and other parts of South America. The partnership allows U.S. Shredder to expand beyond the wear parts and aftermarket services it previously offered in the region to sell new systems and provide engineering support locally, it says. Visit www.usshredder.com or www.secta.com.

Electronics Recycling Roundup
--Several electronics recyclers have achieved certification to the R2/RIOS standard, earning them the Certified Electronics Recycler® designation. AERC Recycling Solutions (Allentown, Pa.) has now earned the designation for all of its Com-Cycle electronics processing plants, located in Hayward, Calif.; Houston; Ashland, Va.; Allentown, Pa.; and Melbourne, Fla. In November 2011, representatives of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. General Services Administration, both based in Washington, D.C., visited the company’s Allentown location to recognize it for achieving this milestone. LIFECYCLExpress, a division of CXtec (Syracuse, N.Y.), and Ecovery (Loxley, Ala.) also have become R2/RIOS certified. Visit www.com-cycle.com, www.aercrecycling.com, www.cxtec.com/lifecyclexpress, or www.ecoveryllc.com.
--Sims Recycling Solutions (West Chicago, Ill.) has opened an electronics recycling facility in Dallas that will serve residents and businesses throughout Texas. The 31,584-square-foot facility will manually dismantle end-of-life electronics, destroy hard drives, bale recovered materials, and provide asset management. Other Sims locations will process the material further. The new Dallas operation currently has seven employees, and the company says it plans to hire more as its processing volume grows. Visit www.us.simsrecycling.com.
--E-Waste Systems (London) has acquired Tech Disposal (Columbus, Ohio), an electronic scrap recycler and asset recovery specialist, which it will rename E-Waste Systems (Ohio). This acquisition marks the company’s first step toward creating a platform to manage end-of-life electronics and supports its buy-and-build approach to the industry, E-Waste Systems says. The firm plans to extend its reach and service offerings, incorporate best management practices, and invest in state-of-the-art recycling technology.
E-Waste Systems also has entered into a partnership agreement with Fine Resources, dba Resource Recycling (Daphne, Ala.), a commodity and electronics scrap trading firm, to expand its capability to source large volumes of end-of-life electronics. Rick Fine, founder and president of Fine Resources, will serve as EWSI’s executive consultant of global business development, responsible for sourcing scrap electronics and aggregate downstream volumes for refining and reuse and establishing sourcing partnerships to achieve the company’s vertical-integration goal. Visit www.ewastesystems.com.
--Covanta Energy Corp. (Morristown, N.J.), a developer and operator of waste-to-energy facilities and other renewable energy projects, has launched ECOvanta, a new business to manage end-of-life electronic products for clients throughout the Mid-Atlantic and New England regions, including New Jersey and New York. The new business, at Covanta’s 58th Street transfer station in West Philadelphia, uses manual disassembly and an automated shredding system to separate materials into commodities for recycling. It also provides secure destruction services. Visit www.covantaenergy.com or www.ecovanta.com.
--Staples (Framingham, Mass.) and Gazelle (Boston), a consumer electronics recycling service, have launched the Staples Tech Trade-In program, which allows small businesses and consumers to trade in eligible end-of-life electronics and receive a Staples eGift card for use at Staples stores nationwide. In the free program, Staples will accept used electronics in 22 product categories, including desktop and laptop computers, digital cameras, external hard drives, MP3 players, and video games. Gazelle will determine the value of each item based on its type, age, and condition and send eGift cards for items with trade-in value about seven days after receiving them, it says. The company will recycle items with no trade-in value for free. Staples says the new trade-in program will help it achieve its goal of recycling 40 million pounds of end-of-life electronics by 2020. Visit www.staples.gazelle.com.
--The Mississippi Recycling Coalition (Madison, Miss.) has recognized Advantage E-Cycling (Pearl, Miss.) with its 2011 Corporate Recycler of the Year Award, part of its Environmental Hero award program. The electronics recycler received the award for its work with the Greater Jackson [Miss.] Chamber Partnership in the past few years, during which it hosted two e-scrap collection events for businesses in the Jackson area. Each event recovered several thousand pounds of electronics, the firm says. It provided the service at no up-front cost to the chamber, charging businesses a small fee to recycle monitors and televisions and accepting other electronics free. Advantage has used this model to provide electronics collection and recycling events in other Mississippi communities, and it offered affordable e-recycling to communities affected by flooding and tornadoes in the state, the MRC says. Visit www.advantageecycling.com or www.msrecycles.org.
--TechAmerica (Washington, D.C.) has named ecoATM (San Diego) the winner in the Clean Technology category of its 2011 High Tech Awards. The organization cites the company’s use of advanced machine vision, electronic diagnostics, and artificial intelligence in its automated self-serve kiosks that buy back and recycle consumer electronics. Visit www.ecoatm.com or www.techamerica.org.
--Greenpeace International (Amsterdam) has ranked the Hewlett-Packard Co. (Palo Alto, Calif.) first in its new “Guide to Greener Electronics,” which ranks 15 companies on their performance in energy use, greener products, and sustainable operations. The group set the bar higher in its evaluations, such as by expecting companies to use a greater proportion of renewable energy and create a smaller carbon footprint in products’ life cycle, from manufacturing to supply-chain operations to end of life. Dell (Round Rock, Texas) moved from 10th place in 2010 to second in 2011. Nokia Corp. (Espoo, Finland), which held first place in the past three annual guides, slipped to third place due mainly to its weaker performance on energy criteria, Greenpeace says. Visit www.greenpeace.org, www.hp.com, www.dell.com, or www.nokia.com.
--Sony Electronics (San Diego) has launched a website to help consumers locate recycling centers where they can trade in or recycle eligible electronic products, both Sony and other brands, free while receiving credit toward new Sony products. For customers who live more than 25 miles from a drop-off center, Sony offers free shipping and recycling of eligible Sony products that weigh less than 25 pounds. Visit www.sony.com/ecotrade.
--Maine has approved Metech Recycling (Worcester, Mass.) as an “E-Waste Consolidator” for municipalities and manufacturers in accordance with the state’s electronics recycling law. The 2004 law established shared responsibility among municipalities, consolidators, recyclers, manufacturers, and Maine’s Department of Environmental Protection (Augusta, Maine) for recycling end-of-life electronics from households in the state. Maine approves recyclers based on their technical ability, financial capacity, and competitive costs.
In other news, Metech expanded its work force at its facilities in Salt Lake City; Omaha, Neb.; Gilroy, Calif.; Creedmoor, N.C.; and Denver in the last quarter of 2011. In 2010, Metech increased its work force 10.5 percent, and it expects its employee roster to end 2011 more than 12 percent higher, it says. Visit www.maine.gov/dep or www.metechrecycling.com.
--Electronics recycler AER Worldwide (Fremont, Calif.) has installed a 234-kW solar energy-generation system from Vista Solar (Santa Clara, Calif.). The roof-mounted system, which features 1,027 SunPower 228W modules and a 225-kW SatCon inverter, will generate about 361,819 kilowatt hours of electricity a year, allowing AER to offset more than 99 percent of its annual electricity expenses, or about $80,000, the company says. Visit www.aerworldwide.com or www.vista-solar.com.
--The Surplus Exchange (Kansas City, Mo.) and the Georgetown, Ky., facility of Global Environmental Services have met the e-Stewards Standard for Responsible Recycling and Reuse of Electronic Equipment, a program of the Basel Action Network (Seattle). In addition, WM Recycle America has met the e-Stewards standard at its seven eCycling Services facilities in North America, located in Mira Loma, Calif.; Denver; Milwaukee; Minneapolis; Round Rock, Texas; Springfield, Mass.; and Tigard, Ore. Cincinnati-based 2trg announced it has met the R2, e-Stewards, ISO 14001:2004, and OHSAS 18001:2007 standards. Visit www.surplusexchange.org, www.gesrecycles.com, www.recycleamerica.com, or www.2trg.com.

