Australia-based steelmaker spotlights Ohio mill in its sustainability report.

BlueScope Steel Ltd., based in Australia, has pointed to its scrap-fed North Star electric arc furnace (EAF) mill in Ohio when announcing the release of its 2022 sustainability report. “Our growth and acquisitions in the United States have focused on the circular economy and expanding our coated and painting footprint,” the company says.

One of its most recent recycling-related growth measures has been the acquisition of the former Milliron Recycling shredder yard in Mansfield, Ohio, in August. The prior year, BlueScope North Star acquired the shredders and other ferrous recycling assets of Indiana-based MetalX.

In the early years of this decade, BlueScope also invested heavily in its Ohio North Star operations, undertaking an expansion project that will allow the company to produce an additional 850,000 tons of steel at the site annually.

In its newly released sustainability report, the company highlights the role of recycling in the overall steel industry, writing, “Today, more than 50 percent of the world’s steel is made from obsolete scrap (from end-of-life used products that have been recycled). Across BF-BOF [blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace] steelmaking and EAF steelmaking, this is expected to increase to around 67 percent in 2050 as steel stocks built up over the previous decades reach end of life.”

BlueScope then adds a note of caution, writing, “Unfortunately, current and predicted future demand for steel far exceeds the amount of steel reaching end-of-life, and therefore making its way into the scrap supply chain. Acknowledging that global scrap steel supplies are insufficient to produce enough steel through scrap based EAF steelmaking to meet expected steel demand, steel produced from virgin iron will continue to play a critical role in the future.”

Nonetheless, the company says it is “seeking opportunities to increase scrap recycling in all steelmaking locations,” and writes of its Ohio efforts that its mill there “is strategically located in Delta, Ohio, in a key scrap-rich area near its customers. BlueScope Recycling and Materials [the former MetalX assets], acquired during the year, is a full-service, ferrous scrap metal recycler with one of its two processing facilities adjacent to our North Star BlueScope Steel facility. In August 2022, a third ferrous scrap processing site [Milliron Recycling] was acquired.”

The full 72-page BlueScope 2022 sustainability report data supplement can be found here.

ISS will supply the shredder unit, 3,000-horsepower AC electric motor and variable-frequency drive.

Industrial Service Solutions (ISS), Houston, says it has contracted to install an advanced automobile shredding plant at a major recycling facility in Mexico.

The U.S.-built 7090 shredder will increase the customer’s ferrous metal recycling capacity in response to increased scrap metal demand in Latin America.

ISS will supply the shredder unit, 3,000-horsepower AC electric motor and variable-frequency drive from its Motors Center of Excellence in Houston, where engineering, integrated design and manufacturing are performed.

“Upgrading to the 7090 shredder will enable our client to both increase scrap shredding capacity and process heavier metals,” says Bill Tigner, vice president – Recycling Technologies at ISS. “The 70-inch diameter of the 7090 rotor will deliver 32 percent more hammer impact than the 6090 shredder unit it will replace. The 7090 shredder rotor is built with the same material thickness as our 80-inch mill, offering larger-format durability and performance in the footprint of the smaller current unit.”

Closed Loop Partners, working with Target, CVS Health and Walmart, has issued a guide for retailers hoping to reduce their reliance on plastic bags.

Closed Loop Partners’ Center for the Circular Economy, New York City, and the Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag have released a guide for retailers adopting reusable bag service models. The report, “Beyond the Plastic Bag,” shares insights and analysis gathered from collaborative reusable bag pilots conducted in select CVS health h, Target and Walmart stores throughout Northern California in 2021 as part of the Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag’s Beyond the Bag pilot studies.

