Newsworthy

Metals

Audubon Metals to commercialize university-developed technology

Audubon Metals and The Ohio State University have entered into a licensing agreement intended to advance the commercialization of technology that has the potential to increase the use of recycled aluminum alloys.

Audubon Metals, with locations in Henderson, Kentucky, and Corsicana, Texas, is owned by an affiliate of Koch Enterprises Inc. of Evansville, Indiana. The company operates heavy media plants and produces secondary aluminum alloys. It processes zorba, which primarily is aluminum scrap produced by shredding end-of-life automobiles, to produce secondary aluminum alloys that are delivered to domestic and international die casters.

Led by Alan Luo, professor of materials science and engineering and integrated systems engineering, a research team that includes graduate students and postdoctoral researchers has developed a way to produce secondary aluminum alloys for use in structural die-casting applications.

According to a news release from Ohio State, located in Columbus, Ohio, the automotive industry uses primary aluminum produced from mining and smelting for structural applications because secondary aluminum alloys can include contaminants such as iron that can result in inferior mechanical properties. But secondary aluminum alloys are up to 50 percent less expensive to produce and use a fraction of the energy compared with mined aluminum.

Ohio State says its technology neutralizes iron contamination common in typical aluminum scrap, enabling the alloys produced from the material to exhibit mechanical properties such as those of primary alloys used in die casting, a high-pressure manufacturing process that forces molten metal into a mold to produce large thin-wall components.

“This technology that we developed will have a positive impact on the manufacturing industry and our environment, so we call it a green alloy,” Luo says. “It is exciting to see the technology we developed in the lab go to the marketplace.”

“In partnership with Ohio State, we will create new recycled aluminum alloys for lightweight part applications while we also promote sustainability,” Audubon Metals President and CEO Brian Hawkes says. “We have a lot of new opportunities to use this new die-cast equipment, and we are excited to be working with such impressive associates at Ohio State.”

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Reducing EMbodied-Energy And Decreasing Emissions (REMADE) Institute has funded much of the research that resulted in the technology.

Ohio State is an academic member of the West Henrietta, New York-based REMADE Institute, and Luo serves on its Technical Leadership Committee as deputy node leader of manufacturing materials optimization, while Audubon Metals is an industry member of REMADE.

“This is a great accomplishment,” says Nabil Nasr, CEO of REMADE. “We believe the technology that’s been developed, which is capable of reducing energy consumption by 13.1 [petajoule] per year, will accelerate the nation’s transition to a circular economy and, more specifically, will be incredibly valuable to the U.S. automotive industry as it transitions to electric vehicles over the next few years.”

Metals, Legislation & Regulations

Chicago judge reverses Southside Recycling permit denial

On June 1, Chicago Administrative Law Judge Mitchell Ex reversed the decision to deny Southside Recycling a large recycling facility (LRF) permit, determining it met the rules and requirements to obtain the permit based on evidence presented during a hearing.

The city of Chicago denied the LRF permit in February 2022, preventing Southside Recycling from operating its newly constructed facility on the southeast side of the city. Southside Recycling parent company, Reserve Management Group of Stow, Ohio, designed the yard to serve as an advanced auto shredding facility, featuring a European-style shredder enclosure to better contain noise and emissions.

“As of March 2021, Southside Recycling had met the LRF requirements for an operating permit,” Ex says. “Pursuant to Chicago Department of Public Health guidelines, [it] should have been issued a permit or a denial notice within 60 days. Instead, at the direction of [then] Mayor [Lori] Lightfoot, the Chicago Department of Public Health, acting without City Council legislative authority, paused the permit application process and initiated a health impact assessment, which itself lacked authorization from the Council. As a result of the [health impact assessment], additional concerns were raised and included in the denial letter. For the most part, these additional concerns had never been raised before, although the Chicago Department of Public Health was aware of, or should have been aware of, the items prior to February 2022.

“The denial letter is predicated on all of the items contained in the letter—the findings of the [health impact assessment], the allegations concerning the four affiliated companies and the concerns of lack of transparency and responsiveness during the application process. As noted, some raise legal issues, others involve factual determinations. It is not possible to separate out any one item from another to determine how much weight the commissioner gave to any individual item(s).”

