Factors contribute to upward price and settlement terms pressure.

Increasing amounts of hard-to-process materials, a fast-growing market and higher lease rates/metal prices are creating upward price and settlement terms pressure in the auto cat recycling industry, according to BASF Corp., Florham Park, New Jersey.

The amount of feed containing hard-to-process materials, such as titanium (Ti) and silicon carbide (SiC), in spent catalyst recycling streams is increasing. This is reducing precious metals recycling capacity because these new materials require more time to process through smelting assets than the traditional cordierite ceramic substrate material, according to the company. Longer processing time means longer settlement terms are needed. Furthermore, most refiners cannot process the material as quickly, which will result in lower throughput in the smelter assets. This development has constrained the existing processing assets and is creating upward pressure on processing fees, the company adds.

Demand for recycling is growing faster than the capacity to process spent catalysts, BASF says, adding that it will take time for the industry to add more capacity.

Finally, higher precious metal prices and lease rates are creating additional pressure by increasing the cost that refiners pay to finance the metal in their processes. For example, lease rates for palladium have gone from a couple percent to more 20 percent in the past several months, BASF notes.

These conditions are creating a challenge in the PGM (platinum group metal) recycling market.

BASF says it is addressing the challenge by continuing to invest to ensure sustainable and efficient recovery of PGMs.

By partnering with SMASH, the metal recycling company is helping to mentor young people in Swindon, U.K.

U.K.-based metal recycling company EMR has joined forces with SMASH, a Swindon, U.K.-based charity that helps young people discover their potential.

EMR has sponsored three young people through SMASH’s 12-week support program, designed to help individuals aged 9 to 19 years old feel more in control of their lives. The company also will run sessions and tours at its site to educate on the importance of metal recycling, teach young people about work and provide help with CV writing and mock interviews.

SMASH, based in Pinetrees Community Centre, offers one-to-one mentoring with young people and group activities for children and young people who need emotional support.

SMASH works with professionals and volunteers who are trained by the organization to listen, guide and mentor young people. Support focusses on increasing confidence, self-esteem and resilience, which improves the likelihood of young people maintaining or re-entering education, EMR explains in a news release announcing its support of the program.

Martin Crossman, area manager for EMR, says: “Our company puts a great deal of importance on supporting the communities that are close to our sites. We are very happy to be able to help a charity such as SMASH, which really improves young people’s lives and future prospects.

“At EMR, we invest heavily in developing our own employees so they can use their life and job experiences to help the young people at SMASH,” he adds.

In addition to the sponsorship and on-site sessions, a team from Swindon will trial SMASH’s mentor scheme with a view to opening it up for other EMR employees to be trained by SMASH to volunteer their time to support the young people of Swindon.

Helen Fisher, CEO of SMASH, says, “SMASH is thrilled to be working with EMR. The partnership demonstrates how business and third sector can and should come together for the benefit of the community.

“Thanks to EMR and its approach of simply asking how it could help SMASH, we are receiving short-term funds but also building long term relationships with community volunteers,” she continues. “These relationships will directly benefit our young people now and in their futures—thank you EMR.”

Unilever has committed to using larger amounts of recycled-content plastic in its global supply chain.

Europe-based household goods producer Unilever is taking steps toward its goal of using 25 percent recycled content in its plastic packaging by 2025, said a procurement manager for the firm who spoke at the Plastics Committee meeting of the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR). The Brussels-based BIR held its 2019 World Recycling Convention in May in Singapore.

Aurore Belhoste, who works from Singapore as a procurement manager for Unilever, said the multinational firm has taken numerous steps in recognition of the world’s concerns about single-use plastics as a contributor to plastics in the ocean.

Some of those measures involve substituting for plastic, including the use of paperboard and aluminum as a packaging material in place of plastic and designing a toothbrush made of bamboo. “We are trying to reduce our use of single-use plastics,” said Belhoste.

Of greater encouragement to the recyclers gathered, Unilever also has made efforts to source and use recycled-content plastics (also known as postconsumer resin, or PCR) in its packaging. Belhoste commented that 26 percent of the plastic used globally goes into packaging and that a global sustainability effort Unilever has signed onto calls for “responsible consumption and production” of the raw materials it uses.

To live up to that commitment, Belhoste said Unilever has identified two main goals: “By 2025, all of our plastic packaging will be reusable, recyclable or compostable,” and “by 2025, 25 percent of plastic packaging will come from recycled plastic content, or PCR.”

Belhoste pointed to the 100 percent PCR packaging used in Unilever’s Love Beauty and Planet products as one example.

