Newsworthy

> PAPER

SAICA Opens Recycled Board Mill in the United Kingdom
Spain-based paper company SAICA has officially opened a 100 percent recycled-content paperboard mill near Manchester, U.K. The containerboard mill, the first for SAICA in the U.K., is capable of producing 450,000 tonnes of product each year.

U.K. Business and Energy Minister Michael Fallon took part in a ceremony officially opening the mill.

The project, costing around £300 million ($464 million) is part of a £.5 billion ($.77 billion) investment by SAICA in the U.K. The mill has been in operation since January 2012 with testing and production steadily increasing.

“This cutting edge facility shows how state of the art technology and innovation can help drive growth,” says Fallon (pictured on the left in the photo above). “It’s a real boost for the economy and will create new jobs for Partington and the local area.”

SAICA Paper UK is part of the SAICA Group, a manufacturer of corrugated boxes. In addition to its U.K. mill SAICA operates paper mills in Spain and France.

> METALLICS

Aircraft Fleet Recycling Association Accredits Two More Companies to Recycle Aircraft
The Aircraft Fleet Recycling Association (AFRA), a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., has added two companies to its list of accredited aircraft recyclers, bringing the worldwide total to six companies worldwide. The accreditations are based upon the association’s third Best Management Practices Guide dealing with recycling aircraft materials, released in April of 2012.

The two most recently accredited companies are Aircraft Demolition, based in Burnsville, Minn., in the U.S., and Aircraft End-of-Life Solutions, or AELS, based in the Netherlands. These firms join four other AFRA accredited recyclers, two of which are based in the U.K., and one each in South Africa and the U.S.

“We had thought that our activities were already at the standards in the BMP Guide but we found out that some of our practices and procedures could in fact be improved,” says Derk Jan van Heerdan, general manager of AELS. “The Accreditation process not only covered the third-party recycling of fan blades which we carry out for a client, it also covered all the recycling of airframes which we carry out, which is a key part of our business.”

Tim Zemanovic, CEO of Aircraft Demolition, says the accreditations have been beneficial. “More and more companies are requiring the accreditations in order to do business with them and this has certainly opened new opportunities for us,” Zemanovic says.

> WASTE-TO-ENERGY

Sita Consortium Lands 30-Year U.K. Contract
Sita Sembcorp UK, a consortium led by SITA UK, a subsidiary of Suez Environnement, has been selected as the preferred bidder for a resource recovery contract worth as much as £1.4 billion (US$2.14 billion) over 30 years with the Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority. The other members of the Sita Sembcorp consortium include Sembcorp Utilities UK and I-Environment, a wholly owned subsidiary of Itochu Corp.

The contract will manage more than 430,000 tonnes of residual household waste each year from the county of Merseyside and the borough of Halton. The contract will include the design, construction, financing and operation of two permitted facilities: a rail-loading waste transfer station in Merseyside and a purpose-built energy-from-waste facility in Teesside. Total capital investment for the facilities will be around £295 million. Both are expected to be operational by 2016.

The rail loading waste transfer station will be developed at an existing warehouse. From there, waste will be transported to a 450,000 tonnes per year EfW facility, which will be developed on a rail linked industrial estate managed by Sembcorp Utilities U.K. near Redcar in Teesside.

Sita Sembcorp expects the EfW facility to generate electricity for around 63,000 homes and has the potential to provide steam to adjacent business customers. In total, the consortium expects more than 90 percent of the contract waste managed will be diverted from landfill.

David Palmer-Jones, CEO of SITA UK, says, “This is great news for Merseyside, for the environment and for new jobs. We are delighted to be selected as preferred bidder for this major contract.”

> PLASTICS

EU Releases Green Paper on Plastics Recycling
The European Commission (EC) has released a research paper to encourage discussion on the plastic scrap generated throughout Europe. The report, “Green Paper on a European Strategy on Plastic Waste in the Environment,” has been designed to focus on possible responses to the public policy challenges posed by plastic scrap that are currently not addressed in EU waste legislation.

The follow-up to the Green Paper will be an integral part of the wider review of the waste and recycling legislation that will be completed in 2014. The Green Paper report will look at the existing targets for waste recovery and landfill as well as an ex-post evaluation of five directives covering various materials streams.

In a statement following the paper’s release, Environment Commissioner Janez Potocnik said, “Managing plastic [scrap] is a major challenge in terms of environmental protection, but it’s also a huge opportunity for resource efficiency. In a circular economy where high recycling rates offer solutions to material scarcity, I believe plastic has a future.”

The EC says the Green Paper underlines the key role that plastic plays in many industrial processes and applications, and the potential economic gains of higher recycling rates. As the world population grows and natural resources become scarcer, recycling plastics will be an alternative to the exploitation of virgin resources. To speed this change, better framework conditions are needed to support eco-design and environmental innovation, with waste prevention and recycling factored in to the design of products.

The Green Paper aims to gather facts and views in order to assess the impacts of plastic waste and define a European strategy to mitigate them.

Stakeholders are invited to contribute their views on whether, and how, existing legislation should be adapted to deal with plastic waste and promote re-use, recycling and recovery of plastic scrap over landfilling. Views are also sought on the effectiveness of potential recycling targets and economic measures. For more information visit http://ec.europa.eu/environment/consultations/plastic_waste_en.htm.

> PAPER

Cascades Expands its Moka Line of Tissue Paper
Canada-based paper company Cascades Tissue Group has extended its line of Cascades Moka tissue products with the launch of the company’s first-ever, unbleached, 100% recycled facial tissue.

