The report from SWANA's Applied Research Foundation provides guidance on managing waste and recycling collection services. 

The Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA), Silver Spring, Maryland, has released a report highlighting best practices to address truck driver shortages and a declining availability of waste and recycling collection personnel.   

The report, which was released by SWANA’s Applied Research Foundation (ARF), presents tools and best practices to provide waste and recycling collection services optimally and efficiently. Called “Efficient Management of Waste & Recycling Collection Resources,” the report follows a study released in December 2021 called “Encouraging Better Curbside Recycling Behaviors,” which assessed the effectiveness of “recycle right” educational programs.  

“In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the efficient allocation of personnel and equipment resources in the provision of waste and recycling collection services is more essential than ever,” says David Biderman, SWANA executive director and CEO. “This new report provides solid waste, recycling and sustainability managers with useful guidance and benchmarks for streamlined collection operations.”  

According to the report, capital costs are estimated to account for 19 percent of total collection deployment costs, while labor costs account for 39 percent of total costs. ARF says collection services should be managed so that no routes are uncollected because of the lack of functioning collection equipment.   

Furthermore, analysis in the report indicates annual maintenance and repair costs are roughly equivalent to the annual capital costs. As a result, deferring the purchase of new vehicles at the end of optimal service life likely will increase total service costs.   

The report notes that solid waste collection vehicles have a “useful” life, after which they should be retired from service and replaced with newer vehicles. The optimal life of a solid waste collection vehicle will vary depending on average annual miles driven/hours of operation, local operating conditions, local maintenance practices, vehicle make and manufacturer. 

Additional research findings the report presents address various questions regarding the efficient use of personnel and equipment in the delivery of waste and recycling collection services. SWANA recommends that local governments collect and analyze on-route productivity data to evaluate the productivity and performance of their collection crews compared to their peers.   

Additionally, the report says governments should budget for and develop equipment and labor backup strategies that enable them to staff and serve routes every collection day. They should also determine and adhere to equipment service lives that minimize life cycle costs associated with their collection equipment.   

Finally, SWANA says operators should take advantage of new routing software to develop daily routes quickly and efficiently for on-demand services. 

“We are proud to be able to provide this report that addresses such an important and timely topic for SWANA ARF subscribers,” says Jeremy O’Brien, SWANA director of applied research. “SWANA would like to recognize and thank the organizations that comprise the ARF’s collection group subscribers that identified and voted on this topic as well as supported and assisted in the research.”  

The full report is currently only available to SWANA ARF subscribers. SWANA members receive free access to the report one year after publication. Download the executive summary here. 

The majority of new capacity is for mills producing linerboard and corrugated medium.

The Northeast Recycling Council (NERC), headquartered in Brattleboro, Vermont, has released an update to its “Summary of Announced Increased Capacity to use Recycled Paper” report, which it says reflects continuing progress toward using more recycled paper in North America and includes completed projects as well as those approaching projected opening dates.

NERC first published the list in 2018, which at the time included new capacity projects at 17 mills—three of which had been completed. The previous update was in June 2021, and the most recent update includes 28 new mills, including four new mills among 17 completed projects. Much of the new capacity is occurring at existing or closed mills. In some instances, mills are adding new capacity, and, in other cases, they are converting existing papermaking machines to produce different end products. This list includes two mills that are consolidating production from existing facilities and one that will use food-contaminated paper from commercial sources.

According to NERC, the announcement of a new mill does not guarantee it will be built because of the high costs of siting, permitting and building a new mill. Economic circumstances and demand for final products will determine the viability of each project.

The following projects have been completed since the June 2021 update to the report:

According to NERC, the following projects have been announced and are awaiting completion:

The majority of new capacity increases are for mills producing linerboard and corrugated medium and will use old corrugated containers (OCC) as their primary feedstock. According to NERC, the facilities are unlikely to use mixed paper unless their stock preparation systems allow for its uses, but about half of the announced mills plan to use some mixed paper.

If all projects are completed, they will use more than eight million tons per year of OCC and mixed paper.

The full report can be accessed online.

The company will apply the $1 million in funding to help build sustainable North American supply of cobalt and other critical minerals.

Boston-based Nth Cycle has been awarded a $1 million National Science Foundation Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant in support of building sustainable North American supply of cobalt and other critical minerals in North America. The company is partnering with a North American copper and cobalt mining company that will provide the raw material for its project and the  Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which will test Nth Cycle’s direct recycled lithium-nickel-manganese-cobalt oxide, or NMC, in new cathodes. The project received an SBIR Phase I award in 2019. The company says its modular electro-extraction technology can recover cobalt and other critical minerals from a variety of ore and low-grade mine tailings as well as from scrap.

Nth Cycle says it can process these metals at 75 percent lower carbon intensity while operating at a significantly lower cost because it saves 60 percent of the energy used by traditional technologies. The company's business model is focused on on-site toll processing arrangements with companies that are producing black mass or with mines. Megan O'Connor, the company's CEO, previously told Recycling Today that she views this approach as “more economical and sustainable,” eliminating the need for transportation. “Transportation is expensive and hazardous,” O’Connor said. “We can go where the batteries are.”

In response to receiving the grant, she says, “To compete in a rapidly expanding global clean energy economy, North America needs a supply of critical minerals that is affordable and responsibly mined. Today’s methods of refining cobalt and other critical minerals are dirty and not economical for the low grades of ore we have available. We’re working to shift that paradigm by creating a clean, low-cost and greater supply of critical minerals. This supply is essential if we want to meet our goals for electric vehicle, energy storage and wind power adoption this decade.”

