Wastefront partners with Gateway Resources for tire recycling facility - Waste Today

2022-06-04 01:48:12 By : Mr. Mark Li

Gateway will supply 10 million tires annually to Wastefront’s Sunderland, England, facility.

Wastefront AS, a waste tire recycling company based in Oslo, Norway, has announced an agreement with Dubai-based tire company Gateway Resources guaranteeing the complete supply of end-of-life tires (ELTs) for Wastefront’s Port of Sunderland plant in England.

“Our agreement with Gateway Resources is a key part of our mission, tackling the scourge of ELTs at scale and pace, whilst creating a truly circular economy in tandem,” says Vianney Valès, CEO of Wastefront. “We cannot continue with our dependency on new and scarce materials whilst continuing to burn existing materials with devastating and immediate environmental consequences. To solve the problem, Wastefront is proposing a solution that is both circular and at scale.”

Backed by energy giant Vitol, Wastefront secured planning permission in January to build the $1.26 million tire recycling plant in Sunderland, which is set to be commercially operational by 2024. Once at full capacity, the plant will manage 20 percent of the United Kingdom's total ELTs through processing 80,000 metric tons annually. Gateway Resources will supply Wastefront with about 10 million tires every year.

Additionally, this figure corresponds to a substantial volume of the total tires currently exported from the U.K. abroad yearly. Today’s announcement will play a crucial role in eliminating the U.K.’s waste tires export altogether, by creating a local solution to a global problem. Gateway Resources will work in conjunction with suppliers to supply ELTs to Wastefront.

Wastefront says the announcement also paves the way for overdue domestic progress on cement kiln burning. Though the burning of ELTs in cement kilns was a step forward for the U.K., creating crucial supply chains for ELTs, it remains one of the most polluting forms of manufacturing. This is because burning tires in cement kilns pollute the air with dangerous chemical particles, aromatics and CO2.

Wastefront says it will use commercial operating technologies to convert the ELTs received from Gateway into commodities, including biofuels and recovered carbon black. These are then reintroduced into the supply chain and utilized in processes such as alternative fuel or raw materials to produce new tires or other products. Wastefront’s recovered carbon black will result in an 80 percent reduction in total emissions by replacing virgin carbon black in tire production. The company says tire manufacturers have shown interest in purchasing this recycled material.

Following the supply agreement for the Port of Sunderland plant, Wastefront and Gateway have also signed a memorandum of understanding to work together toward implementing an additional ELT supply agreement for a potential Wastefront plant in continental Europe, which is under review.

“We have long been engaged with regulators to find a local, more sustainable solution, to replace our existing shipping routes for ELTs across the world,” says Soham Khemka, Gateway Resources director. “Wastefront is the first player to tackle the ELT problem at scale across Europe, with the significance of their plans having a massive impact on the industry. Wastefront is going head-on with the necessary evils of exporting waste, finally rendering it unnecessary and truly building a circular economy both at home and abroad.”

Michigan-based demolition company Homrich will take down former incineration plant.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan says the city’s government has made arrangements with Carelton, Michigan-based Homrich to begin demolition of an abandoned municipal solid waste (MSW) incinerator “within the next few weeks.”

The Detroit Building Authority selected Homrich following a bidding process. Per the Homrich proposal, the mayor’s office says the demolition work will generate approximately $1.3 million in revenue for the Greater Detroit Resource Recovery Authority (GDRRA) from the salvaging of metals and other marketable materials.

The demolition process is expected to start in June and to be complete “within approximately six months from the time it begins, starting with the demolition of the lower trash processing portion of the complex and culminating dramatically with the implosion of the smokestack later this year,” Duggan’s office says.

“The presence of this incinerator has been a real pain point for this community because it was another example of a health hazard being placed in a lower-income community of color,” Duggan says. “We worked hard behind the scenes to get the incinerator shut down, and now residents of this neighborhood will finally be able to say goodbye to it forever.”

Since it opened in 1989 at a cost of approximately $500 million until it closed in 2019, the incinerator drew criticism from residents living nearby, citing health concerns, odors and emissions. During the last five years of its operation, the incinerator reportedly exceeded state pollution emission standards more than 750 times, according to the mayor’s office.

“Today’s announcement and subsequent demolition of the incinerator means further relief and hopefully a source of healing for impacted residents,” City Council President Mary Sheffield says.

In 2018, the Duggan administration says it began pressuring Detroit Thermal Energy (DTE), which operated the incinerator, to make upgrades to the facility to improve its emissions. Faced with the additional cost of operating, DTE instead agreed in 2019 to cease incinerator operations.

With a demolition contract now in place, the city is arranging for DTE to cut power to the complex by the end of this week. Arrangements are being made to maintain power to the adjacent facility that soon will house the new headquarters and shelter for animal care and control expected to open later next year.

Once that power issue is resolved, Homrich will be able to obtain its demolition permit, which the mayor’s office says “is expected to occur within the following week.” Once it has the permit, “Homrich will be able to mobilize and begin work almost immediately,” the city adds.

Initial work will consist of removing metal and other marketable materials from the facility before beginning active demolition on the processing facility portion of the complex. Demolition of that portion is expected to be completed this fall and implosion of the smokestack, which will complete the demolition, is expected by the end of this year.

The city says it currently is exploring potential future uses of the incinerator property.

New features include a triple-deck Mach OCC screen with a fines screen underneath to remove the system fines early in the process.

Machinex, Plessisville, Quebec, has announced the launch of an upgraded a single-stream municipal recycling facility of West County Resource Recovery, located in Richmond, California. The project is the result of cooperation between Machinex and its client, Republic Services, Phoenix, to modernize the existing facility for additional sorting capacity.

