OHIO LEGISLATOR INTRODUCES ASR BILL
A bill has been introduced by the Ohio State legislature that aims to authorize waste management districts to exempt automotive shredder residue (ASR) from the district’s waste generation fee.
House Rep. Mary Taylor introduced HB 100 in late February, though it has yet to be assigned to a committee.
Under the proposed bill, the solid waste management district may establish procedures that would include the exemption of automotive shredder residue from the solid waste generation fee without the necessity for ratification of the resolution.
In order to do so, however, the residue must not contain hazardous waste; must not account for more than 35 percent of the total weight of material that is processed for recycling; and must be generated by processing recycled materials that are to be sold, used or reused within 90 days of the material’s time of processing.
COHEN BROTHERS ADDS SPRINGFIELD YARD
Cohen Brothers Inc., Middletown, Ohio, has purchased the former Staker Alloys Inc. in nearby Springfield, Ohio.
According to Cohen Brothers President Ken Cohen, the Springfield location will continue to operate under the Staker Alloys name and former principal Ron Staker will remain involved with the business.
The facility collects and processes ferrous and nonferrous scrap, handling a combination of industrially generated and obsolete materials.
Machinery at the Staker location includes a shear, a baler, several cranes and a fleet of trucks and roll-off trailers.
"This makes our 10th location within the Cohen Brothers network," says Cohen, who notes that Springfield lies within the Columbus-Dayton-Cincinnati zone served by the company. "It links our Columbus, Dayton and Middletown operations," says Cohen.
Approximately 20 employees currently work at the Staker Alloys facility.
ARKANSAS TAKES STEP TOWARD MERCURY RECYCLING LAW
The Arkansas House of Representatives has passed Senate Bill 323, which aims to boost the collection and recycling of mercury from automobile switches.
The bill was authored by Sen. Steve Bryles, D-Blytheville. It has passed the Arkansas House by a vote of 94-1 and awaits the signature of the governor.
The purpose of the bill is to reduce the quantity of mercury in the environment by removing mercury switches from end-of-life vehicles and by creating a collection and recovery program for the switches collected from vehicles in the state.
According to local press reports, the state Department of Environment Quality will work with auto manufacturers to develop a program to remove the switches from the vehicles before they are recycled, says Rep. Kevin Goss, D-Wilson, who presented the measure in the House.
The Arkansas Senate passed the bill Feb. 15th. If the bill becomes law, Arkansas will join New Jersey in passing similar legislation.
SIMS GROUP OPENS NEW DOCK IN U.K.
Sims Group has opened a new dock facility in Hull, U.K., to boost the amount of scrap material the company can export all over the world.
The new facility is capable of loading vessels with up to 30,000 metric tons of capacity. The new deep-sea dock marks the fourth such facility to be opened by Sims Group in the U.K.
The Hull facility is run by Sims’s metal division and will deal predominantly in scrap metal. The company has said that in the future it may also look to include the export of other materials from the site.
The site has a rail link, which will make it easier to bring metal in from the company’s Nottingham shredder site. The material being sent to Hull would previously have been sent to either a contractor at the Hull docks or the company’s Newport dock facility.
Sims U.K.’s Managing Director Tom Bird says, "The Hull operation will bring added flexibility to the Sims metal business in the Northern region. Specifically it will allow us to improve the cost effectiveness and quality of our service to customers whilst expanding the coverage of Sims Group’s sites in the North and Northeast."
The company says its metal from the Hull facility will predominantly be sent to China and India, though material will also be sent to other countries.
URG announces SALVAGE DISPOSal SOLUTION
United Recyclers Group LLC (URG), based in Aurora, Colo., has announced the unveiling of its Premium Salvage program for the insurance industry to dispose of total loss vehicles.
With a network of nearly 300 auto recyclers across the country, United Recyclers Group says it can offer a 48-hour guarantee for collecting vehicles for the insurance industry on a nationwide level. URG will also store the vehicles for free, further reducing the cost to insurance agencies.
URG will charge a "minimal" fee to the insurance company to handle all of the work from collection of the vehicle to selling the vehicle and processing the title. URG says its program is able to increase the margin of return for the insurance company by minimizing fees to the seller and the buyer, resulting in better salvage returns to the insurer and lower costs to the recycler.
"We have worked for close to a year with several insurance companies developing this exciting new program. We waited until we were certain we had all the processes in place to handle a large volume of salvage vehicles," Sharon Galan, URG general manager, comments.
More information on the Premium Salvage program is available through URG at (303) 367-4391, ext. 3.
INDIANA Eyes Slag Recycling
Indiana’s Lt. Gov. Becky Skillman has announced the approval of a $50,000 Innovations Grant to Highland’s Multiserv Corp., Purdue University and the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT).
The grant, administered through the Indiana Recycling and Energy Development Board, will be used to test and determine how steel slag from Indiana’s steel mills can be reused.
