The report covers CECO’s sustainability efforts and key milestones.

CECO Environmental Corp., based in Cincinnati, has published its environmental, social and governance (ESG) report. The report looks at the company’s sustainability impact and how it has helped its customers meet or exceed environmental regulations. Sustainability efforts from 2018 to 2020 and key milestones in 2021 are featured.

The report covers topics such as energy consumption and management, waste management and reductions and greenhouse gas emissions.

CECO’s Indianapolis manufacturing facility saw a drastic decrease in energy usage compared with three other U.S. facilities. The Indianapolis facility had an energy reduction of 132,000 kilowatt-hours, which CECO attributes to the conversion to LED lights, investing in efficient machine centers and improving manufacturing throughput.

The company’s Columbia, Tennessee, facility experienced a smaller decrease of at least 6 percent between 2018 and 2020. However, CECO’s Telford, Pennsylvania, and Greensboro, North Carolina, facilities both had increased energy usage from 2018.

Regarding office waste, the report says CECO has invested in recycling programs for papers, toners and other office supplies. In 2020, the company recycled 28,077 pounds of paper from their four U.S. manufacturing facilities. Their plan, according to the report, is to go 15 percent paperless in 2023. Water filtration systems have also been installed, diverting approximately 12,230 plastic bottles annually from landfills and the environment, according to the report.

The report also says that CECO repurposes and reuses scrap metal and recycles resin, fiberglass, nylon, cardboard, wood, plastics and acetone. From 2018 to 2020, the company says it recovered and reused 11,800 pounds of acetone, recycling it at a rate of about 80 percent.

Overall, the amount of recycled material at their U.S. facilities has decreased from 521.9 tons in 2019 to 472.2 tons in 2020. The 2020 rate, though, turned out higher than the 2018 rate of 346.3 tons.

At the company’s Mefiag facility in the Netherlands, scrap propylene waste resulting from manufacturing operations is sold to a third party.

To address greenhouse gas emissions, CECO has started converting diesel trucks with compressed natural gas alternatives and replaced two company fleet vehicles at their Netherlands office with full-electric and hybrid alternatives.

For more information about CECO's efforts around ESG, click here.

New features of the upgrade include a triple-deck Mach OCC screen with a fines screen underneath to remove the system fines early in the process.

Machinex, Plessisville, Quebec, has announced the launch of an upgraded a single-stream municipal recycling facility of West County Resource Recovery, located in Richmond, California. This project is the result of cooperation between Machinex and its client, Republic Services, Phoenix, to modernize the existing facility for additional sorting capacity.   

Machinex says it was chosen for this upgrade thanks to its capacity to provide and deliver a turnkey solution that increases tonnage while having the same number of sorters.   

The company says this design was specifically designed to face the challenges of the existing building while upgrading the system. Before the upgrade, the customer was running about 15 tons per hour and some of the older equipment was no longer working.  

Machinex was asked to increase processing capability without adding to the current sorter count and to eliminate rubber disc screens. Design challenges included working with the existing infeed pit along with putting together a design that utilized the existing baler and storage bunker setup.   

“We needed two ballistics to achieve the processing capacity goals set forth by the client,” says Rusty Angel, a regional sales manager for Machinex. “We utilized their existing drum feeder for the system infeed and also reused many of the existing bunkers at the front end of the system such as the presort bunkers and commodity bunkers since those were all live bottom bunkers and already in place. We did have to add one new walking floor bunker for the ferrous metals as they did not have enough bunkers to accommodate all of the recovered materials.”   

Features of the facility's new system include a triple-deck Mach OCC screen with a fines screen underneath to remove the system fines early in the process. The new OCC screen features improved disc spacing and larger shafts to reduce daily cleaning. Two Mach ballistic separators were installed to handle the primary and secondary 2D/3D separation, which helps to reduce downtime and overall maintenance costs.   

This upgrade required some additional automation to meet this challenge. A Mach Hyspec dual-eject optical sorter has been incorporated to remove polyethylene terephthalate and high-density polyethylene  at the start of the container line. A new magnet and eddy current separator was also installed for ferrous and nonferrous recovery.   

The company says the features of this system make it reliable, efficient and flexible, with a limited footprint. The new MRF will be able to process more recyclables with the capacity to sort 22 to 24 tons per hour.   

