The company will build an advanced plastics recycling plant in China.

Honeywell, with headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina, has announced that China Tianying Inc. (CNTY), an international environmental management company headquartered in Hai’an City in the Jiangsu province of China, will apply Honeywell’s UpCycle Process Technology in the plastics recycling facility it has planned for Jiangsu. The facility will use Honeywell’s UpCycle Process Technology to convert mixed plastics into recycled polymer feedstock (RPF). This will be the first commercial facility to use Honeywell’s UpCycle Process Technology in China.

Unlike Honeywell’s earlier announcements about the joint ventures it has formed with Avangard Innovative in the U.S. and Sacyr in Spain that will deploy UpCycle Process Technology, the company is not forming a joint venture with CNTY.

Kevin Quast, global business lead, Honeywell Plastic Circularity Business, tells Recycling Today, “Honeywell UOP’s strength is in licensing new technologies, not in the owning and operating of assets. The primary business model for Honeywell UOP is licensing, engineering and services rather than joint ventures. Given that the UpCycle Process Technology is a new technology that Honeywell UOP is commercializing, Honeywell UOP chose to explore joint venture opportunities with a couple of customers.”

Honeywell UOP will provide CNTY related engineering work and technical services for the project up to its startup and commissioning. The company also will provide technical support services for the plant's operation, optimization, monitoring and maintenance during its lifetime.  

CNTY intends to apply Honeywell UpCycle Process Technology in building more waste plastics recycling plants in the future based on the success of this project, according to a news release issued by Honeywell. The two parties also explore potential collaboration in various fields, including end-of-life plastics pretreatment and pyrolysis equipment manufacturing. 

“Honeywell’s UpCycle Process Technology not only expands the types of recyclable plastics that help close the loop within the plastics supply chain but also helps minimize consumption of fossil fuels over the course of virgin plastics production, reducing the carbon footprint,” says Vimal Kapur, the Houston-based president and CEO of Honeywell Performance Materials and Technologies. “We are glad to collaborate with CNTY on commercializing this innovative technology in China. Its application addresses challenges posed by waste plastics and promotes a circular economy in China and the world, enabling a more sustainable future of plastics industry.”

Honeywell’s UpCycle Process Technology uses molecular conversion, pyrolysis and contaminants management technology to convert end-of-life plastic back to Honeywell RPF, which is then used to create new plastics. The UpCycle Process Technology expands the types of plastics that can be recycled to include colored, flexible, multilayered packaging and polystyrene. When used in conjunction with other chemical and mechanical recycling processes, along with improvements to collection and sorting, Honeywell says its UpCycle Process Technology has the potential to increase the amount of global plastic waste that can be recycled to 90 percent. 

Indiana-based metals recycler donates to Christian organization providing relief to war refugees from Ukraine.

Indianapolis-based Trinity Metals has announced making a $50,000 donation to Colorado-based Torchbearers International. The recycling company describes Torchbearers as a Christian ministry currently providing support for Ukrainian refugees who have fled their home country due to the Russian attacks.

“Any financial reserves we had available to us this spring were running short due to the pandemic,” says Peter Reid General Director of Torchbearers International. “It was [Trinity Metals’] gift that allowed us to reach out in ways which would not have been possible otherwise,” he adds.

Throughout the past few months, Torchbearers International has taken in a group of Ukrainian refugees at some of its European centers. When the Ukrainians arrived, they brought little with them, according to Trinity Metals.

“Many knew of no one in their new country, [and] those with health challenges such as diabetes were left without the means to receive the medication or treatment they needed,” says the company. Torchbearers has been seeking to help the refugees and provide for their medical needs, in part thanks to the contribution from Trinity Metals.

“We strive to run Trinity Metals and guide our personal lives to the best of our ability in accordance with Judeo-Christian principles,” says Wade Conner, CEO of Trinity Metals, who calls the donation “an easy decision.”

He adds, “We want to live out those values through everything we do. We felt strongly that the crisis in Ukraine demanded a tangible and significant response from us—and we wanted to help in any way we could.”

Torchbearers International describes itself as having 25 centers in the Americas, Europe, Asia and the Pacific, designed in part to offer a variety of biblical courses, conferences and training for men and women.

Trinity Metals describes itself as a wholesaler and processor specializing in upgrading nonferrous scrap metals to their highest value using the best practices and technology available.

Aluminum producer says it will invest more than $50 million to expand scrap melting capacity in Pennsylvania.

Norway-based aluminum producer Norsk Hydro ASA says it will make a $51.3 million investment in its extrusion plant in Cressona, Pennsylvania, to “expand the site’s recycling capabilities, which include remelt and extrusion billet casting, producing low-carbon aluminum products.”

The announcement follows quickly on the heels of other capacity expansion projects in the United States, in Henderson, Kentucky, and in Cassopolis, Michigan.

