Global trading firm buys New Jersey-based specialty recycling and trading company.

The Norwalk, Connecticut-based North American recycling business unit of CellMark has acquired Paper Tube & Core Corp. (PT&C). That Paterson, New Jersey-based firm specializes in collecting, repurposing and recycling large paper cores and tubes on a global scale.

An e-mail sent by PT&C President Russ Panzer and Vice President of Operations Jeff Schindle states in part, “We are pleased to announce that Paper Tube & Core Corp. was recently acquired by CellMark Inc., an employee-owned independent supply chain services company. We have joined CellMark’s Recycling Division, adding a new element to an existing network of offices and production facilities across North America, Europe, the Caribbean, South America and Asia.”

Panzer and Schindle say CellMark and PT&C “have worked together for a number of years, and we feel strongly that our synergistic businesses, our core values and our commitment to quality and service align perfectly.”

The duo also write that “the entire PT&C team will be staying on and is excited about this growth opportunity.” The specialty core and tube operation will continue operating out of its New Jersey production facility with a slight re-branding as “Paper Tube & Core, A CellMark Company.”

Gothenburg, Sweden-based CellMark has its roots in the forest products and papermaking industries. The company now trades in numerous materials and products, including scrap paper and other secondary commodities.

In North America, its recycling business unit operates several trading offices. In addition to the newly acquired PT&C New Jersey facility, CellMark in North America operates recycling plants in Alabama, South Carolina, Utah, British Columbia, Canada, and in Jamaica.

The association says this year’s winners demonstrated recycling’s essential role in communities.

The Washington-based Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) has announced the winners of the global 2021 Youth Recycling Awareness Awards. The program is designed to better educate youth on the value of recycling. 

According to a press release from ISRI, fifth-grader Irene Park, from Fairburn Avenue Elementary School in Los Angeles, is the 2021 poster winner. Sophomores Nadia Islam, Ada Johnsen-DeWeese and Rosemarie Alubankudi from Life Sciences Secondary School in New York City are the 2021 video grand prize winners.

“Engaging our youth in understanding the significant role of recycling in our environment, economy, communities and beyond is of utmost importance,” says ISRI President Robin Wiener. “The annual Youth Recycling Awareness contest does just that: by challenging students to demonstrate their understanding of not just recycling, but its relevancy to our everyday lives. Each year I am impressed by the level of knowledge and creativity of entries from students of every age. Our future is undoubtedly bright in the hands of Irene, Nadia, Ada, Rosemarie and their peers. ISRI congratulates them on a job well done.”

The theme of this year’s contest was “Recycling is Essential to My Community.” The association says the contest received 99 entries from across the globe. The winners were recognized April 29 as part of the ISRI2021 Convention and Exposition, which took place online April 20-22 and April 27-29.

For the award, students were tasked with creating a public service announcement in the form of a video or poster that explains to other members in their community or neighborhood why recycling is essential, why they should care and how they can help. 

Irene’s poster, titled “Zero Waste, Better Place," demonstrates how more classroom recyclables can be processed properly, ensuring the valuable commodities do not end up in landfills.

The winning video, titled "Recycling is Essential to My Community," demonstrates the impact recycling has on local communities from the perspective of a cardboard box that was mistakenly placed in the trash. The video goes on to explain the importance of proper education so that communities recognize valuable recyclables.

Judges evaluated each entry on the interpretation and clarity of the theme to the viewer, persuasiveness, originality, quality and impression of the entry.

"The ISRI contest winners serve as inspirational STEM leaders for JASON Learning and for students across the country,” says Eleanor Smalley, president and CEO of JASON Learning. “They created innovative, well-designed work that perfectly exemplified the contest's mission: why recycling is essential to our community. The Green Team Video Crew, from New York City, captured our imaginations as they showed why recycling is essential. Irene Park, from Los Angeles, demonstrated why zero waste makes a better place in her poster. JASON is extremely excited and proud to see these young women interested in exploring STEM and recycling." 

The design is what the company calls a sustainable alternative for health care packaging.

