U.S.-based maker of EcoCortec films and bags is building a nearby reprocessing plant.
United States-based Cortec Corp. has announced the expansion of its EcoCortec plant in Croatia. The company describes EcoCortec as an environmentally safe vapor corrosion inhibitor (VCI) anti-corrosion film and bags material.
The Croatian plant’s management is now investing in a new polymer processing plant to be located near the existing facility. The “new investment will incorporate all the principles of the circular economy,” Cortec says.
The new 10,600-square-foot facility, scheduled to open this November, will include new reprocessing equipment to recycle scrap into new VCI material. “This will result in minimizing the disposal of potentially useful materials and reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials as well as energy usage,” states the company.
Cortec says its planned regranulation facility “will set new standards in recycling materials that are difficult to process, such as heavily printed films and very moist material.”
The company says it also has purchased a new blown film extrusion line to produce biodegradable electrostatic dissipative (ESD) films for the electric vehicles (EV) market.
EcoCortec anticorrosion films, bags and papers are used to protect metal parts and equipment from corrosion.
Shell business unit using recycled-content polymers made by chemical recycler Nexus Fuels.
The Pennzoil brand of global petrochemical firm Shell says it is working with the Bradenton, Florida-based National Lubricant Container Recycling Coalition (NLCRC) to use recycled-content plastic in its oil and lubricants packaging.
Houston-based Shell Lubricants says it is replacing the nylon component in its Ecobox bladder bag, which it calls nonrecyclable, with EVOH (ethylene-vinyl alcohol copolymer), which it says is a recyclable material. Shell Lubricants says it also is exploring process technologies “that transform postuse plastic into useful liquids that could be used as a source of energy, as chemicals or as new products.”
Shell says it now is using a liquid feedstock made from plastic scrap in its chemical plant in Norco, Louisiana, to make “a range of chemicals that are the raw materials for everyday items.” The liquid, supplied by Atlanta-based Nexus Circular, is made from plastic scrap via a pyrolysis process.
Pennzoil and the NLCRC describe pyrolysis as “a chemical recycling process of heating plastic waste without oxygen such that it breaks down the longer chain polymers into shorter chain materials. These products can then be further processed into chemicals feedstocks or fuels.”
The industry-led NLCRC coalition was established in 2021 by lubricant and associated plastic packaging manufacturers focused on creating programs for postconsumer plastic recovery and recycling of plastic lubricant containers.
Brian Henesey of scrap firm RMR among those who update NCSL on recycling industry concerns.
The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), Washington, says it recently participated as one of eight private sector groups at an in-person meeting of the National Conference on State Legislature (NCSL) Public-Private Partnership on Recycling.
That partnership also includes state legislative members from 15 states; the Washington-based American Chemistry Council and American Beverage Association; Houston-based WM (formerly Waste Management): Memphis, Tennessee-based International Paper; and multinational companies Amazon, Google and PepsiCo.
The partnership met following NCSL’s annual Legislative Summit in Denver, which brought together nearly 5,000 state legislators and staff members. It also allowed ISRI Chair Brian Henesey, a vice president with Denver-based Rocky Mountain Recycling Inc. (RMR), to take part.
“It’s easy for me to understand the value of the ISRI speakers with expertise and knowledge in the recycling industry who were brought in by the NCSL Public-Private Partnership in Recycling at our meeting in Denver,” Sen. Elaine Bowers says. “I appreciated learning about the legislation that other states have considered, and I look forward to working with this Partnership to develop recycling best practices so we aren’t reinventing the wheel as we move forward in Kansas.”
Henesey says, “Recycling is a high-tech, highly innovative and scientific industry. Given all the continued advances, ISRI understands the importance of connecting recycling with education at all levels. ISRI is grateful to NCSL for giving us a forum to share our knowledge on the recycling industry, and how we can partner with state legislatures to meet the public education needs of tomorrow’s recyclers.”
ISRI member companies spoke on residential recycling concerns, though it was noted that residential materials are a small fraction of materials recycled daily, with the majority being industrial materials, the association says.
Speakers also discussed definitions used in laws addressing recycling, global perspectives on extended producer responsibility (EPR) involving fiber and plastics recycling, chemical and mechanical recycling, financing recycling infrastructure, public education, metals recycling operations, as well as electric vehicle battery, lithium-ion and other battery recycling concerns, according to ISRI.
Henesey adds, “ISRI is supportive of partnerships like NCSL’s Public-Private Partnership on Recycling, which provide critical opportunities for the exchange of ideas and experiences. The Recycling Partnership creates a forum to discuss best practices, which encourages sound state laws.”
Entities say $300,000 in community grants intended to upgrade recycling drop-off sites.
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and The Recycling Partnership, Washington, have announced a $300,000 grant designed to help Ohio communities improve residential recycling in the Buckeye State.
The grant will “fund community projects aimed at working to prevent recycling contamination and improving the quality of materials residents recycle at drop-off locations,” the two organizations say in a joint news release.
