The SSSC Stainless Steel Separation Conveyor includes a patent pending magnetic grid design.

Bunting Magnetics Co., Newton, Kansas, a manufacturer of conveyor systems, has introduced its SSSC Stainless Steel Separation Conveyor to the market. The company says the separation conveyor expands its reach in the auto shredding residue (ASR) industry by allowing users to separate work-hardened stainless steel and to purify zurik fractions and for use in wire-chopping applications.

Bunting says the heart of the system is the patent-pending magnetic grid core design. The configuration of high-strength neodymium magnets allows work-hardened irregularly shaped stainless steel – up to 5 inches in size – to be attracted, held and extracted from the customer’s product recycling stream.

“Our HISC (High Intensity Separation Conveyor), the first of its kind in the industry, does an outstanding job separating smaller fraction stainless steel,” says Don Suderman, Bunting product manager, material handling. “We took our innovation further with the SSSC Stainless Steel Separation Conveyor. The unique high-intensity gauss grid provides maximum holding force and the ability to catch paramagnetic work-hardened stainless steel at larger sizes that were previously impossible to separate. It truly raises the bar by leveraging new designs and technology and fortifies our leading position in recycling.”

With the new SSSC Stainless Steel Separation Conveyor customers are promised the purest product possible in several applications, including insulated copper wire purification, when the machine pulls out stainless steel shielding of chopped wire; cleaning wire from stainless steel contamination; and steel wire ends from clean copper.

“Even the smallest bits of stainless steel can cause damage to equipment down the product stream and lower the value of recycled product,” says Suderman. “It is imperative that we help our customers achieve maximum purity, and our family of stainless steel separation conveyors does just that. They are particularly effective in zurik purification when teamed with our redesigned eddy current separator, powerful drum magnets or our CrossBelt overhead magnetic separator.”

Bunting Magnetics also incorporates several design features that maximize the SSSC Stainless Steel Separation Conveyor’s functionality, including a long-lasting urethane belt with 3/16-inch steel sideguards to seal off and contain the flow; heavy-duty 3/16-inch steel construction with forklift slots for easier installation; custom sizes available up to 72 inches wide by 120 inches long to fit any application; standard 8-inch magnetic pulley diameter for extreme effectiveness; optional variable frequency drive to optimize separation for belt speeds between 60 and 200 feet per minute; and an optional splitter to separate the stainless steel fraction and nonmagnetic material.

Coca-Cola, Nestlé Waters North America, the PepsiCo Foundation and the Wal-Mart Foundation are supporting the education initiative.

Pictured above, from left: Jim Winkler, vice president and regional general manager, Wal-Mart; Bruce Karas, vice president, environment and sustainability, The Coca-Cola Co.; Scott Henzi, regional vice president, PepsiCo; Nelson Switzer, chief sustainability officer, Nestle Waters North America; Karen West, executive director, Keep Genesee County Beautiful; Pamela Haldy, superintendent, Ritchfield Public Academy; and Sharrece Farris, deputy superintendent, Flint Community Schools. (Photo by Chris Farina, Futura Photography)

The Coca-Cola Co., Nestlé Waters North America, the PepsiCo Foundation and the Wal-Mart Foundation say they have partnered to fund an integrated recycling education and awareness initiative for the 10,000 school students affected by the Flint, Michigan, water crisis, led by Stamford, Connecticut-based national nonprofit Keep America Beautiful (KAB) and its local Flint affiliate, Keep Genesee County Beautiful (KGCB).

In January 2016, the four companies said they would provide up to 6.5 million bottles of safe and clean drinking water to Flint school students. From the outset of the program, they have been providing for the storage and delivery of the bottled water and for the transportation of the empty water bottles for recycling.

The new initiative provides funding for a multitiered educational approach aimed at increasing the number of plastic bottles that are recycled within school grounds and to create opportunities to provide students, teachers and staff with the knowledge and the passion to recycle at home, at school and on-the-go, KAB says.

“Keep America Beautiful is thrilled to receive broad support from a host of partners in our efforts to educate, motivate and activate Flint’s students, teachers and the broader school community to properly recycle the tremendous amount of material that is being generated,” says Brenda Pulley, senior vice president, recycling, KAB. “This is a great opportunity for us to work closely with Keep Genesee County Beautiful to make a meaningful difference in improving recycling throughout Flint and to teach the next generation of environmental stewards the benefits of recycling and how to recycle right.”

The K-12 school-based program objectives are to:

“Promoting recycling education and infrastructure to Flint schools in partnership with Keep America Beautiful is important and something we are actively engaged in,” says Aaron Stallings, Wal-Mart market manager for the north central division. “We see this program contributing to a more resilient and sustainable Flint.”

Bruce Karas, vice president, environment and sustainability, the Coca-Cola Co. North America, says, “The Coca-Cola Co. understands the importance of ongoing support for the residents of the city of Flint. Providing water for daily use was the first step and the promotion of recycling and recycling education round out this support. We must all do our part to ensure that residents’ needs are met and the City of Flint returns to the viable and vibrant city we all know it can be.”

“Water is a human right, and as soon as the PepsiCo team learned about Flint and their drinking water supply, we reached out to be part of creating sustainable, local solutions,” says Tim Carey, senior director sustainability and recycling, PepsiCo. “We all want to be part of communities with abundant natural resources, so PepsiCo is pleased to support the City of Flint and other partners to give back to Genesee County. We’re striving to collect every bottle and every can as part of this powerful partnership.”