She also said collection efforts underway in nations including India and Indonesia are being developed to capture more discarded plastic for recycling in nations such as those, where it too often ends up in the natural environment, and then the ocean. The goal of such efforts “is to come up with different pilots and scale them up,” said Belhoste. Some of the pilot programs involve apps that can let scavengers know where they can bring certain types of plastic and be paid for it.

On the PCR production front, Belhoste said Unilever continues to work with technology providers to overcome challenges related to odors that can arise from using PCR, and in creating colors for PCR products that can be acceptable to consumers.

Any good news that can come from deep-pocketed companies like Unilever will be welcomed by plastics recyclers. BIR Plastics Committee delegates portrayed a 2019 market for plastic scrap that is challenging. Steve Wong of Hong Kong-based Fukutomi Recycling Ltd. said in East Asia “almost all types of recycled polymers are not selling well.” For recyclers there, “Profit margins are narrow and getting less and less.”

Clement Lefebvre of Veolia Proprete France Recycling said European primary producers “now want to play a role in the recycling world,” which could help absorb European plastic scrap that formerly headed to China, Malaysia and Thailand. In the next 10 years Europe may need to develop more than 1 million metric tons of capacity, “and that’s a huge challenge,” said Lefebvre. (Within days of the BIR convention’s conclusion, Malaysia’s government proclaimed it would begin returning imported plastic scrap shipments to their country of origin.)

In the United States, export markets also “have been greatly reduced” stated Sally Houghton of the Plastic Recycling Corp. of California. Within the U.S., however, Houghton said there is healthy demand for HDPE and PET scrap, with polypropylene (PP) also growing as a grade that is attracting significant investments in domestic recycling capacity.

BIR immediate past President Ranjit Baxi summed up the current situation by saying, “Plastic is at the forefront of all recycling conversations.”

Stated Plastics Committee Chairman Henk Alessma of Netherlands-based Vita Plastics, “The plastic industry is in a transition phase from a linear model to a circular economy model.”

The 2019 BIR World Recycling Convention & Exhibition was held May 19-22 at the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore.

The current two-year permit was signed in June of 2017.

The St. John (New Brunswick) Council has submitted a letter to the New Brunswick Environment and Local Government Minister calling for the province to request American Iron and Metal (AIM) relocate an auto shredder it is operating at the Port of St. John, New Brunswick, according to a report from  CBC.

The current two-year permit was signed in June 2017, with the renewed permit to be approved by June 1 to keep the plant in operation.

According to the report, the AIM facility has been under an interim permit since December 2018, when dozens of explosions caused by the plant’s shredder spurred the province to step in with a stop work order. After discussion, the company was allowed to reopen under a set of stringent conditions and environmental testing requirements.

A recommendation included in the letter states that the “enhanced environmental monitoring … including sound, air and water quality monitoring” that make up part of the interim approval to operate must be audited by a third party before a new permanent permit is granted.

The new dealership expands the availability of SANY port and material handling products in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.

SANY America, Peachtree City, Georgia, has announced that Tri-Lift NC Inc., Greensboro, North Carolina, agreed to represent the SANY material handling line of products, including high-capacity lift trucks and container handling equipment. SANY manufactures, sells and supports construction and material handling equipment, including crawler cranes, rough terrain cranes, excavators, container reach stackers and empty container handlers. 

According to a news release from SANY, this agreement expands the SANY dealership network dramatically, increasing SANY’s availability in the Atlantic region while expanding both companies’ ability to support customer equipment in the field. 

Tri-Lift NC, Inc. has been a provider of high-quality warehouse equipment and superior customer support since 1968. By adding SANY’s port and material handling equipment to its inventory, Tri-Lift NC Inc. will now be able to reach customers requiring higher capacity moves, SANY reports in a news release. With the recent completion of its new full-service material handling facility in Garner, North Carolina, the company has reduced response times for servicing customers in eastern North Carolina. 

“This large capacity forklift and port equipment market segment has been dominated by just a few manufacturers. As a result of this lack of competition, customers have endured products that have not been updated with the latest technology,” says Bob Bond, CEO of Tri-Lift NC. “Service support has slipped because vendors did not feel the pressure of competitors to improve their services, and I feel that will all change with the SANY product.”

Tri-Lift NC carries accessories and replacement components for SANY equipment, and offers rapid on-site repair service for customers, with response times of less than four hours in many areas, SANY reports in a news release. In addition to the Garner location, the company also has existing locations in Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina, as well as Greenville, South Carolina.

“We’re excited to have such a quality dealer in Tri-Lift to represent the SANY brand,” says Doug Friesen, CEO of SANY America. “They truly represent the passion and drive that embodies SANY.”