The team is building a facility to increase the city’s recycling capacity.
Balcones Resources, Austin, Texas, has selected CP Group, San Diego, as the equipment provider for its material recovery facility (MRF) in San Antonio, set to open in 2024.
Balcones says the equipment represents the latest in automation and technology in the industry, which makes the MRF the most advanced in the country, with five to 10 manual sorters. The MRF will have a processing capacity of 50 tons per hour and will serve residential and commercial recycling streams in San Antonio. It will be integrated with the ability to process high volumes of postcommercial, postindustrial paper and plastic scrap to benefit the region’s growing distribution infrastructure.
“CP Group has been a tremendous partner throughout this process,” says Adam Vehik, CEO of Balcones. “Their team worked closely with us to design a best-in-class system that would provide superior recovery rates and economic value to San Antonio, and we knew that their reputation of reliability and consistent performance would serve to strengthen our proposal.”
According to a news release from CP Group, the facility will contain technological and processing advancements, including auger screens that eliminate the presort station. The MRF will use a CP Primary Auger screen to scalp 6-inch-minus material and two patented old corrugated cardboard (OCC) Auger Screens to scalp 8-inch-minus material to produce a clean OCC end product. These three machines are located before any sorters, allowing for downstream sorting efficiency of fractionated material streams.
The screens remove OCC and other large materials from the remainder of the automated recovery process. Material is sent to a four-deck glass breaker screen and LightsOut ADS to remove and clean glass. After the glass is removed, the material goes to two high-volume disc screens, a CP AntiWrap Screen for the midsize fraction, and a CPScreen for the small fraction material. These screens play an important role in liberating conjoined material and fines. Disc Screens split material by mechanical properties so the downstream automated sorting equipment can achieve the highest efficiencies, according to the equipment supplier.
The system will use a high degree of sorting automation, including five MSS FiberMax optical sorters, which run at 1,000 feet per minute on 112-inch-wide belts. These machines will use different sorting recipes depending on the unit’s position in the MRF to positively sort fiber, OCC and contaminants. On the container line, three MSS PlasticMax optical sorters will sort polyethylene terephthalate (PET), high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and polypropylene (PP). A magnet will remove ferrous, and an eddy current will remove nonferrous material. Two MSS AI units will be used to quality control containers, specifically PET and aluminum.
The system will incorporate CP’s new silo designs, which include leveling augers and silo augers. Using augers in silos provides maximum use of space and an accurate feed to the baling lines to eliminate half bales or bale reruns. The facility will have three balers, one single-ram for cardboard and two two-ram balers. Each commodity has the opportunity to reach two balers for redundancy.
“We’ve incorporated the latest and greatest in MRF technology and automation into this design. The system will be operational with as few as five sorters,” says Branden Sidwell, CP Group design engineer. “This exceptionally low headcount comes thanks to material fractionating along with the automated recovery and quality control of nearly every commodity.”
The Balcones MRF will support the development of a circular economy in San Antonio. It will be able to aggregate significant volumes of high-quality recycled materials, creating quality feedstock for more businesses to enter the circular economy. The site and building designs are focused on rapid turnaround time for city collections, haulers, outbound recipients of baled commodities and businesses.
“The MRF will enable the city and the business community to make major progress toward their recycling goals,” says Joaquin Mariel, Balcones’ chief commercial officer. “Its advanced technology will enable the city to get the highest possible value out of the recycling stream. This means more of the recoverable plastic, metal, glass, cardboard [and more], that is in recycling bins today will be sent to an end market that will bring value to the city’s program. The same will be true for any hauler or neighboring community that will use the Balcones San Antonio MRF as their recycling partner.”
Rogue services more than 45,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in the region.
Waste Connections Inc., headquartered in Canada, has acquired Rogue Waste Inc, a waste service provider based in Medford, Oregon, and its affiliates. The transaction closed earlier this month and details of the sale were not disclosed.
Founded in 1938, Rogue Waste is a vertically integrated provider of solid waste management solutions in the Pacific Northwest U.S. The company provides an end-to-end integrated suite of services that includes collection, transfer, disposal and beneficial reuse capabilities for residential, commercial and industrial customers.