Amcor, a packaging firm based in Switzerland, has initiated customer trials of its new AmSky recyclable polyethylene-based thermoformed blister packaging. The new packaging is designed to meet the requirements of highly specialized and regulated pharmaceutical packaging. According to a news release from Amcor, the new design “creates a more sustainable alternative for the most in-demand health care packaging type.”

The AmSky blister system eliminates polyvinyl chloride (PVC) from the packaging by using a monomaterial polyethylene (PE) thermoform blister and lidding film. According to Amcor, PVC can make packaging recycling more difficult or contaminate other materials if consumers attempt to recycle it. By removing PVC, Amcor has developed a new, recyclable solution.

Amcor reports that it is working with pharmaceutical companies to bring AmSky to market globally. The company expects AmSky to be available in the health care market by the second half of 2022.

“Amcor is deploying our unique innovation capabilities to solve the biggest and most significant issues in packaging today,” says Peter Konieczny, Amcor’s chief commercial officer. “With AmSky Amcor has signaled our commitment to breakthrough innovation in the health care space—this is why we remain the packaging partner of choice for our healthcare customers, generating close to $2 billion in annual sales in this market. This new blister packaging solution will significantly enhance the ability of health care and pharmaceutical brands to put sustainability at the heart of their businesses.”

PNW's Sean Daoud explains the versatility the system offers.

The following text is a transcript from a video in which Wendt Corporation's Bill Close and Eric Thurston, the North American sales manager metals – recycling for Tomra Sorting Recycling, talk with Sean Daoud of PNW Metal Recycling, with operations in Oregon and Washington, and tour the company's auto shredder and downstream nonferrous sorting system. Buffalo, New York-based Wendt installed PNW's shredder and nonferrous downstream, which features sensor-based sorters from Tomra.

Bill Close: Tell me a little bit about your company and how it got started?

Sean Daoud: PNW Metal Recycling is a family business. The entity itself was formed about four years ago with the merger of two family businesses. Both the families have similar goals and aspirations of wanting to grow and do better in the industry that we are. So, over the last four years, we have been able to combine the businesses, capitalize on the shared intrinsicies of operational efficiencies, better volumes for value creation on the sales end as well as investing and growing in equipment acquisitions for processing the metal streams that we have to harness the full metal values that are there. Some main acquisitions we’ve done in equipment is the downstream that we’re here to look at today.  And that itself has allowed us to increase our metal recovery from the shredding process, a considerable amount, thus being able to drive better values and better quality to not only meet the demands here domestically, but also internationally.

Bill Close: It sounds like you have made a lot of investments to differentiate your company. How does this system compare with what you previously were running?

Sean Daoud: The system is very different from what we had before. A very simple system we had on our shredder—it is still there today, but not operational—was a two eddy-current system, one doing inch and a half over, one doing under an inch and a half, and then anything that the over line that got missed, we put through a hand-picking station—stainless steel, insulated wire, all those other products—so a very simple and manual process. And now a very robust and mechanical process that leads to better metal generation with very little manual processing needed other than to keep the product clean.

Bill Close: The old plant was a zorba recovery plant with hand picking, and with the new operation here, we’ve got automation of zorba, zurik and wire with minimal handpicking.

Sean Daoud: Correct. And now it is more of a differentiated zorba product. Not only do we have the zorba product we were used to, now we are generating a fine zorba [and] an ultra-fine zorba. We’re generating a heavies package that we weren't before. It is not only an increase in volume recovery, but it's also increased the product lines that we're able to market and offer to overseas buyers and domestic buyers.

Bill Close: I see you are running a pretty typical ASR mix here. Have you tried other materials, such as breakage e-scrap or other source materials?

Sean Daoud: Good question. We have thought about it. We are still eight months in, nine months into running the system. We are still learning it, so it is never perfect. There is always something to learn every day. But until we feel as if we have mastered the ASR processing, we probably will wait a little bit to get to those. However, that is an opportunity we have looked at, and I’m sure we'll get into it at some point here in the foreseeable future.

