Facility in the Southeast will have the capacity to recycle 78 million gallons per year.

Paramus, New Jersey-based Koch Modular Process Systems LLC has announced it will be part of a team supporting the ReGen III Oil Corp. project to build a used motor oil re-refinery facility to be located in the U.S. Gulf Coast region.

Koch Project Solutions will provide “project execution management services” for the new facility, while Koch Modular will work with a firm called Process Dynamics Inc. to provide the design, engineering and delivery of modular process systems to be installed within ReGen III’s new USGC re-refinery, according to Koch Modular.

The re-refinery is being designed to clean and process approximately 78 million gallons of used motor oils per year. ReGen III says the plant “advances the circular economy, making higher and better use of the materials present in the market and directly offsetting the need for virgin materials.”

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada-based ReGen III also says it has signed a definitive, multi-year offtake agreement with BP for the purchase of all re-refined oil created at the Gulf Coast plant.

“We are honored to be part of this innovative re-refinery project with ReGen III that will be a game changer for the way future used motor oils are cleaned and re-processed,” says George Schlowsky, president of Koch Modular. “Not only are we excited to bring our knowledge and expertise to the table, but we believe that together we are making more efficient use of resources to create additional value in society.”

Says Paul Switzer, president of Koch Project Solutions, “Koch Project Solutions continues to help innovative companies bring superior technologies to market. Innovations like ReGen III mine value from waste products and returns them to beneficial use.”

Company says its Novodur ECO resins are ideal for automotive applications.

The Ineos Styrolution business unit of global petrochemical firm Ineos is introducing its Novodur ECO ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) and Novodur ECO High Heat resins at a trade fair in Germany this week.

The company says the grades are made from mechanically recycled postconsumer plastic, adding the Novodur ECO ABS product will contain up to 70 percent recycled material and ECO HH will be made from up to 40 percent recycled material.

“The new materials offer identical mechanical properties as their virgin equivalents, making them drop-in solutions for application developers,” the company states. Ineos Sytrolutions says prospective automotive applications include center consoles, radiator grills and mirror housings.

The Novodur grades will be available in “pure white, cream or traffic blue as well as customer-specific colors,” the company adds. An option for self-coloring also will be offered.

“We invite automotive and household application developers to explore the new grades,” states Marcela Villegas, a director of commercial product management specialties at Ineos. “They tick all the boxes: High-quality material for high-quality applications, drop-in solution for easy processing and contribution to our customers’ sustainability goals.”

Nils Wittenberg, an Ineos technical product manager, says, “We are very excited to introduce our first recycled ABS Specialty grades – we have more in the pipeline. Our customers want to reduce their carbon footprint and we are happy to provide solutions which can be used without any change in the process or equipment.”

Germany-based Ineos Styrolution describes itself as providing innovative and sustainable best-in-class solutions to help make the circular economy for styrenics a reality.

Kimberly-Clark effort is designed to find recycling homes for discarded PPE.

The COVID-19 epidemic has brought about a greatly increased use in personal protective equipment (PPE), including face masks and gloves designed to prevent the spread of the virus.

Recycling discarded PPE may not have been the first thing large-scale users of PPE worried about, but thought and effort was already going into how to recycle rather than discard some of this material.

Global hygiene products manufacturer Kimberly-Clark Professional introduced its RightCycle program in 2011 to collect used PPE and find recycling destinations for the considerable volumes of this material already being generated.

Recently, Recycling Today Media Group Senior Editor Brian Taylor had the opportunity to ask Mayur Valanju, a vice president of product development and innovation with Kimberly-Clark Professional, about the program’s introduction and scale.

Mayur Valanju (MV): The RightCycle program collects used PPE such as protective clothing, nitrile gloves and safety glasses. Originating in the U.S. at a few scientific manufacturing locations, the program is now available in nine countries in Europe and North America across a variety of industries, including laboratories, food processing, zoos, universities and pharmaceutical and electronics manufacturing locations.

For detailed information on the eligible products list in each of the three categories, readers can refer to this web page or this video.

MV: The materials are made of the following: apparel, polypropylene (PP); safety glasses, polycarbonate (PC); and gloves, acrylonitrile.

The used PPE is processed and densified into pellet form, which is then sold to manufacturers of consumer goods who use these pellets to produce new plastic-based products. The recycling processes for apparel, safety glasses and nitrile yield primarily PP, PC and nitrile materials that are then blended into custom resins.

The recycled pellets go into durable consumer goods such as shelving, totes, and garden furniture.

We’re proud to contribute to the circular economy by creating a solution for these previously hard-to-recycle items to be used in new products. As supply chain technologies continue to evolve, we can hopefully one day include these recycled resins back into new PPE products. The performance and regulatory requirements limit us today, but we are hopeful for continued innovation.