New Organizations Aim to Support Recycling
--Eleven companies and organizations have launched The Resource Association (Otley, England), a trade association that will “bring a unified voice” to recyclers and reprocessors and promote their interests to governments across the UK, the European Commission, other trade associations, and stakeholders with shared interests. The group’s objectives include promoting the reprocessing and recycling industries’ contribution to carbon reduction, employment, and economic development; encouraging the reprocessing industry to focus on quality and recovery of the value of secondary materials; promoting resource integrity and closed-loop systems; working with local authorities and their service providers toward better, more sustainable recycling services to provide quality feedstock to manufacturers; communicating the industry’s value; and reconnecting people to the materials they use and how those materials are used in the production of other products. As the association develops, it plans to play a role in the development of quality standards for materials and procedures; to commission research on the relationship between carbon dioxide emissions and material reprocessing; to support outside research and policy programs; to support local economic development through reprocessing and recycling; and to recognize “quality materials management as a professional occupation.” Ray Georgeson, former director of the Waste & Resources Action Programme (Banbury, England), will serve as chief executive. Founding directors include Andy Doran of Novelis Recycling (Warrington, England), Eric Randall of Bryson Recycling (Belfast, Northern Ireland), and Chris White of Plastics Sorting (Pontllanfraith, Wales). Membership is open to all processors of recovered materials. Founding companies include Alloa Community Enterprises (Alloa, Scotland), Aylesford Newsprint (Aylesford, England), Bryson Recycling, Coca-Cola Enterprises (Atlanta), Huhtamaki (UK) (Gosport, England), Kent Waste Partnership (Aylesford, England), May Gurney (Trowse, England), Novelis Recycling, Plastics Sorting, Smurfit Kappa Recycling (Dublin), and Somerset Waste Partnership (Taunton, England). Visit www.resourceassociation.com.
--Eleven organizations have joined together to establish the Paper Recovery Alliance, which aims to find solutions for recovering and processing paper foodservice packaging. The alliance plans to develop collection infrastructure, expand end-use markets for recovered fiber, educate consumers to increase recovery, and collaborate with government officials. It will set up pilot projects that include all stakeholders to understand and overcome recovery challenges, it says. The founding members are Eco-Products (Boulder, Colo.), Georgia-Pacific Consumer Products (Atlanta), HAVI Global Solutions (Chicago), International Paper (Memphis, Tenn.), MeadWestvaco Corp. (Richmond, Va.), Pactiv Foodservice/Food Packaging (Lake Forest, Ill.), RockTenn (Recycling and Waste Solutions) (Norcross, Ga.), Solo Cup Co. (Lake Forest, Ill.), Starbucks Coffee Co. (Seattle), Tim Hortons (Oakville, Ontario), and YUM! Brands (Louisville, Ky.). The alliance seeks additional members, such as paper recycling mills, fiber raw material suppliers, manufacturers of foodservice packaging products, retailers, foodservice operators, waste haulers, materials recovery facilities, composters, and waste-to-energy facilities. The new group plans to collaborate with other associations, nongovernmental organizations, colleges and universities, and government officials on paper and packaging recovery issues, it says. PRA is a member-funded project within the Foodservice Packaging Institute (Falls Church, Va.). Visit www.fpi.org.

