ERI will manage the first-ever mail-in electronics recycling program for the City of Los Angeles. LA Sanitation announced it has partnered with the company on the new program, through which individuals and businesses can purchase boxes to ship a wide range of devices to ERI. The boxes cost $30, $65 or $90, depending on the size, and the purchase price...

The ton has done a lot of evolving over the past three decades. And to better manage the changing composition of incoming materials, EBI Environnement made major upgrades to its MRF last fall. The Quebec-based company installed a ballistic separator, optical sorters and other equipment to do primary sorting of single-stream materials. The roughly $2.25 million upgrade from equipment company Machinex has...

For North America's largest haulers, recycling pleasure has given way to pain. After enjoying big returns from higher commodity prices in the first quarter, three recycling giants noted tumbling fiber prices in April. "In the first quarter, we saw recycling commodity prices up almost 70 percent in our recycling facilities. Yet in the beginning of the second quarter we've seen those...

Surges in commodity prices during the first quarter drove huge recycling revenue gains for Waste Management, Republic Services and Waste Connections. North America's three largest publicly traded hauling companies all reported spikes in prices for recovered fiber during the first quarter. Those drove higher revenues compared to a year-ago period and last fall. It appears the first quarter was the crest...

A research firm is asking industry professionals to provide information for a broad analysis of the state of U.S. materials recovery. Skumatz Economic Research Associates (SERA) will use the data to produce an in-depth analysis of industry trends. The data will be shared in aggregate form through various channels. The research is being conducted with assistance from Resource Recycling, Inc. Representatives...

Electronics and appliances present an attractive source for reclaimed plastics, but technical challenges can often inhibit recovery. Many of the e-plastics are black, which can make separation by polymer difficult. Germany-based company Hamos supplies a sorting line for plastics reclaimers looking to sort black plastics from other black plastics in those end-of-life devices. The system is capable of removing a...

When recycling processor Invema switched from a high-speed friction washer to an updated system relying on boilers and chemicals, something unexpected happened: Energy usage decreased by 20 percent. The technology was one key part of an equipment package enabling the Honduras-based recycling company to begin producing food-grade PET pellets and sheets. George Gatlin, owner of Invema, spoke about his company's...

New meat and poultry packaging sold in the U.K. includes more than 95 percent recycled PET and is designed to improve recyclability. "Unlike other designs on the market, the novel pack features a specially designed sealant between the rigid tray and top film, which avoids the need for a PE layer and makes the mono-material easier to process by recycling...

Getting old mobile devices out of Canadians' junk drawers and into the recycling stream may be a lucrative challenge for the e-scrap industry, a survey suggests. According to research on the Canadian market, 62 percent of survey respondents said they had at least one old phone in storage, up from 48 percent the year before. In 2016, respondents across the...

A jewelry and precious metals seller has signed a letter of intent to acquire Elemetal Recycling for nearly $20 million. DGSE Companies announced it entered into a non-binding letter of intent to acquire Elemetal Recycling's assets, which are located in the Dallas area. The total estimated cash proceeds would be $19.8 million, a sum that includes $3.8 million that DGSE...