"Currently there is 400,000 tons of steel slag in Lake County," Skillman says. "We need to find ways to recycle it. We hope that, through the collaborative efforts of Purdue, Multiserv and INDOT, we might turn this waste into new materials."
The money will be used as a matching grant and will fund a study into ways to develop end markets for steel slag that is generated at electric arc furnaces, as well as basic oxygen furnaces, Multiserv operates at the mills in Lake County.
The study will determine if the slag can be used as a soil stabilizer or for highway construction applications.
The Innovation Grants are designed to help Indiana businesses research, develop and implement projects that promote the use of recycled materials.
Skillman oversees Indiana’s energy policy and efforts.
Multiserv is a division of Harsco. The company is involved in mill services operations throughout the world.
Alter Trading to Buy Yaffe
Alter Trading Co. has signed a Letter of Intent with The Yaffe Companies Inc. to purchase its operating assets.
Alter Trading, based in St. Louis, is a privately owned, fourth-generation scrap metal processor with 16 processing facilities and five trading offices throughout seven states in the upper Midwest.
Yaffe, headquartered in Muskogee, Okla., is a full-service scrap metal recycling company with 14 processing facilities throughout Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas and Missouri.
"The Yaffe employees and locations represent a very good strategic fit for our growth plans, and we look forward to adding them to our organization," Robert S. Goldstein, CEO for Alter Trading, says in a press release.
The transaction is expected to close early this summer.
KOBE SUPPLYING DRI TO QATAR STEEL
Kobe Steel Ltd. of Japan has been awarded a contract by Qatar Steel Co. to supply a Midrex Direct Reduction Plant with an annual capacity of 1.5 million metric tons.
The $267.4-million project should be completed within 30 months.
Kobe Steel will be responsible for the design, equipment supply and construction of the facility. The new plant, to be constructed in Mesaieed, Qatar, will boost production capacity of DRI from 780,000 metric tons to 2.3 million metric tons per year.
The facilities in Qatar consist of a Midrex Direct Reduction Plant, which makes DRI; electric arc furnaces; continuous casters; and bar rolling mills. Current DRI production capacity, which has nearly doubled from the original capacity of 400,000 metric tons per year, is used to make 700,000 metric tons of steel bars and 300,000 metric tons of billets.
Tenenbaum Reaches Milestone
The A. Tenenbaum Co. Inc., North Little Rock, Ark., is celebrating its 115th year in business, according to Harold Tenenbaum, company president.
The Tenenbaum family began the company in Little Rock in 1890. From the 1940s until 1976, the business operated on the banks of the Arkansas River in Little Rock. In 1976 it moved to its present location in North Little Rock and now bills itself as the largest recycler and processor of scrap metal in that community.
"In those days, all that was needed was a cutting torch, some alligator shears and something to move the material with," Tenenbaum says of the company’s mid-1970s operations. "Today, A. Tenenbaum has grown to be one of the top corporations in the state of Arkansas and we are extremely pleased with our corporate and civic heritage and our support of numerous charities."
The firm now runs a 4,000-hp shredder and other heavy-duty equipment.
DOJ ANNOUNCES SETTLEMENT WITH SCRAP DEALERS
Two Cleveland scrap metal companies, their owner and an employee pleaded guilty March 2 to conspiring to allocate suppliers and rig bids for scrap metal, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced.
All of the defendants had been indicted previously, but now have agreed to plead guilty to all of the charges in the indictment and to cooperate with the ongoing investigation.
M. Weingold & Co. and Harry Rock & Associates Inc., their owner and M. Weingold & Co. President Jack Weingold and Loren Margolis, an employee of M. Weingold & Co., have pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Cleveland to a three-count indictment filed Jan. 15, 2004.
The indictment charged all of the defendants with participating in two separate conspiracies in Northeast Ohio—one beginning at least as early as December 1993 and continuing at least until October 1999, and the other beginning at least as early as December 1993 and continuing at least until November 1999—to allocate suppliers and to rig bids for scrap metal. Additionally, Harry Rock & Associates Inc. was charged with wire fraud in connection with a scheme to defraud a supplier of scrap metal by attempting to rig a bid with a competitor in January 2000.
The plea agreement with Jack Weingold, M. Weingold & Co. and Harry Rock & Associates Inc. recommends that Weingold be imprisoned for 13 months and that he pay a $700,000 criminal fine. M. Weingold & Co. and Harry Rock & Associates Inc. have agreed to pay criminal fines of $5.65 million each, for a total of $11.3 million.
The plea agreement with Margolis recommends that he pay $700,000 and serve a prison term of between 10 to 12 months. All of the plea agreements are subject to court approval.
The DOJ Antitrust Division’s Cleveland field office is conducting the ongoing investigation with the assistance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Cleveland office.
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