Company’s SRP-W model touted as ideal for ASR and wire chopping applications.

Bradenton, Florida-based SGM Magnetics Corp. describes its Model SRP-W magnet separator as a “new magnetic circuit providing unique magnetic attraction performance.” The company says the device with a 12-inch diameter magnetic head pulley “is ideal to optimize contact and minimize the air gap between material to be attracted and the pulley magnet.”

SGM says the SRP-W is ideal for the removal of ferrous and lightly magnetic material, and is especially suited for removing lightly magnetic pieces of stainless steel (which can aid in the protection of granulator blades) in the sorting of auto shredder residue (ASR) and chopped, insulated copper wire (ICW).

SGM further describes the SRP-W as an ultra-high gradient magnetic head pulley mounted on its own frame, supplied with its own belt, which it says is “typically much thinner than traditional conveyor belts.”

The device, which is available in widths from 40 to 68 inches, also can be equipped with an optional take-away conveyor belt and an adjustable splitter. The control panel can help operators adjust the belt speed from 180 to 500 feet per minute for ferrous material removal at a speed of 60 to 120 feet per minute to detect contaminants before a chopping process.

The combination of a large diameter head pulley, together with the use of what SGM calls a peak performance generation of neodymium magnet blocks, along with a thin belt and a special magnetic circuit design, optimizes the gradient and ferrous attraction of the SRP-W separators.

Additional, optional features available from SGM on the SRP-W include:

European sorting technology provider says it is committed to its long-term development in China.

Norway-based TOMRA, which established its first subsidiary in China in 2010, says it has made a long-term commitment to that nation’s business community with recent investments in research and production capacity.

TOMRA says it has three businesses operating in China: Recycling Sorting, Beverage Container Collection and Food Sorting and Grading and. The company says its business activity in China ranges from business development, product management, R&D, assembly, sales, service and application validation in local test centers.

Referring to TOMRA’s contribution to China’s sustainable development efforts, Jacob Rognhaug, general manager at TOMRA China, says, “At TOMRA, we are dedicated to optimizing resource productivity with sensor-based technology, and our solutions can answer some of the main challenges that China is facing today. That’s why we have been increasing our financial investment in China while also investing a considerable amount of time in achieving a better understanding of the local market. I’m confident our technology can contribute significantly to China’s goal of sustainable development.”

In 2017, TOMRA invested to expand its manufacturing site in Kunshan, Jiangsu Province, to more than 11,000 square meters (118,000 square feet). Additionally, the company says it has enhanced its engineering capability in China by extending its technology center in Xiamen, Fujian Province, to support product and application development. Today, the technology center in Xiamen covers 5,000 square meters (53,800 square feet), hosting about 150 employees, tripling the number of staff employed there in 2015.

“Since we first established a branch in Xiamen in 2010, TOMRA has made great progress in China,” says Rognhaug. “The TOMRA brand is increasingly recognized in the local market, and TOMRA’s technical advantages in achieving the goal of sustainable development are welcomed as a valuable contribution. With a spirit of innovation and a strong commitment to China, we look forward to a future that is win-win.”

Germany-based TOMRA Sorting Recycling designs and makes sensor-based sorting technologies for the global recycling and waste management industry, having installed some 5,500 systems in nearly 80 countries worldwide.

117 representatives gather for NGR demonstration of new PET recycling method.

More than 117 representatives of the plastics industry from 24 countries gathered for a demonstration of the new Liquid State Polycondensation (LSP) method of PET recycling developed by Austrian-based Next Generation Recycling Machines (NGR). The demonstration took place Nov. 8.

In cooperation with German-based Kuhne Group, NGR says it has developed an “innovative“ recycling process for polyethylene terephthalate (PET) that opens up “new possibilities for the plastics industry.“

"The fact that representatives of the world's largest plastics companies joined us in Feldkirchen shows that with the Liquid State Polycondensation we at NGR have developed an innovation that will help to get the worldwide problem of plastic waste under control," says NGR CEO Josef Hochreiter.

PET is a thermoplastic that is widely used in beverage bottles and numerous other food contact applications, as well as in the manufacture of textiles. Previous methods of recycling PET back to near-virgin quality have shown limitations, NGR says.

In the LSP process, achieving food grade standards, decontamination and rebuilding of the molecular chain structure takes place in the liquid phase of PET recycling. The process allows for “lower scrap streams“ to be recycled to“higher value recycling products."