Awards and Milestones
--The Greater Hazleton [Pa.] Chamber of Commerce has named Brenner Recycling (Hazleton, Pa.) Small Business of the Year for 2011. The award recognizes the company for its outstanding achievements as a small business in the greater Hazleton area, especially in the areas of “staying power, growth, community contributions, and overall management philosophy,” the firm says. Visit www.hazletonchamber.org or www.brennerrecycling.com.
--The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Washington, D.C.) has accepted Main Recycling Co. (Jacksonville, Fla.) in its Safety & Health Achievement Recognition Program, which recognizes small employers that operate “an exemplary safety and health management system.” According to OSHA, the SHARP designation is an “achievement of status” that distinguishes companies as models for worksite safety and health. OSHA exempts SHARP-designated workplaces from its programmed inspections as long as their SHARP certification is valid. Visit www.osha.gov/dcsp/smallbusiness/sharp.html or www.mainrecycling.com.
--Tube City IMS Corp. (Glassport, Pa.) facilities received a total of 46 safety awards for 2010 from the National Slag Association (Pleasant Grove, Utah). The awards recognize superior performance as measured against Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Washington, D.C.) recordable injury rates. The company’s operation in Jewett, Texas, received the award for Most Improved Job Sites for Safety. Sites that received awards for operating at least 200,000 hours since their last recordable accident were in Gary, Ind.; Middletown, Ohio; Beaumont, Texas; Monterrey, Mexico; Puebla, Mexico; and Trinidad. Thirty-seven of the company’s sites in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Trinidad received an award for lowest incident rate for employees. Tube City’s Jewett facility also received the 2011 Global Slag Environmental Award from PRo Publications International (Surrey, England) for implementing an environmentally friendly plan to control slag-processing emissions and conserve water during the driest 12-month period Texas has seen since 1895, when the state began recording rainfall data. Visit www.tubecityims.com, www.nationalslag.org, or www.propubs.com.
--Grow-California (Chico, Calif.) named MBA Polymers (Richmond, Calif.) a California Clean Technology Game Changer for 2011. The firm earned the designation in the Innovation in Environmental Recycling category for its leadership, innovation, and impact on the state’s clean technology industry and economy. Visit www.grow-california.com or www.mbapolymers.com.
--Indiana’s Department of Environmental Management (Indianapolis) has re-admitted the Indianapolis operation of Pull-A-Part (Atlanta) into the Indiana Clean Yard program at the highest Gold Level status. Auto salvage yards contact the department for an environmental self-evaluation checklist and correct problems they identify through the checklist to become eligible for the award. Facilities that meet additional requirements achieve Gold Level status, which signifies they have gone beyond regulatory requirements to demonstrate concern for the community and a commitment to protect the environment. Visit www.idem.in.gov/4993.htm or www.pullapart.com.
--Reynolds Recycling (Honolulu) honored the Battleship Missouri Memorial (Aiea, Hawaii) with its Green Leaders Award for its beverage container recycling program, which reportedly has diverted more than 13 tons of recyclable material from landfills since 2006. Reynolds Recycling launched the Green Leaders Award program in 2009 to recognize businesses, groups, or individuals in Hawaii that protect and preserve natural resources through recycling. Visit www.reynoldsrecycling.com or www.ussmissouri.com.
--Electric Guard Dog (Columbia, S.C.) made Inc. (New York) magazine’s 2011 500/5000 list of America’s Fastest Growing Private Companies. The company, which ranked 3,144 in the top 5,000 list, grew 63 percent in the past three years and posted revenue of $15.8 million in 2010, according to the Inc. report. The 55-employee firm says its staff has grown 56 percent since 2007, prompting it to move its offices to 121 Executive Center Drive, Suite 230, Columbia, SC 29210. Visit www.inc.com or www.electricguarddog.com.
--Hyster Co. (Greenville, N.C.) lift trucks ranked No. 1 in the United States for lowest total cost of ownership, according to a survey that Peerless Media Research (Framingham, Mass.) conducted in July 2011. The group surveyed subscribers of its Modern Materials Handling magazine who purchase lift trucks for their companies. Visit www.peerless-media.com or www.hyster.com.