Bill Close: Sean, tell me a bit about the plant. How did you decide what size plant to buy?

Sean Daoud: [It was a] very simple answer for us. We wanted a plant large enough to take what we currently are producing from our shredder in Portland, but with enough room to grow.

Bill Close: How many hours and how many shifts are you running on this plant?

Sean Daoud: One shift is what we are running, and it's roughly eight to 10 hours a day. It all depends on what the production is like at the Portland yard at the shredder and what maintenance and upkeep is needed for the current day or the previous day's operations.

Bill Close: How did you come to your decision to select Wendt and Tomra equipment?

Sean Daoud: When we toured dozens of different processing plants, not only here in the U.S. but internationally, and we looked at what metal smelters and copper smelters, the aluminum smelters, all these different places we would be selling these product lines to, stainless buyers, and zurik buyers, the material that Wendt/Tomra systems spit out [was] higher quality with less touches than any other system or company that we looked at before. The know-how, the integration parts of it, decades-long leadership of Wendt is very apparent in the product production, and the quality is why we chose to go with Wendt and Tomra.

Bill Close: Since you initially started this plant, market conditions have changed. Have the products you're producing evolved over time?

Sean Daoud: Prior to putting the system in, we saw zorba, zurik [and] heavies packages at all-time lows. I've never seen pricing that low in my time period in business, although albeit not that long, still a pretty fair amount of time. Now we are seeing the pricing levels return to some sort of normalcy that we're used to seeing historically; and, through that growth in value, we're also seeing ways that we can differentiate the product lines. Through the advice of yourself and others at Wendt and Tomra as well, [we] tune the lines to produce product lines that are much more attractive to buyers while maximizing metal recovery.

Bill Close: When you commissioned, I think you're making zurik, and now you're making a stainless package off the back end, so that's a good example of the flexibility of the equipment and the tunability. How has the training and support been from Wendt and the learning experience?

Sean Daoud: It's been good. There's always going to be hiccups. But overall, I think the support from Wendt is bar none anybody else. We pick up the phone regardless of the time period, you always answer, anyone else within the staff is always there. So, responsiveness, the replies we get are probably some of the best support that we have gotten throughout the industry.

Bill Close: Has your team been able to transition well into this plant and pick it up pretty quickly?

Sean Daoud: I would say so. We have team members that have other shredding experience. We have team members that have other downstream plant experience, not to this level and this extent, but enough know-how of the workings and the different nooks and crannies of it. Our learning curve [was] probably shorter than most. This plant was fully operational within less than a 30-day time period, and we were producing sellable products the first day we started it up. From our industry know-how with the management group that we have, also with the support from Wendt and Tomra, we have been able to have a very quick learning curve.

Bill Close: Your plant is one of the first that we had featured the new fines circuit on, where we're working with middlings at the eddy current, rescreening and a single [Tomra] Finder step to make a zebra package. How's it been working out for you?

Sean Daoud: It’s been good. Zebra and a heavies package is very new to us in terms of the shredding game and metal recoveries. We are learning what is needed in the product composition for good sales, and we're still working our way through it. Overall, it is one of the more valuable products that we do produce from this system because of the high copper content and because of the high ICW (insulated copper wire) content and other red metals that make it down that side of the line when it comes to anything that's under three-eighths of an inch.

Eric Thurston: What kind of challenges were you facing and what made you go in this direction?

Sean Daoud: Good question. A lot of metal shredders that are in steel here were dealing with the same issues about three or four years ago when China started to implement new regulations. Prior to this system, we were going for quality over quantity when those new regulations were put in place in China. For this system, we wanted to meet those standards, but get the metal recovery we weren't getting prior. We were still missing out on metal that we shouldn't have been missing out on. That was the biggest challenge that we faced with finished products, we just didn’t have enough of it.  We had a high-quality product, but we didn't have enough of it. Now, we have multiple product lines of high quality [material], and we're not missing anything.

Eric Thurston: What made you choose to go with Wendt/Tomra Finders?