The Cressona project is expected to be fully operational in late 2024 and will expand Cressona’s casting capacity by more than 50,000 metric tons, Hydro says. “The investment will allow for a significant increase in use of pre- and postconsumer aluminum scrap and will support the plant in achieving a 5 percent reduction in the average carbon footprint of its extrusion billet,” the firm states.

“The ability to cast our own extrusion billet is extremely important,” says Paul Warton, an executive vice president with Hydro Extrusions. “This investment will strengthen our ability to produce innovative alloys and offer our customers products with a high recycled content and lower carbon footprint. We anticipate strong demand for these locally supplied greener products in the future and are excited to help drive the circular economy in North America.”

In addition to pointing to the Cassopolis project, Hydro Extrusions says it has recently invested $27.7 million to upgrade its scrap-melting extrusion plant in The Dalles, Oregon. Part of that upgrade was tied to meeting emissions standards set by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

Canada-based electronics recycler acquired by JX Nippon Mining & Metals Corp.

Tokyo-based JX Nippon Mining & Metals Corp. says it has acquired full ownership of Mississauga, Ontario-based eCycle Solutions Inc. JX has acquired eCycle from Montreal-based Horizon Capital Holdings.

JX describes eCycle as a collector and processor of electronic scrap and provider of information technology asset disposal (ITAD) services “with eight operating sites in Canada [and] strong collection networks.” JX says eCycle is Canada’s “largest e-waste recycler in terms of market share.”

The company adds, “ECycle facilitates effective use of a wide variety of resources by providing services including ITAD and processing of discarded plastics. ITAD, in particular, offers good prospects for growth, fueled by an anticipated increase in demand for appropriate disposal of used household appliances and electronic devices.”

Although California-based ERI Inc. remains a large-volume player in North America’s electronics recycling and ITAD space, considerable capacity also is in the hands of overseas firms. Singapore-based TES (itself now owned by South Korea-based SK ecoPlant) has considerable market share in the U.S., as does Australia-based Sims Ltd. via its Sims Lifecycle Services subsidiary. Last month, South Korea-based Korea Zinc purchased a majority stake in e-scrap smelter operator Igneo Technologies of White Plains, New York, which has an electronics recycling business that operates under the name Evterra .

Regarding its entry into the North American e-scrap market, JX says it is part of a strategy to make its metals and recycling operations more competitive and to realize “sustainable copper.” The firm continues, “In order to be able to do this, we undertake ‘green-hybrid smelting,’ whereby the ratio of recycled materials incorporated during copper smelting is dramatically increased. As competition to obtain recycled raw materials intensifies globally, the company's entry into the recycling business (involving collection, dismantling and sorting of waste) through its acquisition of eCycle’s shares will play a major role in ensuring the company can continue to procure recycled materials reliably over the long term.”

JX adds, “Going forward, the company aims, together with eCycle, to create a recycling supply chain with manufacturers of electric and electronic devices and utilizes eCycle’s network to collect even more recycled materials from North America.”

The company says the functionality provides recyclers and ITAD service providers with secure and automated data sanitization capabilities for Chromebook devices.

Extreme Protocol Solutions (EPS), a data erasure and computer life cycle services company based in Uxbridge, Massachusetts, has updated its EPS License Server used for network boot erasure on laptops, desktops and servers. The server now supports Chromebook sanitization, diagnostics and automated ChromeOS updating.

The company says the functionality provides various organizations, including corporations, recyclers and information technology asset disposition (ITAD) service providers secure and automated data sanitization capabilities for Chromebook devices.

“We’ve seen a huge shift to Chromebooks at not only the academic level but also as a cost-effective alternative for corporations whose remote workforces require the connectivity and collaboration capabilities that Chromebooks are built for,” says Brent Burkholder, an EPS vice president. “As the market for these devices grows, so will the need to handle their end-of-use case before reuse or resale.”

The automation of the process reduces touches and time spent erasing each device, EPS says. It also allows for automated updating of the current ChromeOS to the latest available without the need for complete reimaging. Once data has been sanitized, a secure, signed certificate of erasure is automatically generated. The same data can be automatically uploaded to any database or enterprise resource planning (ERP) system as digital proof of sanitization.

“Because this is so configurable, the process could range between a minute or two to thirty minutes once developer mode is entered and the solution is launched,” says Roger Gagnon, president of EPS.  

Gagnon says the new service not only erases data but also tests the CPU, memory, battery and storage device to ensure that the device meets all the expectations of its next home.  In addition, EPS now offers integrated R2v3 certificiation-compliant cosmetic grading that provides information needed to weed out damaged systems and it does this with the same licenses used for its network-based erasure solution.

Pricing is dependent on the volume of licenses purchased. The same license can erase a laptop, desktop, server, networking device or Chromebook. Since the new offering uses the same licensing model as these other asset types, no additional investment is required until those licenses run out, says EPS. For new clients, the service cost varies based on the volume of licenses purchased and what capabilities are used.

“All of our solutions and services are designed around the concept of reuse,” Burkholder says. “We strive to provide our customers with every tool possible to keep technology in the hands of users and out of landfills.”