This case study comes from Ben Sparks, out of our Oakland recycling location:

“Green Planet 21 is installing an auto-tie baler at a large supplier (they asked not to be named, but they make parts for Tesla so they’re very busy).  They have been using 2 cardboard compactors, 3 days/week each, for about 26 loads per month.  By baling, they will reduce their freight to 3 flatbed loads per month.  This results in a freight savings of $11,615 per month, which is almost 3 times the cost of the monthly baler lease payment.  That’s pretty good on its own, but I also calculated the reduction in CO2 emissions as it relates to their cardboard recycling program.  

To calculate CO2e, the EPA recommends a factor of 161.8 grams per ton-mile.  A loaded rolloff truck weighs 28 tons, and a loaded flatbed is 40 tons, so its not quite a straight-line calculation on 26 trips vs 3.  The round trip is 65 miles.  Once you’ve multiplied all the ton-miles per gram, you divide by 1,000,000 to convert from grams to metric tons.

I found that their current system is producing 90.45 metric tons of CO2e per year.  The new system will produce 14.91 metric tons. So by changing from compacting to baling, they’ll reduce cardboard-recycling related carbon emissions by over 75 metric tons per year. “

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Green Planet 21 is in the recycling and sustainability business. We work with our customers to maximize recyclables that they generate in their plants so that they landfill as little as possible and move towards their sustainability goals. There are many types or grades of scrap materials for cardboard and paper and plastic recycling. The useable scrap from our clients’ production processes is segregated at the source location then prepared for the global marketplace. 70% of what Green Planet 21 collects for recycling is old corrugated containers (OCC.) The OCC we sell to paper mills in the U.S. and around the world is both clean and of the highest quality. We do not ship garbage. What we collect and ship out is consistently of superior quality, the cleanest, most reliable product. Our product is such that 113 pounds of old cardboard recycles into100 pounds of new cardboard. By contrast, it takes 140 pounds of OCC gathered domestically in China to produce the same 100 pounds of paper linerboard for new corrugated boxes.

As of March 1, 2018, China, the destination for 30% of U.S. scrap exports, began requiring shipments with a prohibitive or contaminant rate of less than .05%. What does this mean? In a 2000 pound bale of recyclable OCC, there can be .05% of other material, the materials that often come attached to the cardboard, like the plastic wrap on top of a case of beverage containers.

Our used scrap cardboard is baled in 2000-2600 pound bundles prior to shipping. Less than ten pounds of that bale can include something that is not cardboard, a bit of plastic that was stuck to the cardboard, some shipping tape, a piece of plastic strapping or a scrap of baling wire that was accidentally included. It cannot include waxed cardboard, mixed paper, broken glass or anything tainted with food. Any shipments with the aroma of garbage will be rejected.

Over the past 30 years, 30% of U.S. scrap was sold to China for goods production because China has little oil and few forests, basically no raw material resources. During the 90’s the U.S. recycling industry made some errors in judging what was considered recyclable. There was a cost benefit impacting the idea of what a recyclable commodity is which included greenhouse gases and carbon offsets. Now, China’s leaders are restricting imports in order to diminish pollution in the form of byproducts from manufacturers. The Chinese government initiated Operation Green Fence (OGF) in Feb 2013 to enforce 2006 and 2010 regulations and also to implement new, stricter regulations beginning in April 2013, regulations that effectively changed the US recycling business by demanding higher quality commodities. The Chinese government has now changed the playing field again by demanding different specifications for importing recyclables to feed those mills. They have effectively incentivized the domestic collection in China while dis-incentivizing imported material. This is no longer an economic model but a political one. The most recent restrictions on imported recyclables ban several plastics and mixed waste paper, aiming to reduce contaminants and improve the environment in China.

China has modern, well designed, and efficient paper mills. For example, they have the capacity to treat the water and return it cleaner to the source than it was before they pumped it into their mill or before it is returned to a river. People knowledgeable about the paper making business and the recycling business are not driving these changes.

The Chinese government embarked on National Sword beginning in 2017 and now China is dictating product specifications. It is NOT a Capitalist free-form marketplace. It is a “Wild West” scenario that is roiling the recycling markets worldwide. Further, there is a new government policy, a ten-month program of special actions called Blue Sky being enforced by people who do not have the benefit of understanding the paper business, what is needed to make new material. Traditionally, over the past four decades, all sides negotiated the market and deals were accepted or not. The current situation is a one-sided deal that impacts how we work and our relationships with our customers in a high stakes, future-changing way.

Both our clients and the public must become knowledgeable about how the recycling markets function. In the West, Green Planet 21 has been working with large manufactures setting up and meeting sustainability goals. At Green Planet 21, we know that source separated commodities have the highest value. We continue to process and sell waste paper, an array of clean, high quality source-segregated post-industrial materials. We work with our source clients to ensure that what we ship out is high quality in the extreme.