Companies Adopt New Names
--Joseph Behr & Sons (Rockford, Ill.) has renamed its locations throughout Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota Behr Iron & Metal to develop a consistent identity companywide and recognize the company’s growth through market expansion and acquisition, the firm says. Visit www.jbehr.com or www.behrim.com.
--AbitibiBowater (Montréal) has changed its name to Resolute Forest Products to better reflect the company’s “fundamental characteristics,” it says. In April 2011, the firm invited employees to suggest a new name, with an internal selection committee and the firm’s executive team selecting the winning name from about 1,400 submissions. In French, the company will translate the new name as Produits forestiers Resolu. Visit www.resolutefp.com.

Equipment Sales and Installations
--ScrapRight Software (Waynesboro, Pa.) donated one of its turnkey solution packages, including software, hardware, and lifetime support, to AWARE Recycling (San Diego) to help the nonprofit in its efforts to support other nonprofits through recycling. Visit www.scrapright.com or www.awarerecycling.com.
--The technology committees of the Association for Iron & Steel Technology (Warrendale, Pa.) have hired the metals and advanced manufacturing division of Management Science Associates (Pittsburgh) to design and implement a Web-based platform and service that will allow steelmakers to benchmark operational performance metrics. With the AIST Process Benchmarker, users will be able to generate a variety of reports and comparisons in a secure, confidential way, MSA says, giving them performance benchmarks to improve technical processes and enhance corporate competitiveness and increasing steel producer networking. Visit www.msa.com or www.aist.org.

Manufacturers Appoint New Distributors
--Sargents Equipment & Repair Service (Chicago Heights, Ill.) has become an authorized dealer for Link-Belt Construction Equipment Co. (Lexington, Ky.) material handlers, featuring its new line of rubber-tired machines. Sargents will serve Illinois and parts of Wisconsin, Indiana, and Missouri. Visit www.sargentsequipment.com or www.linkbelt.com.
--Aspen Equipment (Minneapolis) will represent the knuckle-boom cranes of Palfinger North America (Niagara Falls, Ontario) in Iowa and Nebraska, working from its facilities in Des Moines, Iowa, and Omaha, Neb. Visit www.palfinger-northamerica.com or www.aspenequipment.com.
 