Sean Daoud: We chose to go with Tomra, obviously, just from the product quality standpoint. Any other company that was running this type of equipment and with the designs that Wendt had come with [it was] bar none in terms of product production and in how many times you had to touch the product. We'd seen other plants that would run with different equipment. You’d have to pass material twice through the plant to get up to the cleanliness that we have to meet [with] all the regulations in Southeast Asia, Europe and other parts of the world.

Eric Thurston: What finished products are you making, and what purity and throughput rates are you getting?

Sean Daoud: We are making a zurik shredded stainless, which is almost 100 percent recovered of shredded stainless. We are making a shredded wire package, which roughly recovers in the 40 percent range. Then we are making a zebra heavies, small shredder wire package, however you want to define it, that is about a 60 percent copper rate, with some other metals mixed in with it.

Bill Close: Sean, let's talk about the ROI on this plant. Has this been a good investment for your company?

Sean Daoud: It has been. We obviously did our initial review in a depressed market, and now that the values have returned, the time frame of the return for the investment for ourselves and for the company is going to be much quicker than we originally anticipated. So, we're lucky on our end; but, yes, it has been a very good investment so far.

Bill Close: Has this been a good experience, and would you consider buying again from Wendt and Tomra.

Sean Daoud: It has been a good experience, and this is the second time we've done a transaction with Wendt, obviously, the first time being the MTB Cablebox, and now with the downstream and working with Tomra on this one. We would definitely consider working with Wendt again.

The shredder and downstream system, supplied by Wendt Corporation, provides versatility, allowing DMS to make different products, and can grow with the company.

The following text is a transcript of a video in which Ethan Willard, the business development manager, shredders, at Buffalo, New York-based Wendt Corporation, talks with Andrew Gallo of DMS Metals, Stouffville, Ontario, and tours the company's modular shredder that Wendt supplied. 

Ethan Willard: My name is Ethan Willard with Wendt Corporation, and I'm here with Andrew Gallo from DMS Metals. We're at his scrap yard, just outside of Toronto, Canada, and we’re going to take you on a little tour today.

Andrew Gallo: We have a baler and then shear/baler and mobile shear and then we, of course, [have] the shredder and the nonferrous downstream equipment.

Ethan Willard: When did you install the shredder here?

Andrew Gallo: We started the process in 2019. We were operational about a year ago in March of 2020.

Ethan Willard: What differentiates you from the others that allows you to have such a successful business?

Andrew Gallo: The size of the shredder and the versatility allow us to do different things and make different products. Typically, a shredder will shred cars, shred light sheet and items like that and, when you do that, you're going to make a ferrous shred product, and then you're going to make ancillary nonferrous products, zorba, wire, stainless. But in addition to that, we generate probably four or five different specialty items, other products that we make. A lot of times when we do that, we make three different products in one shift, which is unique. It's important to note that if you're running ferrous, let's say you're running a steel-based product, and you want to switch over and shred aluminum, you can’t have any cross-contamination. Your stalls have to be clean, your belts have to be free of any other materials, and the fact that we can do that and do that efficiently and cost-effectively is huge and gives us a leg up. It’s definitely easier for us to do that.

Ethan Willard: You decided to put in a Wendt 6090. What is it that made you go with Wendt over some of the others on the market?

Andrew Gallo: We decided that we wanted something in this size range, a 2,500-horsepower motor. We didn't know that we wanted a modular shredder at the time, but when we discovered that it existed, we thought, this would be great. Obviously, Wendt is the pioneer in this space, in the modular shredder. What puts you over the top in terms of why we went to a Wendt is the depth in your team, the engineering department, the support team, the technical staff, the sales team, just everyone there was very knowledgeable and accommodating, and then the depth of your customer base. But one of the nice benefits of that customer base is that we made some good relationships with other 6090 operators. It is really a great network, and we're happy with the decision to go with Wendt.

Ethan Willard: It's almost like you created a community with other 6090 operators.