Green Planet 21 is not involved in curbside recycling. The curbside recycling that most municipalities across the U.S. rely on produces a mixed mess that destroys the value of the recyclables. Curbside mixtures contain glass, many types of plastics, hybrid container packaging, and even food. The quality of recyclables produced is too contaminated to create a reliably clean and desirable product. The sorting and cleaning labor is not attractive to workers and the labor costs are considerable. Much of the material from curbside, single-stream collection will no longer be recycled. In the U. S., we have been underpricing disposal. Those cost will go up as we bury more in landfills and the waste companies raise landfill rates. Our collection systems will require massive refinement in order to recycle municipal wastes. Green Planet 21 is in a unique position to accommodate the changing market conditions and will continue to be a leader in recycling and sustainability.

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In early February 2018, Steve Sutta spoke about his understanding of what is happening in the recycling business vis a vis changes in how the Chinese are doing business.

He said, “We provide what China needs. What they want is really what we provide and have provided for years. We provide source segregated recyclables for commercial and industrial establishments. By their nature, we avoid contamination.

And so, when they take it through the recycling process, the paper mill process, there are just fewer contaminants for their cleaning systems. They have to clean up the water to put back in the rivers so their people aren’t poisoned by someone else’s garbage, whether it’s European or their own or ours. And the way you do that is, at a mill that’s making new cardboard or container board out of old cardboard, if there is only clean cardboard going in, 99.5% of it. Most industrial establishments, whether its Amazon or Kraft or any of the box manufacturers,  are putting in real clean material because there’s no way for it to get contaminated. We’ll take that and ship it. They love it. All the mills love it.

In the past, they have been unwilling to pay a premium for it. Now with what they are doing is saying, ‘We would rather not have dirty water. We would rather not have dirty air. We are willing to pay a premium price for cleaner material so we have clean air and clean water and our population’s health improves.’
And you can’t blame them.

When you recognize that people who live north of the Yellow River live 5 years less than people south of the river because of the air pollution from the various factories because they’re coal burning and all. When you realize that they’ve closed 35,000 pig farms because the manure from pigs really ruins the water supply, they’re not picking on the paper industry, they’re not picking on the scrap industry, they’re picking on everyone because they’re saying that their people deserve clean air and clean water.

And when you get to that point, when you understand that, then you get to the heart of the issues there. The powers that be in China do not care if it costs more money for cleaner cardboard, they do not care if a box costs 1 or 2 or 5 cents more. What they do care about is having clean air and water, so mixed paper from single stream recycling is not going to ship to China again in our lifetimes. Just not going to happen.

Dirty industries are being forced out of China rapidly, and it has to do with perception of the president of China, President Xi, and the party is being perceived as protectors of the environment, and protectors of the Chinese way, rather than any economic thing that’s involved. We tend to think economics drive everything. In China they don’t. Power and the perceived role of the party drives everything, and often things are scripted, but if you look behind it and you look at what is going to help them cement their power, and in this case you’ve got to remember this group brought more people out of poverty than in the last 30 years in history. And now these people, this middle class in China has all this money, they’re saying ‘we want to live longer, we want to live healthier, we want clean air and clean water.’

And so they’re responding to that as a response to maintaining their power base, and if you understand it in that context, then you understand what’s really going on in China. And no other explanation, that I’ve heard from anyone, makes any sense, certainly in the last 30 years understanding China. And right now my contacts, inside and outside China, are about as good as they get on this particular issue.”

For further reading, we recommend this article:
https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-recycling-china-trash-ban-forces-europe-to-confront-its-waste-problem/

The post Steve Sutta on Chinese Environmental Protection appeared first on greenplanet21.

As we collect, bale, and transport old corrugated containers (OCC), office paper, many types of packaging, wrappings, and strappings, Green Planet 21 will continue to partner with our clients to ensure that we maximize recycling and the value of scrap materials with persistent vigor. We expect that China will continue to buy our high quality, clean, post-industrial supply of cardboard and several grades of paper along with some plastics. We will handle plastic scrap types efficiently as we navigate the diminishing global plastic scrap market. You may have heard something about this about in the news.

On July 18, China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) filed with the World Trade Organization (WTO), proposing to ban from import into China 24 types of plastic scrap types including PET, PE, PVC and PS, along with recovered mixed paper, textiles and vanadium slag towards the end 2017. Chinese authorities overseeing scrap trade are also revising a key regulation on scrap-trading requirements. The worldwide recycling industry is expected to contract as plastic sales to China shrink. Sellers will seek new end users, but the Chinese buying is not easily replaceable.

China has long been the largest and most important buyer of scrap cardboard, paper, plastics, metal, and other materials from the U.S. One third of the recyclables collected in the U.S. are sold to China. Plastics have accounted for over 15% of those exports in recent years. Prices for plastic scrap are now at the bottom, effectively ending the period when buying scrap was cheaper than buying virgin material. The world market for scrap recyclables is dynamic, always changing.