The city had until July 5 to appeal the order, and Mayor Brandon Johnson said he planned to do so, according to local reports. As of press time, the appeal had not been filed.

Southside Recycling still must obtain an LRF permit to begin operations as the ruling did not require the city to provide one.

The company tells Recycling Today the ruling is “a welcome victory after years of unforeseen obstacles and delays.”

Municipal

Study shows hidden costs of axing curbside programs

A recently completed analysis of curbside recycling in the United States concludes that the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions-reduction benefit from recycling compares well or better than other citizen sustainability-based actions, including government use of electric vehicles and some “green power” purchases.

That is the finding of two university researchers based in Florida who had their study published by the United Kingdom-based academic journal Nature. The report, released May 22, is titled “The hidden economic and environmental costs of eliminating kerb-side recycling.”

The report’s co-authors are Malak Anshassi of Florida Polytechnic University and Timothy G. Townsend of the University of Florida. The pair previously participated in research for the construction and demolition materials recycling industry.

In their look at curbside recycling, Anshassi and Townsend write, “Many U.S. communities are shrinking or eliminating [curbside] recycling,” noting that collection costs are the primary driver.

The pair says their dive into statistics found that when recycling commodity markets were most lucrative in 2011, net U.S. recycling costs were as low as $3 per household annually, and when markets reached a minimum value (from 2018 to 2020), the annual recycling program costs ranged from $34 to $42 per household.

Anshassi and Townsend say the investment offsets the GHG emissions from nonrecycled household waste buried in landfills.

The pair estimates the collected, recycled, landfilled and combusted mass flows of 19 products (four paper products, three plastic products, two metal products, glass, food waste, yard trash and seven other products) in the municipal solid waste and recycling stream as part of their research. They then set up different models based on which materials were collected separately for recycling.

The full version of the report can be found here.

Municipal

The Recycling Partnership launches new labeling platform

The Recycling Partnership (TRP), Washington, has launched a new package-specific labeling platform called Recycle Check to provide up-to-date recycling information directly to U.S. consumers.

Recycle Check prompts consumers to enter a zip code or allow location permissions and receive a yes or no answer about whether to recycle a specific item in that area. TRP says the platform also enables consumer brands to navigate the “complex recycling landscape” and reduce label changes as well as leverage existing labeling systems.

The platform is powered by TRP’s national recycling database that centralizes recycling access data from more than 9,000 U.S. community programs covering 97 percent of the population. The organization says that by connecting local information with brand- and package-specific details, Recycle Check allows a new level of communication that evolves with the changing recycling landscape, either on a company’s website, app or as a QR code on a physical packaging label.

The platform covers all residential recyclables, including paper, plastics, metal and glass.

“Eight in 10 people believe in recycling’s positive impact, yet two-thirds of household recyclables are wasted each year,” TRP Chief Innovation Officer Sarah Dearman says, adding that the fragmented U.S. recycling system creates high variability in what is collected and recycled locally.

Recycle Check was designed to complement existing labeling systems, and TRP is collaborating with environmental nonprofit GreenBlue of Charlottesville, Virginia, and others to pilot use of the How2Recycle label and the Recycle Check QR code together on product packaging.

TRP also says it is working closely with the Consumer Brands Association, Arlington, Virginia, to offer Recycle Check through its SmartLabel program.

“The Recycling Partnership is the recognized leader in the recycling database space, and Recycle Check is an elegant solution for GreenBlue’s How2Recycle [label] and the partnership to collaborate simply and with greater connectivity,” GreenBlue Executive Director Paul Nowak says.

Metals

USGS finds copper not critical

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has sent letters to members of Congress indicating it does not intend to add copper to its critical minerals list.

Among the legislators contacted was Rep. Robert Latta of Ohio, who received a letter from the USGS dated May 1. In that letter, USGS Director David Applegate writes that the agency’s latest statistics indicate imports of refined copper decreased in 2022 even as domestic copper consumption increased.

He does note, however, that net import reliance for refined copper increased from 2018 to 2021.