Nth Cycle says its technology transforms the outputs of electronics recycling, untapped mining resources and waste from existing mines into high-purity critical minerals ready to be used in new production without polluting furnaces or the production of harsh chemical waste.

Equipment and technology provider Sweed Machinery reports a ready market for its processing machinery, abetted by lofty copper and aluminum prices.

Scrap wire and cable is not traveling across the ocean as much as it used to, largely because governments in several nations became concerned about the amount of landfill-bound material attached to the copper and aluminum scrap within.

The changing export circumstances, combined with upward bound pricing for copper and aluminum, have led to vigorous interest in expanded wire processing capacity in scrap surplus nations in North America and Europe.

United States-based Sweed Machinery, a designer and manufacturer of wire and cable processing technology and equipment, says its business activity has risen along with the price of metals and restrictions on wire scrap trading imposed by some nations that formerly imported the material.

“We relate a portion of the overall increase in quote request volume to changes in the export market,” says Christopher Simon, who is in charge of recycling systems sales for the company. “More customers understand they must process their wire packages prior to export. There are fewer options to export wire bales,” he adds.

Melissa Tally, marketing manager for Sweed, says that while processors at firms in scrap surplus nations such as the United States might have thought of import limitations imposed by other nations as “a setback initially, it has actually provided North American processors with new opportunities.”

She adds, “Scrap dealers who may have previously exported their baled scrap are now preparing it first and taking advantage of the higher aluminum prices. In the past two years, Sweed has seen a 74 percent increase in inquiries” for its ACSR (aluminum cable-steel reinforced) equipment line.

Tally says 77 percent of those inquiries were from North America. “These inquiries were solely for our linear ACSR system and don’t even include the companies processing ACSR with bulk mixed materials in wire chopping lines. The interest is strong.”

Processors in developed nations in Europe and North America keep a close eye on the profitability of extracting copper and aluminum from scrap wire and cable in their own plants versus baling it to ship overseas. The critical factor can involve the percentage of metal included in the wire.

Simon says, “We are not aware of a specific copper content percentage overall [desired by recyclers], but we see two related trends. One, lower quality material can have a better margin due to the already high buy price for baled high-grade wire. Two, volume and consistency can justify running low-copper content materials.”

Sweed and other equipment producers offer a variety of equipment to help scrap processors boost their in-house capabilities to separate the metal interiors of wire and cable scrap from the plastic coatings on the outside.

Processors might need despoiling equipment before they get to the chopping stage, Simon and Tally say. “We despool the ACSR with our 5703 XHD scrap chopper, and our magnetic inline belt (MIB) conveyor separates the steel from the aluminum,” Tally says of technology offered by Sweed.

The company also makes equipment designed to handle baled material, Simon adds. “When our customers need to process whole bales, we offer our dual-shear, slow-speed, high-toque shredders that easily process entire bales."

Tally says manufacturers increasingly seek to offer systems that can convert lower metals-content wire scrap into high-purity melt shop feedstock. “Depending on space requirements, Sweed’s inline ACSR system can be coupled with a high-intensity rare earth magnet secondary pass system taking product purity to 99.99 percent."

Tally adds, “This ensures the end product is virtually free of ferrous material that may downgrade and prevent it from selling at optimal market value. The beauty of Sweed’s ACSR system is that it can be configured as a stationary, mobile or skidded system, or even integrated into a full wire chopping line, depending on the customer’s need.”

With metals prices remaining lofty, Simon says he sees the path forward for wire processing systems remaining wide open, especially for processors with a consistent inbound flow of materials. “Due to chemistry characteristics, if a customer has a lot of the same type of low-copper wire, this consistency can increase the finished product value and justify processing,” he remarks.

The program opens a new supply channel for refurbishers in the country.

Back Market, an online renewed electronics marketplace, has launched its BuyBack program in the U.S. The program allows Back Market customers to sell their devices directly to a network of professional refurbishers for the most competitive rates, according to the company, to bolster the circular economy and prolong the lives of electronics.  

The devices that qualify for the program include phones, laptops, earbuds and gaming consoles. Those interested in participating in the program can go to Back Market's website.  

The program opens another supply channel for refurbishers or ITAD companies on Back Market looking for devices, says Lauren Benton, general manager at Back Market. 

“Our BuyBack program is a win-win for everyone,” Benton says. “For customers, it’s a convenient and fast way to sell their used electronics. For our refurbishers, it’s access to another supply channel of used electronics to restore and sell. This keeps devices in circulation and out of landfills while continuing to feed Back Market’s pipeline of high-quality renewed devices.” 

Back Market says a new phone releases 190 pounds of carbon emissions in its lifetime, while a refurbished smartphone only produces 15 pounds. That same smartphone also uses up 21,741 gallons of water in the process of mining for raw materials and manufacturing. A renewed smartphone’s footprint is a fraction of that, the company says. 

Americans discard 416,000 cellphones every day, according to Back Market. It is estimated that upwards of 100 million devices are sitting in drawers across the country. Back Market’s BuyBack program aims to get more of these items back in circulation by making it easy and lucrative for current owners to sell them to refurbishers. 

Customers can complete an online assessment of their devices, including brands, models, storage capacities and condition, and get the best offer among the bids placed by Back Market’s refurbishers. While bids may fluctuate based on market demand, this structure gives an opportunity for customers to receive competitive offers for their items, the company says. 

Customers receive cash in their bank accounts once they have mailed in their devices and the refurbishers have confirmed that the devices are as described in the assessment.