The company says the Las Vegas facility is the first in the United States and will supply the growing demand for recycled plastics in consumer packaging.
Republic Services Inc., Phoenix, has announced plans to construct an integrated plastics recycling facility in Las Vegas. The company says it will address increasing demand from consumer brands and packaging manufacturers for recycled plastic.
"Packaged goods manufacturers have set ambitious targets to use more postconsumer content in their products, but the current supply of recycled plastics falls short,” says Republic President and CEO Jon Vander Ark.
Dubbed the First Polymer Center, the facility is expected to open in 2023. According to a news release from the company, the facility is expected to produce more than 100 million pounds annually of recycled plastic products. This includes 100 percent postconsumer polyethylene terephthalate (PET) flake delivered to the food-grade marketplace to enable bottle-to-bottle circularity.
“The facility has an inbound design capacity of 160 million pounds,” says Pete Keller, Republic’s vice president of recycling and sustainability. “However, we anticipate processing less than that during initial ramp up.”
The facility will handle material from Republic’s facilities in the West as a result of increased demand for recycled content due to new legislation in California and Washington that requires postconsumer recycled plastic to be used in new products. Both require 15 percent postconsumer recycled plastic content that will gradually increase to 50 percent by 2030.
“Republic will mainly handle material from its recycling facilities in the western part of the U.S. but the site will also have the capacity for third-party volume,” Keller adds.
Engineering work for the facility has been completed and applications for permits for the site were submitted last week, Keller says. The facility will be built on an existing structure that will be expanded and retrofitted.
Keller says the company has purchased a turnkey system from Krones, based in Germany, that includes components from multiple technology providers. The facility will be equipped with optical sorters, bale-breaking equipment, wire-tie removal and recovery machinery. It also will use wet grinding and float-sink tank to separate PET from label and cap materials.
In addition to the First Polymer Center, Republic plans to build up to three more facilities like this in regions that will enable it to provide nationwide coverage. The facilities are expected to be operational by 2025, Keller says.
The company says the centers directly support its long-term sustainability goal to increase the recovery and circularity of key materials by 40 percent by 2030 and will help customers meet their sustainability goals.
The manufacturer added a new machine building with more than 14,000 square feet of production and training space.
Harris, a division of Upland, Indiana-based Avis Industrial that manufacturers equipment for the recycling industry, has announced the expansion of its machine shop at its Cordele, Georgia, manufacturing complex.
The expansion involved the construction of a new machine building, adjacent to the current machine shop, with more than 14,000 square feet of production and training space. The expanded capacity will house CNC machining centers for turning, milling, drilling and shaping. It also will provide a central meeting and training space for the nearly 150 employees on the Cordele campus.
Harris’ Cordele manufacturing complex is a 130-year-old, 22-acre facility served by direct rail access. It encompasses facilities for fabricating, machining, cylinder manufacturing and assembly of Harris’ largest balers and shears, as well as the Harris TransPak units.
“Harris is the only supplier in the industry that manufactures their units ‘from the steel up’ and performs all of that work in the U.S.,” says company President D.J. Van Deusen. “Our renowned design and construction builds machines that operate over generations, and the hydraulics systems at the heart of our machines are what make them fast, productive and efficient.”
He adds, “We are thrilled to provide an upgraded environment for our skilled machinists, excited about the efficiency gains the new layout will provide and proud to be making this substantial investment at home in Cordele and Crisp County, Georgia.”
Harris manufactures a complete line of shears, balers and shredders for the processing of recyclables and solid waste.
The company says it has expanded to meet strong demand for recycled polypropylene and polyethylene.
EFS-plastics Inc., a plastics recycling company headquartered in Listowel, Ontario, has announced that it is opening a new processing facility in Lethbridge, Alberta, which will increase its access to the feedstock it needs to produce its recycled resins.
The 70,000-square-foot facility will increase the company’s processing capacity by 10,000 metric tons, or 20 percent, annually, EFS-plastics says.
Beginning in the first week of April, the company will accept Nos. 3-7 and Nos. 1-7 mixed rigid plastic bales from material recovery facilities (MRFs) in the western United States and Canada, tapping into the strong relationships EFS has developed with these suppliers since China implemented its National Sword Policy that limited the export of postconsumer plastics in 2018. The company will be recovering high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and polypropylene (PP) to produce postconsumer resin (PCR).
“We have been sourcing material from MRFs in the Pacific Northwest and western Canada since 2018,” Eadaoin Quinn, the company’s director of business development and procurement, says. “A facility in Lethbridge, Alberta, solidifies already strong relationships with suppliers and reduces [the] carbon footprint associated with transportation.”