This program will provide up to $180,000 in community awarded grants and $120,000 to fund statewide webinars, workshops and training programs. The grants will be designed to support drop-off recycling programs via direct mail educational materials, new drop-off site signage, and digital and social media advertising designed to increase participation, capture rate and material quality.
An additional $135,000 in matching funds from other stakeholders will be available to “amplify” the program, The Recycling Partnership says.
“Ohio EPA is excited to work alongside The Recycling Partnership again as the state continues to work toward meeting its solid waste reduction and recycling goals,” Ohio EPA Director Laurie A. Stevenson says. “With Ohio communities hosting more than 1,400 recycling drop-off locations throughout the state, this contamination reduction grant initiative focuses on all communities regardless of size or demographics.”
The 2022 grant builds upon a previous collaborative project between the Ohio EPA and The Recycling Partnership that ended last year 2021, The Recycling Partnership says. That project focused on curbside recycling outreach efforts in six Ohio cities. “Results showed improved quality of recyclables collected through curbside recycling programs for approximately 155,000 Ohio households by reducing contamination ranging from 10 percent to 46 percent during the project period,” The Recycling Partnership adds.
“This collaboration combines efforts of many stakeholders including recycling processors, communities, and solid waste management districts across the recycling industry to improve material quality and resident engagement to promote long-lasting system change,” says Jill Martin, The Recycling Partnership’s director of state programs. “We remain committed to improving Ohio’s recycling capabilities with these community grants.”
Solid waste management districts and local jurisdictions in Ohio are eligible to apply for grants of up to $3 per household for the program. A request for proposal period will be open from Aug. 29 through Nov. 18 with instructions for that process found here.
The BNEF research arm of Bloomberg sees EV and alternative energy demands straining nonferrous metal supplies.
Two reports produced by the BloombergNEF (BNEF) research business unit of that global company point to nonferrous metal markets destined to be short of supply for the next decade or more.
Although mining capacity is a key focus of the report on copper and a second one on battery metals (cobalt, lithium and nickel), the forecast points to ongoing high prices for recyclers and continued investment in nonferrous metals recycling capacity.
A mid-August Bloomberg summary of the copper report starts off by stating, “The world may have to rely on new recycling technologies to prevent shortages of copper as the shift toward clean energy supercharges demand for the wiring metal.”
The report says Sung Choi and fellow analysts at BNEF are forecasting annual copper demand as being “set to expand 53 percent to 2040, mainly driven by the electrification of transport and infrastructure.”
On the supply side, the BNEF analysts say primary supply might increase just 16 percent thanks to the difficulty of expanding existing copper mines or creating new ones. Narrowing a projected shortfall of from 5 million to 14 million metric tons by 2040 mgiht be a lot to ask of recyclers.
However, access to the red metal already could be driving increased investments in copper recycling in nations with developed economies. Recycled-content copper investments underway in the United States include those by Igneo Technologies LLC in Savannah, Georgia; the Aurubis AG facility in Augusta, Georgia; a plant in Shelbyville, Kentucky, being built by the Wieland Group; and the Ames Copper recycled-content anode plant in Shelby, North Carolina.
Bloomberg quotes the BNEF analysts as writing, “Investing in technologies related to recycling, lowering costs and improving recovery rates from low-grade deposits could help bring new copper supply online to meet growing demand.”
On its website, BNEF also hosts a late July blog post titled, “Race to Net Zero: The Pressures of the Battery Boom in Five Charts.” As with copper, BNEF points to “soaring demand [that] comes up against supply constraints” for battery metals including cobalt, lithium, manganese and nickel. “Lithium, nickel and manganese could all see technical supply deficits this year."
BNEF adds, “Raw materials availability is the biggest constraint for the production of lithium carbonate and hydroxide [and] the lithium industry could struggle to meet growing demand from electric vehicles (EVs) unless new projects are ramped up quickly over the next two years."
Harvesting lithium from end-of-life lithium-ion batteries has been one of the most active investment sectors for several years. One recent investment in the sector in Kentucky entails $310 million initially, with the potential to grow to $1 billion.
The analysts also say if cobalt is a bottleneck, nickel could be eyed as a substitute material. “Cobalt use in lithium-ion batteries has evolved over the last three years as a result of the higher prices recorded in 2018 and the ethical concerns automakers have around supply from artisanal miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” says Kwasi Ampofo of BNEF. “These concerns have resulted in a shift to less cobalt-intensive battery chemistries or those without cobalt.”
That, too, would likely require recycling investments, as most nickel currently goes into stainless steel and is recycled back to stainless steel at mills around the world. Nevada-based Aqua Metals is among several companies piloting technology to make nickel sulfate from spent batteries.
While not mentioning recycling specifically in the blog post, BNEF writes, “As demand for EV batteries grows, countries are racing to become more self-sufficient and build their own domestic supply chains.”