The sale includes a four-shaft industrial shredder, an incineration system and other facility assets.

Tiger Group, a Los Angeles-based auction service company, is hosting an online auction in collaboration with New Jersey-based Perry Videx LLC to sell the remaining assets of Aemerge RedPak’s former medical waste treatment facility in Hesperia, California.

“Opened in 2017, the plant destroyed and sterilized medical waste, converted it into clean energy and diverted up to 95 percent of treated waste from landfills,” says John Coelho, senior director of Tiger Commercial & Industrial. “This relatively new equipment continues to perform well and is available at a fraction of the original cost.”

Bidding for the online auction opened at 10:30 a.m. PT Sept. 13 and closes 10:30 a.m. PT Sept. 20.

The auction features a thermal oxidizer and patented Carbonizer incineration system, which was used to process organic waste in a negative-pressure, no-oxygen environment with high heat. The incineration system leaves three sterile co-products, including synthesis gas, treated glass and metals that can later be recycled and carbon char that can be repurposed as alternative fuel

A four-shaft industrial shredder, an Untha RS 100-1200-110—included in the sale is able to handle all forms of recycling. Other items up for auction include the following:

Plant utilities available in the sale include a vertical reciprocating conveyor, knife gate valves and articulated screw conveyors.

To inspect these assets or obtain additional information, email auctions@tigergroup.com or call 805-497-4999.

Once fully operational, the facility is expected to deliver 120,000 metric tons per year of advanced recycling capacity.

The Horgen, Switzerland, office of United States-based Dow has announced that it is constructing an advanced recycling facility at its Böhlen site in Germany in partnership with London-based Mura Technology. The Böhlen facility, which the companies expect to be operational by 2025, will deliver about 120,000 metric tons per year of advanced recycling capacity at full run rate.

According to a news release from Dow, this planned facility in Germany builds on Dow’s ongoing collaboration with Mura, first announced in 2021, with an initial project to construct the world’s first plant using Mura’s Hydrothermal Plastic Recycling Solution (HydroPRS) process in Teesside, United Kingdom, which is expected to be operational in 2023 with an initial production capacity of 20,000 metric tons per year.

Mura’s HydroPRS advanced recycling process uses supercritical steam to convert most forms of plastics—including flexible and multilayer plastics—back into the original oils and chemicals from which they were made. According to Dow, these materials can then be used to create new, virgin-equivalent plastic products, suitable for food-contact packaging.

The companies have announced plans to build additional advanced recycling facilities as well. In July, Dow and Mura reported plans to build multiple advanced recycling facilities in the U.S. and Europe, including the Böhlen site, adding as much as 600,000 metric tons per year of advanced recycling capacity by 2030.

“Mura’s collaboration with Dow has led to the largest commitment across the industry to date, showcasing the urgency from industry leaders to adopt scalable solutions such as HydroPRS that will transform he plastics industry worldwide,” says Steve Mahon, chief executive officer at Mura Technology. “Dow’s continued support for Mura Technology has led to a highly financeable commercial arrangement and the deepening collaboration will allow both companies to achieve their stated ambitions in the advanced recycling space.”

The Böhlen site is expected to be co-located with Dow’s manufacturing facilities, which Dow says would enable larger capacity for plastic materials and increase the supply of fully circular feedstock to the industry. The company plans to take advantage of the co-location benefits, which it says could reduce the cost of scaling its advanced recycling facilities.

“The continuation and growth of Dow and Mura’s collaboration is another example of how Dow is working strategically to expand and build momentum around securing circular feedstocks and supporting breakthrough advanced recycling technologies,” says Isam Shomaly, Dow business vice president for Feedstocks and Commodities.

Initiative from two global companies will focus on collecting, recycling paper cups.

Huhtamaki and Stora Enso, both based in Finland but with global operations, say they have joined forces to launch a paper cup recycling initiative called The Cup Collective. The program is being described as  the first of its kind in Europe, aiming to “recycle and capture the value of used paper cups on an industrial scale.”

The program will start in the Benelux countries (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg), with the two companies adding they have issued “an open invitation for partners from across the supply chain to get involved in working toward a systemic European solution.”

The EU has set recycling target for paper and board packaging of 85 percent by 2030, say the two companies. Stora Enso is a paper and board producer that recently purchased a containerboard mill in the Netherlands. Huhtamaki makes packaging products with molded pulp and other materials, some with recovered paper content.

“The Cup Collective initiative will create the necessary collection infrastructure to significantly increase the recycling rate of wood-fiber in paper cups,” the companies say. They say the program will be designed to make it easy for household consumers and businesses to collect used paper cups so they can be converted into recycled-content raw materials.

“Huhtamaki is a world leader in developing and manufacturing recyclable fiber products,” says Eric Le Lay, president, Fiber Foodservice EAO at Huhtamaki. “For us, every cup counts. We want to go to the next step and ensure that recyclable cups also get effectively recycled. We have combined the best expertise from Huhtamaki and Stora Enso to create this new vision for industrial scale cup collection and recycling.”

Hannu Kasurinen, executive vice president at Stora Enso, says, “Stora Enso wants to accelerate the circularity of all packaging materials and we have an excellent foundation to make that happen. The paperboards we make are designed to be recycled and our own production sites, including Langerbrugge in Belgium, can process and recycle paper cups into new fiber-based products.”