“As we increase the amount of recycled resin we produce, we remain focused on keeping our carbon footprint as low as possible,” says Martin Vogt, president and CEO of EFS-plastics. “This new location allows us to cut carbon emissions associated with transportation as we extend the impact of our highly automated, mechanical recycling operations.”
While Quinn says the company will not be sourcing film for this facility initially, “we continue to look for new sources of film to supply our Ontario and Pennsylvania facility from across North America.”
The Lethbridge site will sort the mixed rigid plastic scrap using a process that is almost entirely automated using proprietary equipment, Quinn says. “However, we will make use of some manual quality control, allowing us to handle a broader spectrum of bale quality.”
The company says it sees the opportunity to recover more material from western North America that is lost to landfill or exported overseas. As interest in PCR grows, EFS says it is committed to developing domestic end markets that simplify the work of MRFs and provide customers with the high-quality postconsumer resin they seek.
Quinn adds that EFS is seeing increased demand for its PCR because of higher PE and PP pricing. “More importantly though, we are seeing new interest in PCR from brands that are looking to meet their public commitments and from manufacturers trying to stay ahead of legislative requirements that are popping up around North America.”
In addition to its Listowel facility, EFS operates a facility in Hazelton, Pennsylvania, where it also produces PP repro for injection molding applications, PE repro for injection molding and extrusion applications, low-density PE repro for extrusion applications and HDPE repro for extrusion and blow molding applications. Last summer the company vertically integrated, acquiring Exi-Plast Custom Moulding, which provides custom blow molding of plastic products and components.
The company says the four facilities are located in the United Kingdom.
New Jersey-based Covanta, a portfolio company of EQT Partners, Stockholm, Sweden, has announced that it has increased its ownership stake in four waste-to-energy facilities in the United Kingdom.
According to a news release, the company increased its ownership stake in Covanta Green U.K. Ltd., Covanta Green Jersey Assets Ltd. and Covanta Green Protos Holding Ltd., which holds ownership stakes across four waste-to-energy facilities.
The facilities are owned through EQT Infrastructure's acquisition of Green Investment Group's 50 percent stake in those entities. Covanta says the purchase price and follow-on equity requirements to finalize construction will be funded by EQT Infrastructure.
"We are delighted with EQT's support for Covanta's next phase of growth,” says Owner Michaelson, CEO and president of Covanta Europe. “The acquisition will simplify the UK operations and increase our contribution to end-of-line waste for thermal recycling.”
The company says the acquisitions will streamline Covanta's UK facilities. It’s also an opportunity to consolidate Covanta's contribution of thermal recycling to UK circular economy targets and drive for sustainable waste processing of nonrecyclable waste aligned to the waste hierarchy.
EQT Infrastructure says it will leverage its experience and demonstrated operational capabilities in the sector to accelerate Covanta's expansion in Europe towards becoming a leading sustainable provider of waste management services.
The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and approvals and is expected to close in Q2 2022. Barclays Bank, acting through its investment bank, acted as financial adviser and Kirkland & Ellis LLP acted as legal counsel to EQT Infrastructure in connection with the transaction.
The company will showcase the Mack Granite and the Mack MD series.
Mack Trucks, Greensboro, North Carolina, has announced it will showcase the Mack Granite and Mack MD Series trucks at the Work Truck Show 2022 in Indianapolis, March 8-11.
According to a news release from Mack, the vehicles are designed with durability, reliability and improve the total cost of ownership in mind. The company says the trucks cover various vocational applications ranging from Class 6 to Class 8. Both trucks will be at booth number 3523.
The Mack Granite truck features Command Steer, which combines an electric motor with the truck’s existing hydraulic steering system. Command Steer provides variable steering effort through its electric motor, utilizing multiple sensors throughout the truck at 2,000 times per second to monitor driver inputs, environmental elements and the terrain. The system applies additional torque when needed to make it easier to keep the truck on the desired route.
Command Steer also suppresses uneven terrain such as dips, ruts and potholes. The system reacts to those inputs by countering the steering force, smoothing the steering feedback. Command Steer also features a return-to-zero capability that automatically returns the steering wheel to the center position in forward and reverses, easing the navigation of tight maneuvers.
Mack Granite also includes an axle-back, dumping capabilities and a Mack MP 8-505C engineer, which provides 505 horsepower and 1,860 pounds per foot of torque.
The Mack MD Series includes Class 7 dumping capabilities and a Cummins ISB6.7 diesel engine. It also includes a Class 8-inspired dash with flat-bottomed steering wheel, Mack Air driver’s seat, cab air suspension, Meritor 12,000-pound front axle, Meritor 21,000-pound rear axle and Geotab telematics.
For more information, click here.