Rogue services more than 45,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in the region. According to the company’s Linkedin page, it has about 150 employees. Some of the affiliates under the company’s scope include Dry Creek Landfill Inc., Rogue Clean Fuels LLC. and Rogue Transfer & Recycling LLC.
Waste Connections serves more than 8 million residential, commercial, and industrial customers in mostly exclusive and secondary markets across 43 states in the U.S. and six provinces in Canada. Waste Connections also provides nonhazardous oil field waste treatment, recovery and disposal services in several basins across the U.S. It also provides intermodal services for the movement of cargo and solid waste containers in the Pacific Northwest.
Houlihan Lokey served as the exclusive financial adviser to Rogue Waste and assisted in marketing, structuring, and negotiating the transaction on behalf of the company.
The OptiPak Series is ideal for locations where a compactor is required but space is limited.
Wastequip, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based manufacturer of waste handling equipment, has introduced its OptiPak Series of compactors. Designed to offer “unmatched toughness in compact sizes,” Wastequip says the new OptiPak brings efficiency and ease of use to this line of versatile compactors.
Ideal for businesses like restaurants, grocery stores, apartment buildings and shopping centers, office complexes or any other location where a compactor is required but space is limited, the OptiPak provides efficient compaction with less space.
Available with 3-yard front- and rear-load containers and 4-, 6- or 8-yard front-load containers, the OptiPak features a 4-in-1 head with 90-degree rotation, allowing for a full 360-degree pack in just 30 seconds. Designed to navigate tight spaces like apartments and alleyways, the new 4-in-1 head can freely arrange the direction the top faces, allowing for an orientation that fits the space it occupies. The adjustable legs also offer additional versatility for easier shipping and on-site height adjustments.
In addition, the OptiPak features an updated control panel and a new motor. The control panel has been streamlined from its previous design, providing a better user experience while adding operational settings that can be tailored to meet individual user preferences. For increased reliability and downtime, the OptiPak is powered by a DC motor.
The OptiPak also incorporates Wastequip’s Automatic Maintenance Scheduler into the power unit to alert operators when preventive maintenance is required.
“The OptiPak compactor is the result of extensive industry benchmarking and listening to our customers to ensure we continue to offer market-leading compaction solutions. It is the small compactor that’s ready to do big work, combining adjustability and streamlined operation with legendary Wastequip toughness,” says Nick Daddabbo, director of product management for Wastequip. “The OptiPak is a uniquely agile compactor that provides efficient compaction where space is limited.”
The grant will help researchers create sustainable aviation fuel and graphite from a blend of wood waste and seaweed.
Researchers in North Carolina State University’s College of Natural Resources and College of Agriculture and Life Sciences have been awarded a $2.25 million grant funded by the Department of Energy to develop sustainable biotechnologies sourced from solid waste streams.
The project, called Sargassum and Wood Waste for Aviation Fuel and Graphite (SWAG), will develop a technological process for the production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and battery-grade graphite using sargassum and wood waste.
According to the university, the Biden administration’s ambitious climate goals will require the rapid proliferation of electric vehicles and renewable energy grid systems, with graphite making up roughly 30 percent of the mass of a lithium-ion battery.
With demand for these batteries expected to grow six-fold by 2032, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, it’s estimated that nearly 100 new graphite mines and over 50 new synthetic graphite plants would need to be built to meet the projected demand.
The SWAG project’s potential output technology could produce up to 61,000 tons of graphite per year, or roughly 3.4 percent of current synthetic graphite production worldwide from cheap, renewable resources.
Similarly, the project’s technology is capable of producing up to 78 million gallons of SAF, enough to meet 2.6 percent of the current administration’s goal of producing 3 billion gallons of SAF per year by 2030. Conventional aviation fuel is the dominant fuel source for air travel, contributing roughly 9 to 12 percent of all U.S. transportation-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The SWAG process estimates a reduction of SAF GHGs greater than 70 percent, researchers say.