Why don't we kind of walk through the shredder first. I see you have your infeed conveyor coming down into your 6090 shredder, so maybe kind of walk me through this and see what you've got going on. I see you have, it looks like, a container for the electrical controls. The motor has its own building, so this is really what the modular package is all about.

Andrew Gallo: Exactly. For those people who don't know, when I said “modular shredder,” when we talk about a modular shredder, this is it. You have your controls containerized. They came to site ready to go. You guys hooked everything up. We bring it here. There's still electrical work required, but you're pretty much plug and play. Your motor house is the same thing. It came in a container. Our hydraulics came in a container. The control pulpit came in a container. So, it all comes together, I guess like Lego, and they put it together.

Ethan Willard: Then the big savings for you then is on infrastructure, correct? Saving on the buildings and the concrete.

Andrew Gallo: That’s right. It's a lot easier to install. It's a lot quicker to install, which means it's a lot cheaper to install.

Ethan Willard: We’re at the nonferrous plant and, just like the ferrous downstream, you’ve designed this plant to grow as well.

Andrew Gallo: We went with the basics and now, fortunately, we're in a position where, as you know, we're going to be expanding the system in the near future.

Ethan Willard: You go from a vibratory screen here up into that building, and then inside this building are your two eddy currents, making your zorba.

Andrew Gallo: That's right, yeah.

Ethan Willard: It seems like there's kind of an overarching theme with all of your equipment, you have your shredder that you put in with the idea in mind that you'd be able to expand on it in the future, should your business grow, should you need it, and the nonferrous seems like you’ve done the same with it as well, correct? You’ve put in the eddy currents, which are going to recover a lot of your zorba and your high-dollar amount materials from a revenue standpoint; but, then again, you designed it to grow and add equipment on in the future.

Andrew Gallo: That's right. You know what's interesting is that of the five or six shredders that we visited, I think all but one of them did the same thing. They all started smaller and then what was a good sign is that they all expanded shortly thereafter. So, a year after most of them added on, and that is exactly the same progression that we're finding ourselves on, which is good. It speaks volumes to the equipment.

Ethan Willard: We've kind of come full circle around the shredder now. We have had a good look at the shredder and the downstream and the nonferrous plant. I noticed throughout the plant, it seems to be simplicity was kind of one of your main focuses. We look at the downstream, and it is just a dual magstand with a picking platform. There's not a lot of the bells and whistles that are at least available. What made you go that route versus the other options?

Andrew Gallo: We have always been kind of a buy-what-you-need type of company. What is important is that, again, with your guidance, we were able to design the system in a way that we could adapt. If we felt like we had a change of heart or requirements at the mill changed and we needed to add some further separation, we could do it. We left room, we added conveyors and whatnot.

Ethan Willard: Obviously, your staff here at DMS is absolutely critical, but also having the manufacturers’ staff able to support you on a regular basis is also critical to keep the machines up and running. What kind of support do you see from Wendt?

Andrew Gallo: So, there's two types. There is the support that we get, the kind of informal advice, shoulder-to-lean-on type of support, where if we want to try something, and we may call the other shredder operators, too, but we might reach out to our local sales rep. Then you have more of a tech support call. Wendt’s tech support is very good. We have called them at 5 in the morning, and we've had support. We have called them after-hours, we have had support. With today's technology and the way that you guys, the controls are set up and the way you guys have designed the machine, it is really easy. They can access our machine remotely. A lot of the times it is as easy as that; it's a quick fix. Our proximity to Buffalo helps. We’re close, right? We have had situations where we had an issue in the morning, and we had tech support, a Wendt staffer here or somebody from the Wendt team here on-site two hours later. We get great support from Wendt.

Ethan Willard: Support is something we always strive for within our company, and it is good to hear that you're getting the support that you need. How’s the ROI been for you on this plant?

Andrew Gallo: I can't tell you all my secrets, but we typically as a company, if we're looking at a purchase like this, we're looking for a three-year return on investment, a three-year payback, maybe four, maybe five under special circumstances, depending on the size of the investment. I'll just say that we're in good shape to meet that goal.