The first paper cup collection bins will be available in restaurants, cafés, office buildings and transport hubs in the Brussels and Amsterdam metropolitan areas. The Cup Collective aims to recycle half a billion paper cups in the first two years and, if scalable as designed, has the capacity to significantly increase recycling volumes in Europe, say the companies.

The program will be managed by Co-cre8, a United Kingdom-based firm with more than a decade of experience in designing and implementing recycling programs in Europe.

While The Cup Collective initially is being financed by two companies, “a key factor in the success of The Cup Collective will be its ability to become self-funding in the future,” according to Stora Enso and Huhtamaki.

Steelmakers’ organization says its V2.0 can help lead toward sector decarbonization.

The Australia-based ResponsibleSteel organization says its new International Standard V2.0 “will play a pivotal role in driving down greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and driving up standards in the steel supply chain, helping steel companies transition to a responsible, decarbonized future.”

The organization, whose members include ArcelorMittal, Tata Steel, United States Steel, Thyssenkrupp, Posco, BlueScope and Voestalpine, says the V2.0 standard launched in mid-September “focuses more deeply than ever before on reducing GHG emissions and now enables buyers of steel for the first time to specify what green procurement means in a credible way.”

In the news release announcing the launch, impacts of mining, water use, labor rights, air pollution and diversity are referred to while recycling is not directly mentioned. ResponsibleSteel refers to the GHG-related aspects of “the sourcing of input materials.” A 19-page RepsonsibleSteel glossary, however, does not provide a definition for input materials or for recycling in the steel industry context.

“The ResponsibleSteel Standard and certification program is an important example of multi-stakeholder collaboration for sustainable change across the steel value chain,” says Tim Rodsted, head of sustainability at Australia-based BlueScope, which operates a scrap-fed steel mill in Ohio.

Continues Rodsted, “BlueScope is pleased to have contributed to the development of the ResponsibleSteel Standard and the additional requirements.”

“ResponsibleSteel’s new International Standard comes at a critical time, with the unfolding energy crisis alongside the climate challenge only magnifying the need for a global scale transition to a decarbonized economy,” ResponsibleSteel CEO Annie Heaton says. “The Standard enables anyone that’s either buying or making steel to demonstrate they are not only driving down emissions, but also thinking responsibly about impacts on people and nature right across the value chain.”

Closing the loop with maximum carbon efficiency means letting scrap metal find its most suitable home, say recyclers.

An increasingly tense political climate across the globe, progressively unsteady supply chains and an intensifying weariness toward inter-dependencies, whether amongst nations or industries are some of the key factors contributing to the rise of a new protectionism endorsed by parts of the metal industry.

One big player at the front of such protectionism is the lobby of the European Aluminum association.

In recent years, it repeatedly has promoted trade restrictions. With its rhetoric designed to invoke highly negative viewpoints on what it means to export recycled aluminum, it uses phrasing such as a “raw material drain” to locations abroad by means of “loopholes.” The factual arguments put forward focus on EU industry standards and the alleged lack of these or similar standards in countries outside the EU.

But what is the end game of the lobby of the European Aluminum association? To keep recycled materials in the EU? That is a great way to secure cheap access to raw materials. Because where international competition is eliminated, market prices plummet because of superfluous raw metal.

But what about the costs of putting these trade shackles on the metal recycling industry? They are colossal. And not just for local European metal recycling providers who are cut off from trade lifelines to global industries, and for potential trade partners outside of the EU who are cut off from raw metal access.

Much more importantly though, the costs are colossal for the environment and our planet. How so?

Well, the EU entirely lacks sufficient production capacities to use the exact recycled metals the aluminum lobby seeks to trap within European trade borders.

That means those recycled metals will never be put to use in production, wherever in the world that production may be located. Those metals will thus fail to become part of the circular economy that we and our planet so desperately need to survive our thirst for natural resources.

Just by means of a quick reminder: We currently use twice the number of natural resources that our Earth is capable of reproducing annually.

Frankly, European recycling companies collect, transport, store, finance, process and trade raw materials not just so that European production industries may benefit. We also do this work so that industries beyond the EU gain access to high-quality raw materials for production.

And in the end, we do this work so that we can all achieve the ultimate goal of moving our industries—global industries that is—toward a greener future.

Recycled raw materials reduce the processing industry’s greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and energy consumption by a staggering 95 percent compared with primary production.

This is of course true no matter where this recycled raw material is processed. If climate change does not stop at national borders, why should trade in recycled raw materials?

It’s a fallacy to believe that restricted global trade will automatically and magically result in a better circular economy. In fact, a diminished market with lesser capacities results in less recycling.

Metal trade ensures all qualities of raw materials are processed and get to wherever they are needed at the time. If they are needed in the EU, all the better! Not a single recycler would complain about lower logistics costs. And we do believe the processing industry would benefit from support. We in fact look forward to growth in the “green” aluminum and copper sector.

But right now – and for a long foreseeable future – free trade beyond the EU does not cost the EU raw materials it would otherwise need or even want. Not yet. Not in view of the current production capacities or, rather, lack thereof. However, such free trade guarantees that raw materials make part of the circular economy.