E-Crane holds open house
E-Crane International USA (Galion, Ohio) opened its doors Oct. 20-21 to show appreciation to its staff, friends, families, and others. More than 200 people attended the open house, which featured a tour of the company’s facility, a banquet, and opportunities to see a 700 Series E-Crane in action. The firm held a scrap-handling demonstration every half hour and gave attendees the opportunity to board the E-Crane to see it working from the operator’s perspective. Visit www.ecrane-usa.com.

Resources
--ScrapMonster.com (Montréal) now provides average scrap metal prices paid over the scale at scrapyards throughout the United States and Canada inside the administrative area of the iScrap App, giving iScrap App’s scrapyard members a new price reference. Visit www.iscrapapp.com or www.scrapmonster.com.
--A new widget version of the U.S. EPA’s iWARM application calculates how much energy individuals or households save by recycling a specific amount of common household products, such as aluminum cans, glass and plastic bottles, and plastic grocery bags. The widget shows how long the saved energy could operate a variety of household appliances, such as an air conditioner, hair dryer, or laptop computer. The application bases its energy calculations on the Waste Reduction Model, which the EPA created to help solid waste planners and organizations track greenhouse gas emission reductions from several different waste management practices. Companies can add the widget to their website or blog, and widget users can share their results via Facebook or Twitter. Visit www.epa.gov/widgets or www.epa.gov/iwarm.
--Tungsten: Market Outlook to 2016 from Roskill Information Services (London) provides a detailed review of the tungsten industry, analyzing the metal’s consumption, trade, and prices and describing the activities of the leading tungsten-producing companies. Visit www.roskill.com/tungsten.
--The “Global E-Waste Management Market (2011-2016)” research report from Research and Markets (Dublin) covers trends in the electronic scrap market, the gap between the volume of e-scrap that’s generated and the amount being recycled, and the amount of e-scrap that’s expected to be recycled in the next five years. The report categorizes the global e-recycling market based on the materials used in electronic products and sources that generate e-scrap, and it provides geographical analysis, revenue forecasting, and trend analysis for the e-scrap management market. The report provides market data, market drivers, trends and opportunities, key players, company profiles, and the competitive outlook for individual countries as well as larger geographic regions. Visit www.researchandmarkets.com.
--Waste Management (Houston) has launched an online diversion and recycling tracking tool to help construction project planners, contractors, architects, and building owners measure their green performance during construction, renovation, and demolition projects. Users of the DART service can monitor C&D recycling, tabulate total diversion rates, and provide documentation to support their application for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification. The DART tool also can help companies set benchmarks for their projects, Waste Management says. Visit www.wm.com/dart.
--Strategic Scrap Corp. (Cedar Falls, Iowa) has launched StrategicScrap.com 2.0, a website with new original editorial content, product reviews, and a weekly news wrap-up, with the goal of creating a community for the scrap metal industry, the company says. The site has LME and Comex market data feeds, regional ferrous pricing, and a searchable directory of mills, foundries, brokers, and exporters as well as an integrated network of logistics companies. It also has a classifieds section for job postings and buying and selling ferrous and nonferrous metals and equipment. Visit www.strategicscrap.com.
--The American Chemistry Council (Washington, D.C.) has introduced the Bin It! application that encourages greater plastics recycling through a “fun and addictive” game. The app, available for iPhone, iPod, and iPad devices through the iTunes App Store, challenges players to toss plastic bottles into various recycling bins while avoiding “distracting animals, flashing cameras, and tricky breezes.” The game then converts the player’s successful tosses into the number of T-shirts, sweaters, and sleeping bags that could be made from the recycled plastics.
ACC also has launched a new website to serve as a user-friendly gateway for resources on plastics recycling and to encourage more collection and recycling of plastics across the United States. The council designed the site primarily for community recycling coordinators, solid waste officials, and other professionals tasked with helping communities recycle plastics. The site organizes online plastic recycling resources into searchable categories that include consumer education programs, sortation technologies, containers, and bags and film. It provides tips and tools, best practices, and access to experts and peers with information on recycling plastic bottles, rigid containers, film, foodservice products, and other plastics. Recycling professionals can contribute to the site by providing case studies, success stories, news, and other information. Visit www.recycleyourplastics.org or www.plasticsmakeitpossible.com/recycle.