MV: Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, PPE usage has increased dramatically, leading to higher levels of PPE waste in the environment. According to UN News in September 2020, 75 percent of used masks are likely to end up in landfills or seas. Even in 2020, as many facilities closed, RightCycle enrolled 82 new customers globally, showing that sustainability goals are as important now as ever.

Momentum continues to build year after year of the program, expanding to new markets as capability and demand grew for this unique solution. The RightCycle program is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, and since 2011, over 800 customers have diverted more than 1,400 metric tons of waste.

Active programs are currently in place in North America and Europe, and we plan on continuing this successful program. Just in 2020, over 300 facilities participated in The RightCycle program, capturing and recycling 678,072 pounds (nearly 340 tons) of PPE waste.

PPE is a daily requirement in workplaces across the globe, protecting workers from potential hazards or, providing a barrier between workers and the ‘clean’ process, such as in cleanrooms. Much PPE is designed for limited or single use and is made of plastic. While serving a critical role, tension can be created in organizations with waste reduction goals, especially for plastic. The RightCycle program meets this critical need for customers. In fact, nearly 60 percent of the lifetime total of recycled PPE occurred in the last three years, from 2018 to 2020.

Beyond circularity benefits, the program also makes a difference in the lives of people with disabilities through its partnership with a recycling organization that provides employment for people who have survived traumatic brain injuries or have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders, learning disabilities and other conditions. These workers sort and prepare used PPE prior to its recycling.

MV: We consider it an investment to support our own sustainability goals as well as our customers’ goals. Companies who are investing in programs to divert waste from landfills see the RightCycle program as worth investing in to achieve these goals.

From a business perspective, this deepens the partnership between Kimberly-Clark Professional and customers, as those who use RightCycle represent some of our longest standing relationships. The recycler benefits from an increased amount of clean, high-quality resins/polymers being put into the supply chain.

AISI says latest weekly output is slightly lower compared with the week before.

The Washington-based American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) says raw steel production in the United States in the week ending Sept. 4 checked in at less than 1.87 million tons, which is down 0.4 percent from the previous week when production surpassed 1.87 million tons.

In the first two weeks of August weekly raw steel production in the U.S. also fell by 0.2 percent compared with the week before.

Despite a stabilization or mild downtrend in domestic steel output, the sector remains well ahead of its pace in 2020, when COVID-19 disruptions caused mill output to plummet.

Production one year ago in the week ending Sept. 4, 2020, was 1.51 million tons, representing 23.5 percent less output compared with the comparable week this year.

In early September 2020, the mill capability utilization (capacity) rate was 67.4 percent, compared with 84.5 percent in early September this year.

Year-to-date production through Sept. 4 is 63.9 million tons with an average capacity rate of 80.6 percent. Output is up 20.1 percent from the 53.2 million tons made in the first eight months of 2020, when the average capacity rate was 66.6 percent.

Globally, steel industry analysts continue to monitor the impact of a summer steelmaking slowdown in China, and whether it represents a reversal of China’s multiple decades of steel output growth.

U.K.-based paperboard producer also cites strong containerboard demand in its report to investors.

United Kingdom-based recycled-content paperboard producer DS Smith says demand for its products has been strong, but rising prices for the old corrugated containers (OCC) it buys is prompting it to charge more for its product line.

“Input costs have continued to rise, with notable increases in the cost of energy and transportation,” says Miles Roberts, DS Smith group chief executive. “Combined with the cost of OCC remaining high, this has resulted in further significant increases in the price of paper.”

Roberts also points to DS Smith’s operations in the United States as one of the bright spots for the firm. “Driven by our differentiated sustainable packaging offer, box volumes have grown very strongly versus the comparable prior-year period and also compared to the comparable period in 2019,” he comments.

Roberts adds, “Whilst this growth has been across all parts of the group it has been especially strong in the U.S. and Southern Europe and with our large FMCG [fast-moving consumer goods] multinational customers.

“I am very pleased with the progress made during the financial year to date,” Roberts says of the period starting May 1. “We have continued to build on our strong customer relationships, resulting in excellent volume growth and good progress towards recovering the significant increasing costs of production through higher prices.”

He continues, “Trading continues to progress well, in line with the trends and momentum described in our full year results on June 22, 2021.  Industrial customers have also seen significant increases in demand, but this represents a relatively small proportion of our overall customer portfolio given our development in the resilient and growing FMCG customer base.”

Looking ahead, Roberts comments, “Construction of the additional packaging manufacturing sites in Italy and Poland is proceeding to plan and they are expected to begin operations in Q4 this financial year. Both plants have already received advanced commitments from customers for over 50 percent of their capacity.  Our investment plans continue to prioritize meeting the growth of our packaging customers both for the near and medium-term.”