The contractor will provide engineering, procurement and construction services

S&B Engineers and Constructors has signed a multi-year master service agreement to provide engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services for New Hope Energy’s plastics pyrolysis unit. This partnership will initially focus on New Hope Energy’s expansion in Tyler, Texas, which S&B says will add 420 metric tons per day of capacity to convert plastic waste to chemical feedstocks in the exiting facility.

With this expansion, S&B says the Tyler plant will be able to divert more than 300 million pounds of plastic waste from landfills annually. According to S&B, the project represents a long-term alliance between the two companies.

“We look forward to the long-term program and collaborative partnership with S&B and its highly developed supply chain as we grow our advanced chemical recycling systems to create a circular economy that moves the U.S. toward a sustainable future,” says Ron Nussle, COO and president of New Hope Energy.

Full EPC services will be provided by S&B using the Lummus New Hope plastic pyrolysis technology to process plastic waste into renewable chemical feedstocks.

“We’re excited to partner with New Hope to boost its advanced recycling capacity to create solutions for plastic waste,” says Ray Sherman, president of S&B’s energy transition, power and industrial business unit.

Can maker and Manna Capital will build aluminum melt shop and rolling mill in New Mexico.

Westminster, Colorado-based Ball Corp. and Greensboro, North Carolina-based Manna Capital Partners have announced an alliance in which Manna will construct and operate a recycled-content aluminum can sheet rolling mill and melt shop in Los Lunas, New Mexico.

Ball will enter into a long-term supply agreement and also intends to take a minority equity position in the mill, says the maker of aluminum beverage cans and bottles. Manna, which describes itself as a minority-owned business enterprise and investment firm, says the announcement demonstrates both companies’ “commitment to creating a more robust and sustainable domestic supply chain for the growing beverage packaging market.”

Global aluminum can demand is expected to increase significantly by 2030, says Ball Corp., with North America estimated to account for a sizeable part of the growth. Since 2016, industry demand for beverage cans in North America has grown 24 percent from 107 billion units to approximately 133 billion units in 2021, adds the firm.

While the industry in North America sometimes imports aluminum can sheet coils to meet demand, “alliances like this one will allow Ball and its key customers to access more domestically produced aluminum can sheet,” says the firm.

“At Manna, we are always looking for new ways to invest in companies that are doing good for the planet and people, while improving opportunities that support minority owned-business enterprises,” says Ulysses L. “Junior” Bridgeman, managing partner of Manna Capital Partners. “We look forward to partnering with Ball, a leader in the beverage packaging industry, to improve supply chain efficiencies through domestic production of more sustainable aluminum,” says the former professional basketball player.

Comments Dan Fisher, president and CEO of Ball Corp., “Further increasing recycled content in our products is key to boosting our sustainability and securing domestic supply of our key raw material. This alliance complements the significant manufacturing investments Ball has made across the Southwest United States since 2020 to meet growing demand for sustainable beverage packaging, and we look forward to teaming up with Manna and its management team to help create a truly circular economy for aluminum can sheet, bring skilled jobs to the region, and help our customers meet their sustainability commitments.”

Technology Minerals Plc announced its battery recycling business unit has achieved a key step toward commencement of operations for its Wolverhampton plant.

Technology Minerals Plc, United Kingdom, announced its 49-percent-owned battery recycling business, Recyclus Group Ltd., has been awarded an environmental permit by the Environment Agency (EA) for its recycling plant in Wolverhampton, West Midlands.

The company says the permit is a key step toward commencement of operations, as it provides the critical legal foundation from which Recyclus can receive the variation of license required to enable to Wolverhampton site to be fully operational. According to Technology Minerals, the variation of license is required because of the novelty of recycling lithium-ion batteries within the U.K.

The EA also has prioritized the determination of Recyclus’ application to transfer its permits across its lithium-ion Wolverhampton plant and lead-acid Tipton plant. Technology Minerals says this priority status has been given to Recyclus as the EA is satisfied that the development of the company will help maintain national resilience, national infrastructure and/or is critical for environmental protection.

“Receiving the EA permit for our Wolverhampton plant is a critical step for the recycling facility to become fully operational which, for the first time, will bring industrial-scale recycling capability for lithium-ion batteries in the U.K.,” Technology Minerals Chairman Robin Brundle says. “To be awarded priority status and be categorized as an organization critical for environmental protection is fantastic.”

Brundle continues, “This high-level of recognition from the EA is reflective of the importance of Recyclus’ ambition to recycle batteries and establish a circular economy for battery metals in the U.K. With the increasing demand for critical battery metals, we are pleased to be seen as integral to ensuring a domestic supply chain through recycling.”

This is the second EA permit awarded to Recyclus in two weeks following the environmental permit obtained for its Tipton recycling facility earlier this month.

Once the Wolverhampton site is fully operational, it will be the first in the U.K. with the capacity to recycle lithium-ion batteries on an industrial scale and, the company says, will be a key foundation of Recyclus’ ambition to increase its lithium-ion battery recycling capacity from an estimated 8,300 metric tons in the first full year of operations to approximately 41,500 metric tons by 2027.

Steel mills are making adjustments to use more scrap, but traders worry about their ability to export the surplus.

Although ferrous scrap crossed borders in abundance in 2021, trade policy concerns emanating from Europe have recyclers and traders worried about the near-term future of the sector. The issue loomed over discussions at the Ferrous Division meeting at the 2022 Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) World Recycling Convention in late May in Barcelona. BIR attendees also heard, however, that steel mills in Europe are reconfiguring to consume more scrap on the continent.

Steelmakers in Europe will be using more scrap as they attempt to reduce the carbon footprint of their operations, said Eric Niedziela, chair of ArcelorMittal France in his guest speech at the BIR Ferrous Division meeting.

