The company says the SSD Destroyer is compact and quiet.
Intimus, a company based in Wabash, Indiana, specializing in business security, has introduced a compact granulator to destroy solid-state drives (SSDs), optical media and small magnetic media. Called the SSD Destroyer, the granulator is adaptable to future destruction requirements, the company says.
According to a news release from Intimus, the granulator destroys data storage media by using two industrial solid steel cutting heads that rotate in opposition to one another to shred items until they are small enough to pass through a sizing screen. Screens can be changed quickly, depending on the level of destruction and security required. Final particle sizes as small as 2 millimeters are possible when a 3 millimeterscreen is used. This small particle size translates to the German Institute for Standardization DIN levels E-5, F-4, O-6, T-7.
Destruction feed rates of vary based on machine size, type of items processed and the output sizing screen used. However, the company says throughputs of about 60 to600 standard SSD drives per hour and 200 to-2,000 USB sticks per hour are typical. Automatic overload protection with auto reverse protects the cutting head and motor from damage from overfeeding.
All items are fed into the destruction chamber via a mailbox-style safety chute. All operational controls are mounted on the front of the granulator and include start, stop and emergency stop buttons. A digital hour meter is included as well, the company says.
A 23-gallon collection bin is mounted on casters for easy removal and replacement. The collection bin is monitored by an ultrasonic sensor to prevent overfilling.
The company says the unit is small enough to fit through standard office doors and is mounted on casters for easy relocation if necessary.
For more information, contact Tyler Page at 800-775-2122.
Company introduces MEC Cast Products.
Metal Exchange Corp. (MEC), with headquarters in St. Louis, says it is reorganizing its secondary aluminum casting capacity and rebranding its secondary cast product lines at its Pennex Aluminum Co. LLC sites in Wellsville and Greenville, Pennsylvania, and its Continental Aluminum site in New Hudson, Michigan, as MEC Cast Products. In a news release about the change, MEC says it will provide “better strategic focus and organizational alignment.”
The Wellsville plant is a shared facility that will produce extrusions under the Pennex brand and billet under MEC Cast Products, Mark Buchner, president of MEC Cast Products, tells Recycling Today. The company’s aluminum extrusion plants in York, Pennsylvania, and Leetonia, Ohio, will continue to carry the Pennex Aluminum name.
“Our cast products businesses have grown substantially over the years and have a very strong customer focus,” Rick Merluzzi, chief executive officer of MEC says. “By establishing MEC Cast Products, it further strengthens the strategic focus of our business.”
Buchner adds, “We’ve had the chance to evaluate all markets and are excited about the opportunities that are before us. Between the three plants, we have strong operating capacities and capabilities. Our plan is to shift our focus primarily on the billet market segment as it strongly aligns with our company’s expertise, capacity and capabilities.”
As part of this shift, MEC Cast Products will phase out production of aluminum alloys used for diecasting and deoxidizers in the steel industry at its New Hudson site. Production at that site will be adjusted to meet the company’s internal needs as it realigns resources to the aluminum billet segment.
He says, “We are successfully finalizing and fulfilling all contracts with existing customers to ensure their needs were met in a timely fashion.”
Casting equipment at the company’s Wellsville plant includes a 130,000-pound regenerative melt furnace, while its Greenville plant has two melt furnaces with one holding furnace, according to the Pennex website.
The newly renamed casting division is ISO 9001:2015 certified and uses common alloy type material to produce 7-, 8-, 9-, 10-, 12- and 14-inch diameter billet in 1xxx, 2xxx and 6xxx series aluminum alloys.
According to the Continental Aluminum website, the company’s reverb and rotary furnaces allow it to use a range of scrap that includes aluminum turnings, old sheet, shredded aluminum, aluminum radiators, cast aluminum, automobile wheels, extrusions, mixed low copper clips and mixed, painted siding, aluminum dross and twitch. Buchner says the New Hudson site will consume more wrought aluminum scrap than cast aluminum scrap as a result of the change in production, but the total volume of scrap consumed will not change.
MEC’s other affiliated companies are MEC Trading and Electro Cycle Inc.
One PET reclaimer says high bale prices and difficulty hiring and retaining employees are among the challenges facing the industry.
Among those challenges are rising bale prices and difficulty hiring and retaining employees.
The PET reprocessor says bottle bale prices have increased significantly in part because of insufficient supply of and growing demand for recycled PET (rPET) from brand owners. “I agree it needed to come up some,” she says of PET bottle bale pricing, “but not this quickly.”
Bill Keegan, president of material recovery facility (MRF) operator Dem-Con Cos., Shakopee, Minnesota, says PET bale pricing more than doubled in the first quarter of this year, as did pricing for polypropylene (PP) bales.
“Demand has been good, which is indicative of pricing,” he says. “Pricing has been strong and is going up.”
Keegan continues, “Values have increased in a very good way but also in a crazy fast way.” He cites natural high-density polyethylene (HDPE) pricing, in particular, noting that as of mid-June it was 30 percent higher than used beverage can, or UBC, pricing. He says Dem-Con is telling its sorting staff, “If you have a choice, don’t let the HDPE natural go by. The message used to be, ‘Grab the aluminum can.’”
The amount of PET traveling through Dem-Con’s MRF has increased by 40 percent in the last year, Keegan says. PET comprised 4 percent of the material the MRF handled in 2019. In 2020, it grew to 5.5 percent, and that increase appears to be holding so far in 2021, he adds.