Machinex says it was chosen for this upgrade thanks to its capacity to provide and deliver a turnkey solution that increases tonnage while having the same number of sorters.

The company says this design was specifically employed to address the challenges of the existing building while upgrading the system. Before the upgrade, a customer was running about 15 tons per hour and some older equipment was no longer working.

Machinex was asked to increase processing capability without adding to the current sorter count and to eliminate rubber disc screens. Design challenges included working with the existing infeed pit along with putting together a design that utilized the existing baler and storage bunker setup.

“We needed two ballistics to achieve the processing capacity goals set forth by the client,” says Rusty Angel, a regional sales manager for Machinex. “We utilized their existing drum feeder for the system infeed and also reused many of the existing bunkers at the front end of the system such as the presort bunkers and commodity bunkers since those were all live bottom bunkers and already in place. We did have to add one new walking floor bunker for the ferrous metals as they did not have enough bunkers to accommodate all of the recovered materials.”

Features of the facility's new system include a triple-deck Mach OCC screen with a fines screen underneath to remove the system fines early in the process. The new OCC screen features improved disc spacing and larger shafts to reduce daily cleaning. Two Mach ballistic separators were installed to handle the primary and secondary 2D/3D separation, which helps to reduce downtime and overall maintenance costs.

This upgrade required some additional automation to meet this challenge. A Mach Hyspec dual-eject optical sorter has been incorporated to remove polyethylene terephthalate and high-density polyethylene at the start of the container line. A new magnet and eddy current separator also was installed for ferrous and nonferrous recovery.

The company says the features of this system make it reliable, efficient and flexible, with a limited footprint. The new MRF will be able to process more recyclables with the capacity to sort 22 to 24 tons per hour.

Machinex worked alongside Republic to bring its expertise with creative design for retrofits. Requirements for the project were to select a partner that would be able to guide them through this major system upgrade, along with providing them a maintenance-friendly system that could increase the recovery of recyclable material.

The report covers CECO’s sustainability efforts and key milestones.

CECO Environmental Corp., based in Cincinnati, has published its environmental, social and governance (ESG) report. The report looks at the company’s sustainability impact and how it has helped its customers meet or exceed environmental regulations. Sustainability efforts from 2018 to 2020 and key milestones in 2021 are featured.

The report covers topics such as energy consumption and management, waste management and reductions and greenhouse gas emissions.

CECO’s Indianapolis manufacturing facility saw a drastic decrease in energy usage compared with three other U.S. facilities. The Indianapolis facility had an energy reduction of 132,000 kilowatt-hours, which CECO attributes to the conversion to LED lights, investing in efficient machine centers and improving manufacturing throughput.

The company’s Columbia, Tennessee, facility experienced a smaller decrease of at least 6 percent between 2018 and 2020. However, CECO’s Telford, Pennsylvania, and Greensboro, North Carolina, facilities both had increased energy usage from 2018.

Regarding office waste, the report says CECO has invested in recycling programs for papers, toners and other office supplies. In 2020, the company recycled 28,077 pounds of paper from their four U.S. manufacturing facilities. Their plan, according to the report, is to go 15 percent paperless in 2023. Water filtration systems have also been installed, diverting approximately 12,230 plastic bottles annually from landfills and the environment, according to the report.

The report also says CECO repurposes and reuses scrap metal and recycles resin, fiberglass, nylon, cardboard, wood, plastics and acetone. From 2018 to 2020, the company says it recovered and reused 11,800 pounds of acetone, recycling it at a rate of about 80 percent.

Overall, the amount of recycled material at their U.S. facilities has decreased from 521.9 tons in 2019 to 472.2 tons in 2020. The 2020 rate, though, turned out higher than the 2018 rate of 346.3 tons.

At the company’s Mefiag facility in the Netherlands, scrap propylene waste resulting from manufacturing operations is sold to a third party.

To address greenhouse gas emissions, CECO has started converting diesel trucks with compressed natural gas alternatives and replaced two company fleet vehicles at their Netherlands office with full-electric and hybrid alternatives.

For more information about CECO's efforts around ESG, click here.

The changes include extending the time it takes manufacturers and companies to adhere to new standards and amending the classification of sharps disposal containers.

The Healthcare Waste Institute (HWI) of the National Waste & Recycling Association (NWRA), Arlington, Virginia, has voiced its support for a new proposal on medical devices by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA). The proposal would amend the agency’s device quality requirements to align closer with the international consensus standard for medical device manufacturers (ISO 13485:2016).

“HWI agrees with the FDA that it will be beneficial to harmonize the current quality management system requirements,” says Darrell Smith, NWRA president and CEO Darrell Smith. “We appreciate the opportunity to comment on the proposed rule.”

However, both organizations have proposed changes to the rule. The changes include extending the time it takes for manufacturers and companies to adhere to the new standards.

HWI says it believes it will take small domestic companies longer than one year to comply with the new standards as they are unfamiliar with them. Instead, HWI recommends that the final rule should be effective two years after publication.

The organizations are also advocating for a class change on sharps disposal containers. The two say there are no regulatory standards for sharps disposal containers in the current federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. The organizations added that the standards are not included in ISO 13485 either because the European Union does not consider sharps disposal containers to be medical devices. The two organizations suggest removing any requirements that would subject sharps disposal containers to the amended Part 820 regulations.

The two say if the FDA decides to maintain sharps disposal containers as medical devices, it should reclassify them from Class II to Class I. This is because of their relatively low risk of transmitting infection.