Last spring, the Chinese MEP inspected 1,162 companies that handle scrap imports and found that nearly two thirds of those firms had problematic practices or banned inventory. China instituted National Sword, an effort to improve the quality of their imported recyclables as well as stop the smuggling into China of already banned imports or materials contaminated with garbage or hazardous waste. The National Sword ban includes “polymers of ethylene, styrene, vinyl chloride, and polyethylene terephthalate (PET). These waste plastics can be ground and added as source material in the production of plastic products. Due to the low cost of oil, the sales prices for these scrap plastic types dropped earlier to negligible levels.

While China has been a buyer, an importer of recyclables, China’s own industries have not been collecting and repurposing recyclables. China now seems interested in building up its own materials recovery industry. Further, China has huge problems with environmental pollution. After joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) 16 years ago, China now seeks to meet the environmental protection obligations associated with membership.

The journalist Colin Staub has written a series of articles on this developing story.
See  https://resource-recycling.com for more information.

The post China Plans to Cut Plastic Scrap Imports appeared first on greenplanet21.

Our much admired Joe Martinson knew of a company with a product destruction problem. Joe asked Grey Weaver to solve it. The problem had some extra parameters for product destruction.

Company “X” works internationally to design, license, produce, and market products focusing on the kawaii segment of Japanese popular culture. They were storing 32,402 garments that, for reasons we do not mention, they planned not to ship to stores or sell. There were 21 pallets and 601 boxes stuffed with cute and comfy hoodies, T-shirts, team uniforms, caps, and more.

We knew Company “X” needed some time-sensitive destruction and Grey worked with their Import and Global Transportation Manager. The destruction job had to be done fast, within ten days from Grey’s initial contact with the client. Four of those days were on weekends.

At first, Company “X” requested onsite destruction. We destroy paper and electronic records onsite throughout seven western states but products generally require the most powerful shredding systems, those that are housed inside our facilities. So, we arranged for the client to watch the destruction in person at our facility.

In addition to the short notice, the exact timing and the specifications of the client’s needs changed several times during the days Grey worked through the best plan for how to destroy the goods and the terms of agreement. More adjustments followed. In accordance with the customs requirements for the goods to pass through without complications, the client required highly detailed lists describing the lots and the exact methods of destruction.

When the product destruction was to begin, the Import and Global Transportation Manager followed the goods as they were trucked to our facility and watched as the project unfolded. She saw the cartons being unloaded and opened, the goods being fed into our Oakland shredding machinery, the scrap fabrics exiting the system, and then being conveyed into the baler. She left with documentation detailing the destruction of all of the products. Every one of the initial difficulties gave way to a very pleasant experience and the client was grateful. Below was part of her thank you message to Grey:

Thank you very much for letting me witness the destruction. You guys are great! You do an awesome job. Loved the experience. And you are very nice, hospitable and entertaining. I’m really glad you are my contact there.

Thanks for all your help Grey.

Grace Padilla
Import and Global Transportation Manager
San Francisco Bay Area
SANRIO, Inc.

For more information, contact Grey Weaver 510-384-9408

To find a representative nearby or nationally:
Go to: Contact Us

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In November 2016, California voters passed Proposition 64, which legalizes the recreational use of marijuana for adults over 21 in California. This change rolls out in January of 2018, posing a challenge for the California legislature, which must scramble to plan how to regulate this $7 billion industry before then. While there are many important issues that must be addressed, there are a few that require increased attention. As a society, we want to keep the psychoactive residues of marijuana out of the hands of children. Further, we need sustainable waste handling in place in order to minimize the impact of the marijuana industry on the California environment. Lastly, we need to ensure that the State of California is generating the maximum amount of taxable revenue possible from the passage of this legislation. What needs to be put into place to transform an industry that has operated without restrictions into one that has safety and sustainability procedures and is organized to pay taxes on the profits?

In the near future, Green Planet 21 will be using the Kanemiya machinery, a sustainable technology fully capable of processing the plastic packaging and wrappings used by the marijuana growers and the distributors to responsibly handle the waste. The Kanemiya machines will clean and shred the packaging in preparation for recycling, removing any remaining marijuana residue from the packaging in the process. Our chain of custody provides manufactures reliable security for problematic materials, eliminating the unintended public safety consequences associated with marijuana residue. For example, there have been horrible news stories detailing the accidental deaths of Colorado children who accidentally ate sweets containing doses of marijuana they did not understand. As a state that is in the process of regulating the marijuana market, we also need to control the possibility of someone stealing and scraping the bags for profit. Eliminating the entry of marijuana residue into the waste stream by cleaning the bags prior to disposal will also prevent un-taxable profiteering.

The post Sustainable Recycling for Marijuana Packaging appeared first on greenplanet21.

At Green Planet 21, our clients who are major food producers are intent on creating more sustainable workflows, on cutting their waste disposal costs, and on achieving zero landfill. Coca Cola called us when they needed to destroy 22,000 cases of a juice product they were not happy with. They wanted to be sure that the bottles would never find their way into any marketplace. Here is a video that describes how we handled their problem.

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