NGR says the process provides controlled mechanical properties of the recycled PET. LSP can be used to process co-polymer forms of PET and polyolefin contents, as well as PET and PE compounds, which “was not possible with conventional recycling processes."

At the demonstration, melt passed through the LSP reactor and was processed to FDA approved film. The films are mainly used for thermoforming applications, NGR says.

“Our customers worldwide now have an energy-efficient, alternative solution in order to produce highly-sophisticated packaging films out of PET with originally bad physical properties,“ says Rainer Bobowk, division manager at Kuhne Group.

BioCapital Holdings says it has designed a plastic-free, compostable single-use coffee cup.

Houston-based BioCapital Holdings says it has designed a plastic-free to-go coffee cup that is compostable and can thus cut into the estimated total of some 600 billion “cups and containers that end up in landfills around the world each year.”

The company says it is “hoping to secure a grant funded by Starbucks and McDonald’s, among other industry leaders [to] create a prototype for the recently announced NextGen Cup Challenge.”

“I was very surprised to learn about the enormous number of cups going into landfills each year when I first researched this initiative,” says Charles Roe, a senior vice president at BioCapital Holdings. “As a coffee drinker myself, it never occurred to me the plastic liner in the fiber cups most companies use could present such a huge recycling hurdle.”

Roe says he learned that although such cups are fiber-based, they use a thin plastic liner tightly attached to the cup to help prevent leaks. This liner makes the cup very difficult to recycle and can cause it to “take about 20 years to decompose.”

Says Roe, “Our company already had developed an organic foam material that can be molded into a soft or hard BioFoam for mattresses and wood substitutes. I approached our chief scientist to find out if we could adapt this existing material to a cup that eliminated the need for a petroleum-based liner.”

He continues, “One week later, he created a prototype that effectively held hot liquids. Not only did we now have a prototype, but a few months later our research showed this natural-based cup, when crushed into pieces or composted, was great as a plant fertilizer supplement. He had created a natural cup to drink your beverage of choice and then use it for plant food in your garden.”

Roe and BioCapital contend the new cup can address both design and recoverability issues facing current cups. “Except for a handful of specialized facilities in a few major cities, existing recycling plants around the world are not equipped to consistently or cost-effectively separate the fiber from the plastic liner” in currently used cups, states BioCapital in a news release. “Thus, most of these cups end up as waste. Compounding the issue, the material that is recovered from fiber cups doesn't sell for much, so there is little financial incentive for the industry to recycle.”

The NextGen Cup Challenge will select the top 30 designs in December, and six finalists will be announced in February 2019. These six companies will have the opportunity to work with a wider pool of corporations to scale production of their cup ideas.

BioCapital Holdings describes itself as a bio-engineering start-up that strives to produce compounds and materials that are biodegradable and friendly to the environment, with applications in several industry sectors.

Opening of the Fiberight plant has been delayed nearly a year.

Construction of a waste processing facility in Hampden, Maine, that’s been nearly two years in the making is scheduled to wrap up by the end of March, according to an article in the Bangor Daily News.

The completion time is nearly a full year after the waste processing and refining facility was supposed to begin receiving waste from more than 100 towns and cities in Maine.

The facility, a project between Catonsville, Maryland-based Fiberight LLC and the nonprofit that represents solid waste interests of about 115 Maine communities called the Municipal Review Committee (MRC), will turn municipal solid waste into biofuels. Fiberight broke ground on the facility in early 2017, and it’s cost nearly $70 million to build. It will feature Fiberight’s first full-scale biofuels and biogas processing systems.

Fiberight CEO Craig Stuart-Paul said the plant should be ready to accept waste in April, but he cautioned that the timeline could stretch longer in case other issues arise, like a change in equipment, which could push date back to May.

Officials have attributed the delay to multiple factors, including weather that slowed construction last winter, a legal challenge to the project’s environmental permits and a changing market for recycled goods.

The plant was originally scheduled to start accepting waste in April 2018.

The 144,000-square-foot facility will feature technologies from CP Group, San Diego, for recovering recyclables and preparing residual waste for further processing on-site. A MRF will take up one end of the plant and will be used to sort recyclables and garbage. Residual waste at the facility will be processed by Fiberight’s technology, upgrading the municipal solid waste (MSW) residue into industrial bioenergy products.

Construction on the back end of the plant is still wrapping up, where waste will be process in a pulper and a 600,000-gallon anaerobic digestion tank. Fiberight’s proprietary anaerobic digestion and biogas technology will convert organic waste to biofuel and refined bioproducts.