Cascades says its new Moka facial tissue is made of a pulp mix composed of 100% recycled fiber, 80% of which is post-consumer material, including 20% recovered old corrugated containers.

The company adds that the production of the new line also is offset with 100% “green-e-certified” renewable wind electricity and releases a minimum of 30% less greenhouse gas than what is used in traditional white recycled tissues. Cascades Moka also holds certification with EcoLogo, Green Seal and the Chlorine Free Products Association.

“Based on the success of the Cascades Moka bathroom tissue, we believe people will adopt this product unique to Cascades, if color is the only thing they’re giving up,” says Suzanne Blanchet, Cascades Tissue Group president and chief executive officer.

> METALLICS

Abengoa’s Befesa Division Inks Novelis Deal
Befesa, based in Seville, Spain, has signed an agreement with aluminium manufacturer Novelis to handle the dross generated at an aluminium recycling facility Novelis is building in Nachterstedt, Germany. Befesa is the industrial waste recycling division of Abengoa.

To handle the dross, Abengoa has announced plans to build an aluminium recycling plant in Bernburg, Germany, which is expected to cost around $39.2 million (¤29.7 million). The company hopes to complete construction of the facility by the first quarter of 2014. When done, Abengoa will have nine recycling plants in Europe. Combined, the company will have total processing capacity of 1 million tonnes of discards (about 400,000 tonnes of scrap, slag and aluminium chips and 600,000 tonnes of salt slag).

When fully operational, the Abengoa facility will produce 50,000 tonnes of aluminium casting alloys and, in addition, by recovering the aluminium, will manage all of the Novelis plant’s aluminium dross. The dross and scrap aluminium will be returned to Novelis where it will be recycled into laminated products.

> ELECTRONICS

Cerebra Receives Approval to Open Electronics Recycling Plant
Cerebra Integrated Technologies, based in Bangalore, India, has announced that its proposed electronics recycling facility in Bangalore has received official approval from the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board. The electronic scrap recycling facility will include processing of obsolete electronics, as well as the recovery of precious metals such as silver, platinum, palladium and rhodium.

When fully operational the facility, which will sit on 12 acres, will be able to process 96,000 tonnes of electronic scrap per year.

The company hopes to complete the construction of the recycling plant by the end of 2013. Cerebra adds that once it is commissioned the plant will be one of the largest of its type in the sub-continent.

In a statement, the company says when the facility opens it will likely be “the only truly integrated” electronics recovery facility that offers the complete recovery of scrap, data wiping, destruction services, repair, refurbishing and remarketing.

In a related note, Cerebra has signed a purchase agreement with Enviro-Hub Holdings, located in Singapore, for the 100 percent acquisition of Enviro’s wholly owned subsidiary Cimelia Resource Recovery pte Ltd.

> PAPER

UPM Signs Deal to Recycle Liner Paper
The Finnish paper company UPM has signed a cooperation agreement with film recycling company Aliplast France to develop a program to recover release liner paper generated from various European sources. Aliplast France is a subsidiary of the Italian company Aliplast.

Release liners are paper or plastic-based materials coated on one or both sides with a chemical agent, that helps prevent them from bonding with adhesives or a mastic gums.

The partnership between the two companies is expected to expand Aliplast’s recycling services to include polypropylene (PP) and paper-based release liners through UPM Raflatac’s RafCycle waste management concept, which takes the byproducts generated through the life cycle of self-adhesive label stock and turns them into a new raw material.

Under the agreement Aliplast will collect, sort and distribute various release liners to different recycling processes. Large collection bags will be installed by Aliplast for use by self-adhesive label end users. Aliplast will collect the bags and ship them to the company’s two sorting centers in France. After sorting, the material will be transported to end consumers.

PP liners, including UPM Raflatac’s ProLiner PP30, will be reused to make wood-plastic composite products at UPM ProFi’s facility in Bruchsal, Germany.

> PLASTICS

Continuum Recycling Reaches Full Capacity
Continuum Recycling, a U.K.-based recycled-PET (polyethylene terephthalate) joint venture between Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) and U.K.-based ECO Plastics, has reported that it has sorted 250 million bottles since the facility opened rin mid-2012.

The plant in Hemswell, Lincolnshire, U.K., is located within ECO Plastics’ existing facility, which the company says is the largest plastics sorting facility in the world. According to ECO Plastics, the facility is responsible for processing more than 50 percent of the U.K.’s bottle-grade recycled PET plastic.

> GLASS

European Glass Recycling Rate Tops 70 Percent
The European Container Glass Federation (FEVE), Brussels, reports the glass recycling rate in Europe topped 70% in 2011, the first time the rate has been known to reach the 70% level on the continent.

The federation notes that more than 11 million tonnes of glass were collected throughout the European Union in 2011.

According to data on glass recycling efforts, FEVE says more than 75% of the glass recovered for recycling goes into making new glass bottles.

The success follows efforts by EU Member States over the past several years to meet the EU’s 60% recycling target for glass, a level that was reached in most countries by 2008.

“We have no problems in absorbing more recycled glass provided that this is of high quality,” says Stefan Jaenecke, president of FEVE. “Glass recycling is the key component of the circular economy because recycling closes the loop. Glass recycling saves raw materials and energy and reduces production costs.”

FEVE adds that more needs to be done to collect the remaining 30% of used glass that is currently being landfilled, while promoting a circular economy that suits the vision of the European Commission to build a “zero waste” and “resource efficient” society.