Walmart Executive Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer for Walmart Kathleen McLaughlin calls the effort an “unprecedented platform for connectivity” among the participants in the study. “The pilots created the space for collective experimentation and provided data-driven insights on the ease, convenience and perceived benefits of the models tested,” she says. “This kind of on-the-ground diligence from pilots is critical to inform what could be next for reuse and where it could fit in a circular economy.” Approximately 100 billion single-use plastic bags, which are typically made with low-density polyethylene (LDPE) or linear-LDPE film, are used each year in the U.S., most of which end up in landfills. Reuse models can help address single-use plastic packaging waste along with other complementary waste mitigation strategies. As retailers work to respond to the challenge and address the growing number of plastic bag regulations across the U.S., the report provides key findings on what drives an optimal shopper experience and uptake of reuse models. The following study findings are important to keep in mind when considering the public:

Behind the scenes, retailers need to consider that:

“Successfully implementing reuse models on the ground and accelerating their growth takes unprecedented collaboration. Since 2018, the Center for the Circular Economy has been convening competitors to address complex material challenges and advance circular solutions, including reuse,” Managing Director of the Center for the Circular Economy at Closed Loop Partners Kate Daly says. “This collaboration with the nation’s largest retailers to test and pilot reusable bag solutions across multiple stores is a critical step toward reducing single-use plastic bag waste. Iterative testing and data-driven decision-making of reuse systems can help avoid unintended consequences like insufficient recapture of reusable packaging or the one-to-one replacement of single-use plastics with ‘reusables.’ We hope that this report on the Beyond the Bag initiative serves as inspiration for forward-thinking organizations looking to bring reuse to the next level.

The Beyond the Bag Challenge was designed as a competition to identify the most promising sustainable alternatives to plastic bag use. The consortium received about 450 submissions in the challenge and has named the following winners in no particular order:

Over the next year, the Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag will continue conducting research and in-market testing of designs and innovative bag solutions that can reduce single-use plastic bag waste. This work aims to inform the viability of solutions in different contexts, as well as the full potential of solutions to replace plastic bags as the dominant method of getting goods home.

This is the sixth consecutive year the company has received the honor.

Republic Services Inc., Phoenix, has been certified as a Great Place to Work for the sixth consecutive year. The company is the only environmental services—or “industrial services” on the organization’s website—provider with the certification, which recognizes employers who create an outstanding employee experience. “At Republic Services, we are driven by being human-centered and respecting the unique potential of every person. That’s what makes the ‘Great Place to Work’ certification so meaningful,” Republic President and CEO Jon Vander Ark says. “We continually strive to maintain a workplace where the best people come to work, grow and thrive to exceed our customers’ expectations.” Earlier this year, 4,000 randomly selected Republic Services employees rated the company as a great place to work. Other employee opinions uncovered by the survey include:

Republic Services is committed to supporting a strong culture of inclusion and celebrating the diversity of its team. The company continues to increase the diversity of its teams across all roles, including doubling the number of women in top leadership positions between 2019 and 2021. Republic also has continued its outreach to veterans. Great Place to Work is a global authority on workplace culture, employee experience and leadership behaviors proven to deliver market-leading revenue and increased innovation. Through rigorous methodology and validated employee feedback, Great Place to Work helps companies around the world survey their employees, benchmark their results, identify gaps and improve their workplace culture.

Italy-based Polimero Srl uses a mechanical process to convert plastic scrap into resin for commercial and industrial applications.

Repeats Group B.V., a Netherlands-based plastics recycling platform focused on producing high-quality recycled low-density polyethylene (LDPE), has acquired Polimero Srl, a producer of recycled LDPE based in northern Italy. The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Polimero uses a mechanical process to convert plastic scrap into resin suitable for commercial and industrial applications. As part of Repeats Group, Polimero will continue to expand its production to meet demand for recycled LDPE in Europe.

Simonetta Tiberto leads operations at Polimero, and she has been with the company since 2010. Repeats Group says she will continue to lead the company’s Italian operations.

“Polimero has a great reputation in the industry as an important player in the LDPE recycling environment in northern Italy,” says Greg Rung, CEO of Repeats Group. “We see significant opportunity for Polimero to further penetrate the Italian market by providing its clients with higher quality recycled resin. We are delighted that Simonetta and her team are joining Repeats and look forward to building on their success to date.”

Repeats Group says this acquisition will help it to expand its presence in Italy. The acquisition also expands the company’s presence as a plastics recycling platform in Europe. Prior to this announcement, Repeats Group acquired Anviplas S.L., a producer of recycled LDPE based in Spain, and Daly Plastics, a producer of recycled LDPE based in the Netherlands.

Repeats Group is a portfolio company of Ara Partners, which is a global private equity firm focused on industrial decarbonization.