Dem-Con sells its recovered plastics locally as well as nationwide. Keegan says that while export pricing is competitive with domestic pricing, overseas transportation carries too much risk currently. Additionally, “There is enough local demand. That has been a positive to come out of Green Fence,” he says, citing China’s 2013 policy that targeted low-grade and mixed plastic scrap imports.
While the PET reprocessor says MRFs are reporting an uptick in PET generation, staffing issues have delayed the marketing of some of that material. One of the MRF operators that supplies her company has two MRFs within 30 miles of one another, she says. “They have bottles but not people,” the reprocessor says, explaining that only one of the MRFs is operating because of staffing issues.
Her company also has been struggling with hiring and retaining employees. “All manufacturers are suffering from a lack of people,” she says. “It’s more challenging than I’ve seen it in a while.”
Regarding virgin PET, the reprocessor says she thinks the market is in store for “another crazy six to eight weeks” as of early June.
However, she says demand for rPET “is just going to continue to increase irrespective of the virgin market. I think we’ll see some pullback on the demand side as virgin [availability] gets better, but brand commitments will drive [rPET] demand. We believe that demand is not the issue, but that supply is.”
She says national legislation targeted at beverage producers could help to address the sourcing challenges.
Young recycling company gains Clorox investment, increases customer base, technology services.
Recyclops, a Utah-based recycling and sustainability company, has secured an investment from the Clorox Co. and is partnering with Clorox brand Glad to serve additional American households.
Recyclops, founded in 2014, has a similar business model to a company like Uber. Consumers without access to local recycling services place their recyclables in clear plastic bags and use Recyclops’ website to schedule collection. Recyclops works with nearby material recovery facilities, or MRFs, allowing for proper disposal of recyclables and enabling the company to expand recycling access.
Founder and CEO Ryan Smith had the idea for Recyclops in college when his was living in a building that did not provide recycling services.
“I always grew up recycling,” Smith says. “It wasn't something I ever thought about, it was just something that I did. And that changed when I was in college. I remember this moment so vividly,” he says recounting the story of when he went to dispose of a soft drink he bought from a vending machine on campus and realized his apartment didn’t have a recycling bin. “I go out to the dumpster, and there is no recycling dumpster. And that just blew my mind. “
According to a random sample taken by the Recyclops team, out of a thousand U.S. cities, approximately 34 million single-family homes and 16 million apartments don’t have curbside recycling access. This means that for every 10 Americans, four households don’t have curbside recycling access.
Recyclops uses a gig-economy model where drivers use an app to locate, pickup and deposit recyclables from families who are scheduled to have their recycling collected.
While it is not an on-demand service, the company is currently running a pilot program in Dallas that is testing out such a service rather than the scheduled pickups city recycling services provide, Smith says.
With operations in 10 different states across the country, combined with the new investment, Recyclops will be able to expand from 10,000 customers to 100,000 more potential customers, as well as increase its technical flexibility and reach as a company. This allows Recyclops to not only expand its customer base and grow the size of its operation but also provide a basic recycling service to families or municipalities. According to a press release from the Clorox Co., Recyclops diverted more than 3 million pounds of recyclables from the landfill in 2020 alone. Recyclops currently gathers recyclables such as plastics, carboard, glass, metal and paper while looking to expand into food waste and packaging return programs.
“We're experimenting with that right now,” Smith says of the packaging return program. “We started to work a lot with brands that … are delivering something to their consumer that … can't be recycled. So, they create a packaging return program or a textile return program.”
Having a brand such as Clorox backing the company also provides opportunities for Recyclops to build its visibility.
“Clorox is one of the most trusted companies. They bring a lot to the table, and they're a huge company,” Smith says. “Then they also have a national reach, and they're in every grocery store in the country. And it gives us the ability to reach places that we might have a harder time reaching because they have that footprint.”
With the help of the Clorox investment and its partnership with Glad, Recyclops and Smith are looking forward to additional growth, though Smith expresses disbelief about how far the company already has come.
“Literally if you look at where we were seven years ago and where we are today, you'd be like, are those the same company?” says Smith. “We’ve changed a lot. In the last three years is really when we became the company we are today.”
Metals sector analysis and research firm now part of wider commodities information consultancy.
London-based metal commodities information services firm Roskill has been acquired by Edinburgh, United Kingdom-based Wood Mackenzie, a research and consulting firm with its roots in the energy sector.
“Combining Roskill’s capabilities with Wood Mackenzie reinforces our ability to provide comprehensive, integrated analysis across the energy, and metals and mining value chain,” comments Neal Anderson, president of Wood Mackenzie. “Roskill adds market-leading analysis, data, and insight on battery raw materials metals, which are an integral component of the energy transition.”
“By combining the critical materials intelligence that you know and trust from Roskill with Wood Mackenzie’s extensive coverage of metals and mining, energy and natural resources, we will be able to offer you a greater breadth and depth of market-leading analysis, data, and insight,” Roskill Managing Director Alison Saxby writes to Roskill customers.
Wood Mackenzie, a part of New Jersey-based Verisk, also has announced that Valerie Purvis will be assuming the role of global head of metals and mining at Wood Mackenzie and Roskill. She will continue to serve as global head of the chemicals business as well.
Commenting on the addition of Roskill, Purvis says, “Green growth stimulus packages and commitments to net carbon neutrality by many of the major economies and major companies are increasing the pace of the energy transition, with metals and materials being a critical enabler. Integrated, in-depth analysis of the value chain for these metals and materials is crucial to understanding the transition. I’d like to welcome the Roskill team as we add to the depth and breadth of the analysis, data and insight we provide for our customers as they evolve.”