A “Green” Soundtrack
If the green movement ever needs a soundtrack, it might consider Nat Res + Mo Na + Man, the latest CD from Donald Knaack, aka The Junkman. The CD’s title—an abbreviation for Natural Resources + Mother Nature + Man—signals its “eco-beat” focus and its goal, which is to provide “an audio snapshot of planet Earth today.” The 36-minute disc features 12 tracks performed using traditional instruments and recycled materials that reportedly create 250 “never-heard-before” percussion sounds. The songs examine environmental topics such as water, soil, air, climate change, consumption, and waste. Recycling figures prominently in several songs. In “Introduction and State of the Earth,” for instance, one verse observes, “Much of what we throw away can be used again.” The song “Change” encourages listeners to embrace zero waste, think before throwing items away, and reduce, reuse, and recycle. In “Ride the Wave,” Knaack invites everyone to “ride the green wave,” asserting that taking small steps toward greener living can translate to huge steps for the planet. Nat Res + Mo Na + Man is available for $10 from www.junkmusic.org.

A Front Seat for Plastic Recycling
Recycled plastic proved it doesn’t take a back seat to any other material in a recent collaboration between Emeco (Hanover, Pa.) and The Coca-Cola Co. (Atlanta). The two companies joined forces in 2006 to create a recycled plastic version of Emeco’s classic aluminum Navy Chair, created for the U.S. Navy in 1944. The new 111 Navy Chair has the same design as Emeco’s original model, but each chair is made from 111 recycled plastic bottles. The chair, which the companies say is the first structural product made from recycled PET, is
65 percent recycled plastic and 35 percent glass fiber and pigment.
Coca-Cola processes the PET bottles used in the chairs at its recycling plant in Spartanburg, S.C. The material then goes to Tennessee, where BASF (Florham Park, N.J.) prepares the proprietary plastic/glass fiber/pigment mix, which then goes to North Carolina for molding. Emeco began its engineering and tooling design work for the project in 2008, molding the first prototypes of the recycled plastic chair in April 2010. It developed a four-part molding tool to replicate the square sections of the original chair, with each chair taking about three minutes to mold, the company says. In its first year of production, the 111 Navy Chair diverted 3.5 million bottles from landfills, the companies say.
The chairs, which come in six colors, pass structural tests for commercial use and are expected to last more than 30 years, Emeco says. In 2010, the 111 Navy Chair won the Good Design Award and the IF International Design Forum Product Design Award and was an Interior Design magazine Best of the Year 2010 finalist. Visit www.emecowithcoke.com, www.thecoca-colacompany.com, www.emeco.net, or www.basf.com.

Videos Use Humor to Promote Recycling
Though recycling isn’t a laughing matter, the first America Recycles Day video contest wanted entrants to use humor in funny, short videos that portray recycling positively. Keep America Beautiful (Stamford, Conn.), which hosted the contest, received 80 videos that featured everything from recycling superheroes to talking bottles and cans. The submissions used rap songs, skits, one-liners, animations, and more to convey the theme, “Recycling Is No Joke.” The judging committee chose 10 finalists based on their creativity and use of the theme, and KAB posted those videos on YouTube to allow the public to select the winner. First place and $1,000 went to Ryan Francis, a student at The Masters College (Santa Clarita, Calif.), for his rap mix, which used recyclables to create percussive background music. Visit www.kab.org or www.youtube.com/americarecyclesday.

Saving Lives With End-of-Life Cars
Scrap cars potentially helped save human lives in a cooperative project between SA Recycling (Anaheim, Calif.) and firefighters in Orange County, Calif. End-of-life cars SA Recycling purchased through its 1-800-Got-Scrap program from Nov. 1 to Nov. 22, 2011, first went to Anaheim’s North Net fire training facility, where firefighters used them to practice rescue techniques such as removing people from vehicles using Jaws of Life hand-operated shears. After the training sessions, SA Recycling shredded and recycled the cars. According to news reports, the firefighters say the program helped them by providing vehicles similar to ones they might come across when responding to actual incidents. In all, the project used 157 vehicles for training purposes. SA Recycling also donated $50 to the North Net training facility for each vehicle. Visit www.sarecycling.com.

Turning E-Scrap Into Art
Electronic scrap has not only recycling value but also artistic value in a new collaborative project among Los Angeles-based artist Anna Sew Hoy, GreenMouse Recycling, and the Bay Area Glass Institute, both based in San Jose. Sew Hoy has designed a collection of sculptural works titled “Nothing All Day,” incorporating custom-blown glass vessels from BAGI artists and end-of-life electronics such as computer keyboards, mice, and digital subscriber line cords from GreenMouse Recycling. The sculptures are in the San Jose Museum of Art’s experimental exhibition gallery, “Beta Space,” through Feb. 26. Visit www.greenmouse.com, www.bagi.org, or www.sjmusart.org.