Applegate portrays an American copper sector that maintains some level of domestic capacity while relying on long-term allied and trading partners for most of its imported red metal.

The USGS estimates 1.3 million tons of recoverable copper were mined last year, led by Arizona. Applegate says the U.S. has multiple domestic options for downstream smelting and refining of that ore to convert it to copper.

“The U.S. has 25 operating copper mines, two smelters, two electrolytic refineries and 14 electrowinning facilities,” he says, though he does not clarify to what extent any of those facilities are scrap-fed secondary plants or whether he is including recycled-content facilities being constructed.

Regarding imported red metal, Applegate says an observation from the Copper Development Association (CDA), McLean, Virginia, that more than half of the global supply of refined copper is produced in China, Russia, North Korea and Iran, “while factually correct, is not directly relevant to the copper supply of the United States.”

According to USGS statistics, imports of refined copper to the U.S. are not dependent on any of the countries cited. “American imports of refined copper come predominantly from Chile, Canada and Mexico, reliable trade partners with whom the U.S. has free trade agreements,” Applegate writes.

The effort to have copper added to the USGS critical minerals list has come from several corners, with the CDA having conducted its own analysis to demonstrate the need for the action.

Metals

LME looks into additional measures for transparency

The London Metal Exchange (that along with LME Clear are known as the LME Group) has launched two market consultations examining how to offer additional pricing and inventory transparency measures.

“The proposals are designed to bring greater visibility of unwarranted metal stocks, make permanent existing controls around the management of low stock environments and enhance the transparency and determinism of the closing price discovery process by expanding the use of volume-weighted average prices [VWAP] in the LME’s methodology,” the LME says.

The exchange says the goals of its Group Action Plan include providing greater transparency and increased reporting of metal stocks stored in LME-licensed warehouses, adding that it is “important in ensuring ongoing confidence in the operation of the LME’s market.”

“These consultations represent our first formal marketwide engagement on the initiatives laid out in our action plan earlier this year,” CEO Matthew Chamberlain says. The plan and proposals “are ultimately designed to ensure the long-term health and efficiency of LME markets and to support the trading community in building deep, resilient liquidity for the benefit of all our users,” he adds.

The LME’s actions primarily are in response to a pricing anomaly that occurred in the nickel market in March 2021.

The LME says it is proposing to extend its current off-warrant stock reporting requirements—which have been in place since 2020—to include all unwarranted metal in LME-licensed warehouses that could be warranted (registered with an owner) in the future. This would provide greater visibility of the buildup of warrantable material in LME warehouses, the exchange says.

The LME says it acknowledges concerns from some market participants around confidentiality but also recognizes that a significant majority of the market would prefer increased transparency, which could support overall market stability.

A second proposal puts forward rules to facilitate the permanent adoption of the temporary controls established last year designed to help mitigate the potential impacts of low-inventory environments and increase the LME Group’s “deferral powers.”

Those controls include a backwardation limit on “tom-next” (tomorrow or next day) contracts and a delivery deferral mechanism, which the LME considers “effective and important controls when metal stocks are low, ensuring that distortions are not caused by short-term delivery challenges.”

The second consultation involves the proposed adoption of a more deterministic and industry-standard closing price methodology, which the LME says initially was put forward as part of the outcomes of the 2021 Discussion Paper on Market Structure.

“With input from the LME’s 2021 Closing Price working group as well as the LME User Committee, the LME now proposes to expand its existing VWAP methodology to include cash, three-month and the first four third-Wednesday monthly contracts in aluminum, copper, lead, nickel and zinc,” the LME says.

“The User Committee wholly supports the important work the LME is doing to strengthen and enhance its markets,” says Gavin Prentice, chair of the LME User Committee. “While there are a range of views on the proposals presented today in respect of the closing price determination process, overall the committee agreed that the proposed pricing blueprint represents the appropriate path forward as the LME looks to evolve the pricing methodology.”

The LME says the proposed change could affect some members’ ability to offer guaranteed closing price orders but adds that it believes the proposed pricing blueprint provides an appropriate balance in introducing a more deterministic methodology for the most liquid instruments at the front of the curve.