Machinex worked alongside Republic to bring its expertise with creative design for retrofits. Requirements for the project were to select a partner that would be able to guide them through this major system upgrade, along with providing them a maintenance-friendly system that could increase the recovery of recyclable material. 

The machine contains upgraded components and various innovations.

Tomra, based in Norway, has launched an updated model of its X-Tract metal sorting machine, featuring a new design and added features.

Notable is its dual processing technology, which increases the machine’s capacity per foot-width. This feature offers simultaneous single object and area processing, letting operators choose between high purity and high recovery sorting. The company says adjacent, overlapping and composite materials can all be identified through this process.

The sorting system features a Duoline XRT sensor with two independent line scans. According to Tomra, the sensor can detect copper wires and ultra-thin objects  to reduce material loss and increase profits.

Additionally, the new design is capable of sorting material at higher belt speeds ranging from 7.5 to 12.5 feet per second. Sorting chambers have been extended and new extraction ports have been added to accommodate the faster belt speeds.

The company says the accuracy of the new X-Tract has been strengthened due to an intensity scale feature that improves the detection of specific material groups such as printed circuit boards.

The equipment differs from older models in that it is based on a modular machine concept, Tomra says, which leads to more operational flexibility

Enhanced sensor shielding has been added to better protect X-Tract’s components while extending the lifetime of the machine. The sorting system comes with a 4-year extended warranty on the X-ray source and XRT sensor.

The add-on Tomra Insight service enables X-Tract to connect to online monitoring and digital services, letting Tomra’s service team identify potential issue and provide remote support.

Exurban will begin the site engineering and permitting process, which is expected to take about a year.

The city of Fort Wayne, Indiana, has approved a $768,000 purchase agreement for the 76-acre Adams Township Industrial Park property in the southeast area of the community. The land was purchased by the newly formed Exurban USA, a metals recycler with ties to the United Kingdom.   

“We are excited to announce the site of the world’s first zero-waste smelter refinery to offer a domestic, low-carbon solution to the global challenge of e-waste,” says Jean Paul Deco, co-founder of Exurban USA. “We are delighted with the welcome we have been given in Indiana, and I am proud that the plant we are announcing today will set new standards in recycling critical metals from discarded waste streams.”

The company plans to build a $340 million recycling facility that will create some 200 jobs with salaries of $50,000 to $70,000 by the end of 2026. The facility will include six or seven buildings and be up to 2 million square feet, according to Jonathan Leist, the city’s deputy director of redevelopment.  

“We’re pleased to be working with Fort Wayne,” says Wes Adams, a project manager for Exurban. “It’s a good place for business and conducive for this type of industry.”  

This will be the first facility the company has constructed. The facility will be able to retrieve metals including copper, gold and silver from e-waste or discarded electronic appliances such as mobile phones, computers and televisions.

Exurban will begin the site engineering and permitting process for approval by the city’s planning commission, which is expected to take about a year. Construction of the facility will begin in 2023 and should take 18 to 24 months. 

The company says this development is in response to the millions of tons of e-waste buried in landfills or shipped overseas every year, resulting in a negative impact on health and the environment. The plant will enable the company to stop shipping waste to other countries while deploying new, proven technology to set new standards in recycling e-waste.

Recycling Today has reached out to Exurban for further comment.

The new agreement will expand onboard computers and fleet automation software across Casella’s fleet.

Routeware Inc., a waste technology solutions provider based in Portland, Oregon, has reached an enterprise agreement with Casella Waste Systems Inc., Rutland, Vermont. Routeware will equip Casella’s collection fleet with tools to enhance efficiency, safety and customer service.  

“We are very happy with the tools and efficiencies Routeware has provided to our teams in Vermont, New York and Maine and we’re excited to expand this technology across our footprint as we embark upon this new chapter in our partnership,” says John W. Casella, chairperson and CEO of Casella Waste Systems Inc.  

According to a news release from Routeware, the new agreement will expand its onboard computers and fleet automation software across Casella’s fleet. This will give drivers and office staff easy-to-use tools and data to help them work safely and efficiently.  

“We’re excited to grow our relationship with Casella as they continue to improve operations, better serve their customers, and reach their sustainability goals,” Routeware CEO Tom Malone says.

The agreement builds upon the existing relationship between the two parties. Casella partnered with Routeware in 2020 to serve its operations in Vermont, then expanded its use of the technology in 2021 in Rochester, New York and Hermon, Maine. Casella also uses Routeware’s route optimization solution, EasyRoute.