“Aviation fuel and synthetic battery-grade graphite are made with fossil petroleum feedstocks in rather unsustainable ways,” Joe Sagues, assistant professor of Biological and Agricultural Engineering and a co-principal investigator on the project, told CALS News. “We believe that with the SWAG technology we can drastically reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with aviation fuel and battery grade graphite, while also increasing domestic jobs and creating other environmental and economic benefits.”
When sargassum washes up on beaches like in Puerto Rico, it rots, giving off a stench produced by hydrogen sulfide, which is a nuisance to nearby residents and tourists. While the marine macroalgae itself is harmless to human health, researchers on the project say marine life living in the seaweed can become a skin irritant.
“It’s one big biomass waste that there’s no real economical use for today,” Sagues says.
With help from the University of Puerto Rico, researchers also plan to source wood waste from recent hurricane damage on the island, which will assist with relief efforts and infrastructural development projects. Wood waste from industrial forestry, pulp and paper and lumber products are also viable feedstocks for the technology, according to the research team.
Rheaply will leverage the Materials Marketplace’s network of 2,200 partners and expertise to make asset reuse more accessible to organizations.
Chicago-based Rheaply, a cloud-based resource exchange technology application for connecting people and organizations with resources to those who need them, has announced its acquisition of the Austin, Texas-based United States Business Council for Sustainable Development’s (US BCSD’s) Materials Marketplace.
Rheaply will leverage the Materials Marketplace’s network of 2,200 partners and expertise in the upcycling of building materials, improving the company’s efforts to divert building waste from landfills, as well as generate significant cost savings, energy savings, new jobs and business opportunities.
Up to 40 percent of emissions come from the manufacturing, construction and demolition of materials within the built environment. The Materials Marketplace has listed and found end markets for many of these materials. Rheaply says the integration of its technology platform will elevate the circular economy to transform how building and manufacturing waste is recovered and reused, creating a system in which one organization’s hard-to-recycle waste and byproducts become another organization’s raw material for furnishings, new development projects and product fabrication.
“It’s been exciting to see how much the marketplace has accomplished since the days when company reps were sitting around tables poring over spreadsheets of inputs and outputs,” US BCSD Executive Director Andy Magan says. “The software that’s automating those connections now needs the kind of expertise that a company like Rheaply can offer to take it to the next level.”
While the Materials Marketplace focuses on upcycling building material waste from small businesses, nonprofit organizations and government agencies, Rheaply brings circularity to furniture, fixtures and equipment for large corporations, such as Google, Target, AbbVie and Nicor, offering sustainable procurement and investment recovery through a combination of internal and external reuse.
Rheaply’s platform is designed to help leaders of large organizations locate what they need from other divisions of their companies, avoiding both the long wait times associated with global supply chain disruptions and disposal of usable materials. With the acquisition of the Materials Marketplace, the waste streams available for reuse and exchange are exponentially larger when factoring in construction surplus, deconstructed materials and byproducts from manufacturing operations.
To date, more than 50,000 items with a value of $19 million have been upcycled through Rheaply’s platform, diverting more than 20 metric tons of waste from landfills. Since the second quarter of 2021, the company’s growth is up 185 percent.
“We are very grateful that Andy and the US BCSD have entrusted us with building on what they’ve created with the Materials Marketplace,” Rheaply founder and CEO Garry Cooper says. “With around 20 percent of all U.S. waste headed to landfill coming from commercial construction projects, we must think about the next wave of buildings to be built with the things that we already have above ground and the things that are already in our community.”
Cooper says empowering reuse can create more jobs than traditional waste management practices, including landfilling and recycling.
“If those jobs can actually make our communities more [reliant] on their own supply chains and not global supply chains, and, if we can also do that by reducing the things that go to landfill, it’s at least a triple-bottom-line win,” he adds.
The Materials Marketplace currently operates in Texas, Tennessee, Ohio, Ontario, Michigan and Washington.
With this acquisition and additional product advancements, Rheaply plans to develop next-generation technology, making asset reuse more accessible to organizations of all shapes and sizes. Additionally, Rheaply recently introduced a tool that allows users to view the estimated embodied carbon avoided by reusing items, contextualizing the environmental benefit in hard data.
The acquisition includes mutual success factors to incentivize continued growth and scale of the program. The terms of the deal are not disclosed.