Nelson Switzer, chief sustainability officer for Nestlé Waters North America, says, “Access to clean, safe drinking water is the right of every man, woman and child. That is why helping our neighbors in Flint is something we've been proud to do. But our shared commitment doesn’t end there. We now need to work together so the bottles the coalition used to deliver safe drinking water are recovered and recycled. Together with our coalition partners and the families of Flint, we are very pleased to kick-start a massive recycling opportunity.”

KAB says it is working with KGCB to tailor the recycling educational lesson plans, tools and activities for Flint’s students, while KGCB staff and volunteers conduct ongoing recycling education and program implementation. Resources include take-home materials designed to bring the school education and experience home, reaching families in their residences to also enhance curbside recycling participation.

“Since this crisis began, Keep Genesee County Beautiful has been the ‘go-to’ recycling resource for the Flint community,” says Karen West, program director/lead consultant, KGCB. “We help Flint residents cope with the water crisis by raising awareness and educating residents about the benefits of recycling, by signing up residents for curbside recycling and being a pickup point for recycling bins.

“We are incredibly grateful for this financial support and appreciate the opportunity to work with Keep America Beautiful and the students and staff of Flint schools to encourage, educate and engage the community in recycling,” West continues.

KAB says it is providing materials from its Waste in Place curriculum; its “I Want To Be Recycled” public service advertising campaign; Recycle-Bowl, its national in-school K-12 recycling competition; America Recycles Day and other resources as part of the overall programming to improve the in-school recycling rate.

Equipment supplier says its sales have benefited from the increased interest.

Columbus McKinnon Corp. (CM), Sarasota, Florida, says it has received a substantial increase in sales inquiries regarding the tire pyrolysis and gasification market, helping to increase sales of size reduction equipment from the company.

CM General Manager Charles Astafan says numerous pyrolysis and gasification systems are available and the technology can vary substantially. Therefore, the feed stock required for each plant can vary as well.

Some systems can accept a mix of passenger car and truck tires, while others only accept passenger tires because of the different materials used to produce these types of tires, Columbus McKinnon says. Some reactors can accept larger chips with wire in them, while others require that the wire be removed and that the particle size is more defined.

CM says its wide array of equipment specifically designed for tire recycling gives it the ability to provide systems that satisfy a wide variety of requirements for this market. The company says it has supplied systems that produce chips ranging from 50 millimeters to 25 millimeters in size with steel in them as well as systems that produce steel-free rubber chips.

Most recently CM has supplied a turnkey installation for one for what it describes as a “state-of-the-art” pyrolysis systems in Europe. The system can produce 25-millimeter wire-free rubber that will be used as feed stock for the reactor.

The company says it was selected because it could supply a turnkey system capable of processing passenger car and truck tires to a size larger than 25 millimeters, producing wire-free rubber and clean steel with a purity level greater than 96 percent.

The system consists of four major components. A CM Primary Shredder and External Classifier processes whole passenger car and truck tires to 150 millimeter chips. These chips are then feed to a CM 4R Rotor Liberator, which liberates the wire fraction from the rubber and sizes the rubber. Liberated materials are processed by the CM Zero Waste wire cleaning system, which separates the rubber and steel fractions. An air handling system captures the nylon material that is separated during the process and also removes excess nylon fiber from the wire. The rubber is fed directly to silos where it is being stored prior to being feed into the reactors. As a result of its purity level, the wire is being sold to the steel industry, CM says.

U.K.-based packaging firm will invest £4 million in recycling facilities.

The U.K.-based packaging firm DS Smith,the U.K.’s largest paper recycling firm, has announced plans to invest £4 million ($5 million) at its recycling facilities in the southwest of England and East London.

The company, which operates 10 recycling facilities in the U.K., is currently going through the planning process at the sites, with the aim of increasing its coverage across the south of England and improving the management of material quality in the U.K.

Following the investment, DS Smith’s East London facility will move to a shared site with the company’s facility in Maidstone, Kent, U.K., while DS Smith’s West London recycling site will remain unaffected. The company says this move will allow it to increase its coverage across England’s southeast while continuing to serve the London area.

“This investment will improve our ability to manage material directly into the mill at Maidstone due to its proximity,” says Matthew Prosser, DS Smith Recycling U.K. managing director.

Meanwhile, the southwest of England facility will move from Keynsham to Avonmouth.

“The Avonmouth site is a perfect logistics hub that will give us scope for improved recycling operations as well as providing better access to serve our customer base throughout Wales and the south, including key commercial areas of Cardiff, Bristol, Swindon and Gloucester,” says Prosser. “Changes to both facilities will increase our ability to reach more customers and process more tonnes.”

The company says the investment will allow it to expand its recycling processing services beyond fibre, of which the company collects and manages more than 2 million tonnes annually in the U.K., most which is supplied directly to its recycled paperboard mill in Kemsley, U.K.

The investment will allow the company to handle a wider range of fibre, along with processing plastics and other materials, including nonrecyclables.

“We have been sending a clear message to local authorities that we have an appetite for their paper and card recycling streams, particularly when it is of the right quality,” Prosser notes.

“The quality of our fibre is key to our operations, and we have two sets of customers to manage: ‘supply’ customers, [from whom] we source our paper and card and ‘mill’ customers, with whom we need to supply recycled fibres for reprocessing. We work with our supply customers to help them produce quality materials for recycling, which also helps them realize operational efficiencies and better material values,” Prosser continues.

“Supplying good quality recycling into our mill customers makes their production operations run more efficiently and reduces rejects through contamination. Controlling the fibre streams is crucial to our closed-loop recycling and packaging offering," he adds. 

The investments are expected to be complete by the first half of this year and the company says the new facilities will be fully operational by spring 2017.