Niedziela outlined the global company’s strategy for achieving a 25 percent reduction in its CO2 emissions intensity by 2030, including a goal of 35 percent for Europe. Those plans include setting up what ArcelorMittal calls the world’s first full-scale zero-emissions steel plant by 2025 at Sestao in Spain.

Among measures designed to achieve its targets, the group envisages “a huge increase in our scrap demand” and is looking to secure its raw material supply via “acquisitions, long-term contracts, joint ventures or whatever we can discuss together,” said the executive.

Fellow guest speaker Cinzia Vezzosi, immediate past president of the European Recycling Industries’ Confederation (EuRIC), said preventing ferrous scrap from leaving Europe through a proposed revision of the EU’s Waste Shipment Regulation would leave almost 20 million metric tons of ferrous scrap looking for a new home. This would “break the circular economy chain” in Europe and lead to lower collection rates, she commented. “Shutting down this flow will create a massive earthquake in the market,” said Vezzosi.

The EuRIC officer also said there is potential for greater use of ferrous scrap in Europe since its current usage rate of 57.6 percent in 2021 was below, for example, the 69.2 percent rate achieved in the United States. She added, however, that business conducted between Europe’s scrap suppliers and consumers needed to be “absolutely fair” and “linked to international prices.”

BIR President Tom Bird insisted that the steel industry should not look to achieve its goals “at the expense of free trade in scrap.” If scrap exports were seriously compromised, he said, “recycling rates go down” and “no investment takes place within our industry,” thus negatively impacting the steel sector too.

While Niedziela questioned the validity of exporting scrap to countries that might then compete on the European steel market with more carbon-intense products, he also commented, “I’m not saying we should stop the market. We have to manage this properly in Europe.”

The 2022 BIR World Recycling Convention was May 22-25 in Barcelona.

Theresa Wagler, chief financial officer of the EAF steelmaker, says the company continues to shrink an already low carbon footprint.

Indiana-based electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmaker Steel Dynamics Inc. (SDI) continues to find new ways to convert ferrous scrap into steel products while emitting CO2 at well below the industry average, according to an executive with the company.

SDI Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Theresa Wagler tells Recycling Today the company uses from 90 to 95 percent scrap to make its rebar and other long products. The company has a growing presence in the flat-rolled steel market, and those mills utilize a mix of pig iron, direct-reduced iron (DRI) or hot briquetted iron (HBI), with scrap making from 75 to 80 percent of the feedstock in that business unit.

Copper and other residual metals found in scrap can make prime grades the only viable scrap feedstock at a sheet mill. Wagler says that grade has remained in short supply much of the past three years.

Wagler says SDI continues to work with its own OmniSource business unit and other scrap suppliers to upgrade ferrous shred to produce a grade she says is “almost like a prime type of shred.”

Maintaining and even increasing the recycled content of its steel is important not only to SDI but also to many of its customers, says the CFO, who has been with SDI since 1998.

In the construction, automotive and several other sectors, measuring carbon footprints and product life cycles has become standard, which is good news for SDI, says Wagler. “From the customer side, we are the recycled content,” she remarks. “We’re the decarbonization story already—today.”

It is unclear to what extent projects tied to the big ticket infrastructure bill will favor recycled-content steel, says Wagler. However, United States-centric “melt and pour” requirements for steel are spelled out, favoring domestic mills.

“Of the $1.2 trillion potential in the bill, some $850 billion of it has steel-containing aspects,” she comments. “Our belief is there is going to be a benefit for those of us who produce recycled steel.” Wagler says rail infrastructure also is getting a boost, and “we are the primary rail producer” in the U.S., she says, referring to SDI’s Structural and Rail Division in Columbia City, Indiana. “It’s a real leg up for us. 

Additionally, the solar and wind energy components of the bill provide demand for steel going into housings for solar panels and windmill structures.

In the automotive sector, Wagler says the recycled content of SDI steel has helped it “have traction” at service centers and with OEMs. “They want to be able to say their whole supply chain has carbon reduction or neutrality embedded,” she says of some customers.

SDI is working on creating what Wagler calls an “almost perfect closed loop system” at its Sinton, Texas, flat-rolled mill. Several manufacturers of finished products and components in both the U.S. and Mexico have agreed to supply their generated scrap directly to the mill, “eliminating carbon emissions” because of the short journey.

To supply its Sinton mill, SDI also recently purchased Monterrey, Mexico-based multilocation scrap processing firm Roca Acero S.A. de C.V. It is the second Monterrey-based scrap company acquired by SDI, following Zimmer S.A. de C.V. in early 2020.

The closed-loop arrangements, the scrap processing acquisitions and ongoing efforts to use more shredded scrap as feedstock all are part of SDI’s path to decarbonization, says Wagler.

The company’s website features a headline that reads, “Sustainable. Intentional. Transformational.” In a brief writeup headed “What we do” beneath that slogan, the steelmaker states, “We operate using a circular manufacturing model, producing lower-carbon-emission, quality steel using EAF technology with recycled ferrous scrap as the primary input.”

The visible commitment to decarbonization (and recycling) is not temporary, and SDI is backing up that commitment with action, says Wagler. “Some of our customers say our Columbus, Mississippi-based flat-roll division has the lowest SCOPE 1 [direct greenhouse gas] emissions of all their suppliers,” she comments.

More decarbonization measures are coming, says Wagler, saying SDI’s target to reach carbon neutrality by 2050 is possible, adding she also would like to see a premium price attached to low-carbon steel “one day.” Says Wagler of the feeling within SDI toward its recycling-based, low-carbon approach, “There is an incredible excitement and momentum.”