Technology Minerals Plc announced its battery recycling business unit has achieved a key step toward commencement of operations for its Wolverhampton plant.

Technology Minerals Plc, United Kingdom, announced its 49-percent-owned battery recycling business, Recyclus Group Ltd., has been awarded an environmental permit by the Environment Agency (EA) for its recycling plant in Wolverhampton, West Midlands.

The company says the permit is a key step toward commencement of operations, as it provides the critical legal foundation from which Recyclus can receive the variation of license required to enable to Wolverhampton site to be fully operational. According to Technology Minerals, the variation of license is required because of the novelty of recycling lithium-ion batteries within the U.K.

The EA also has prioritized the determination of Recyclus’ application to transfer its permits across its lithium-ion Wolverhampton plant and lead-acid Tipton plant. Technology Minerals says this priority status has been given to Recyclus as the EA is satisfied that the development of the company will help maintain national resilience, national infrastructure and/or is critical for environmental protection.

“Receiving the EA permit for our Wolverhampton plant is a critical step for the recycling facility to become fully operational which, for the first time, will bring industrial-scale recycling capability for lithium-ion batteries in the U.K.,” Technology Minerals Chairman Robin Brundle says. “To be awarded priority status and be categorized as an organization critical for environmental protection is fantastic.”

Brundle continues, “This high-level of recognition from the EA is reflective of the importance of Recyclus’ ambition to recycle batteries and establish a circular economy for battery metals in the U.K. With the increasing demand for critical battery metals, we are pleased to be seen as integral to ensuring a domestic supply chain through recycling.”

This is the second EA permit awarded to Recyclus in two weeks following the environmental permit obtained for its Tipton recycling facility earlier this month.

Once the Wolverhampton site is fully operational, it will be the first in the U.K. with the capacity to recycle lithium-ion batteries on an industrial scale and, the company says, will be a key foundation of Recyclus’ ambition to increase its lithium-ion battery recycling capacity from an estimated 8,300 metric tons in the first full year of operations to approximately 41,500 metric tons by 2027.

Steel mills are making adjustments to use more scrap, but traders worry about their ability to export the surplus.

Although ferrous scrap crossed borders in abundance in 2021, trade policy concerns emanating from Europe have recyclers and traders worried about the near-term future of the sector. The issue loomed over discussions at the Ferrous Division meeting at the 2022 Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) World Recycling Convention in late May in Barcelona. BIR attendees also heard, however, that steel mills in Europe are reconfiguring to consume more scrap on the continent.

Steelmakers in Europe will be using more scrap as they attempt to reduce the carbon footprint of their operations, said Eric Niedziela, chair of ArcelorMittal France in his guest speech at the BIR Ferrous Division meeting.

Niedziela outlined the global company’s strategy for achieving a 25 percent reduction in its CO2 emissions intensity by 2030, including a goal of 35 percent for Europe. Those plans include setting up what ArcelorMittal calls the world’s first full-scale zero-emissions steel plant by 2025 at Sestao in Spain.

Among measures designed to achieve its targets, the group envisages “a huge increase in our scrap demand” and is looking to secure its raw material supply via “acquisitions, long-term contracts, joint ventures or whatever we can discuss together,” the executive said.

Fellow guest speaker Cinzia Vezzosi, immediate past president of the European Recycling Industries’ Confederation (EuRIC), said preventing ferrous scrap from leaving Europe through a proposed revision of the EU’s Waste Shipment Regulation would leave almost 20 million metric tons of ferrous scrap looking for a new home. This would “break the circular economy chain” in Europe and lead to lower collection rates, she commented. “Shutting down this flow will create a massive earthquake in the market,” Vezzosi said.

The EuRIC officer also said there is potential for greater use of ferrous scrap in Europe since its current usage rate of 57.6 percent in 2021 was below, for example, the 69.2 percent rate achieved in the United States. She added, however, that business conducted between Europe’s scrap suppliers and consumers needed to be “absolutely fair” and “linked to international prices.”

BIR President Tom Bird insisted the steel industry should not look to achieve its goals “at the expense of free trade in scrap.” If scrap exports were seriously compromised, he said, “recycling rates go down” and “no investment takes place within our industry,” thus negatively impacting the steel sector too.

While Niedziela questioned the validity of exporting scrap to countries that might then compete on the European steel market with more carbon-intense products, he also said, “I’m not saying we should stop the market. We have to manage this properly in Europe.”

The 2022 BIR World Recycling Convention was May 22-25 in Barcelona.

Theresa Wagler, chief financial officer of the EAF steelmaker, says the company continues to shrink an already low carbon footprint.

Indiana-based electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmaker Steel Dynamics Inc. (SDI) continues to find new ways to convert ferrous scrap into steel products while emitting CO2 at well below the industry average, according to an executive with the company.

SDI Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Theresa Wagler tells Recycling Today the company uses 90 to 95 percent scrap to make its rebar and other long products. The company has a growing presence in the flat-rolled steel market, and those mills utilize a mix of pig iron, direct-reduced iron (DRI) or hot briquetted iron (HBI), with scrap making from 75 to 80 percent of the feedstock in that business unit.

Copper and other residual metals found in scrap can make prime grades the only viable scrap feedstock at a sheet mill. Wagler says that grade has remained in short supply much of the past three years.

Wagler says SDI continues to work with its own OmniSource business unit and other scrap suppliers to upgrade ferrous shred to produce a grade she says is “almost like a prime type of shred.”

Maintaining and even increasing the recycled content of its steel is important not only to SDI but also to many of its customers, says the CFO, who has been with SDI since 1998.

In the construction, automotive and several other sectors, measuring carbon footprints and product life cycles has become standard, which is good news for SDI, Wagler says. “From the customer side, we are the recycled content,” she remarks. “We’re the decarbonization story already—today.”

It is unclear to what extent projects tied to the big ticket infrastructure bill will favor recycled-content steel, Wagler says. However, United States-centric “melt and pour” requirements for steel are spelled out, favoring domestic mills.

“Of the $1.2 trillion potential in the bill, some $850 billion of it has steel-containing aspects,” she says. “Our belief is there is going to be a benefit for those of us who produce recycled steel.” Wagler says rail infrastructure also is getting a boost, and “we are the primary rail producer” in the U.S., she says, referring to SDI’s Structural and Rail Division in Columbia City, Indiana. “It’s a real leg up for us. 

Additionally, the solar and wind energy components of the bill provide demand for steel going into housings for solar panels and windmill structures.

In the automotive sector, Wagler says the recycled content of SDI steel has helped it “have traction” at service centers and with OEMs. “They want to be able to say their whole supply chain has carbon reduction or neutrality embedded,” she says of some customers.

SDI is working on creating what Wagler calls an “almost perfect closed loop system” at its Sinton, Texas, flat-rolled mill. Several manufacturers of finished products and components in both the U.S. and Mexico have agreed to supply their generated scrap directly to the mill, “eliminating carbon emissions” because of the short journey.

To supply its Sinton mill, SDI also recently purchased Monterrey, Mexico-based multilocation scrap processing firm Roca Acero S.A. de C.V. It is the second Monterrey-based scrap company acquired by SDI, following Zimmer S.A. de C.V. in early 2020.

The closed-loop arrangements, the scrap processing acquisitions and ongoing efforts to use more shredded scrap as feedstock all are part of SDI’s path to decarbonization, says Wagler.

The company’s website features a headline that reads, “Sustainable. Intentional. Transformational.” In a brief writeup headed “What we do” beneath that slogan, the steelmaker states, “We operate using a circular manufacturing model, producing lower-carbon-emission, quality steel using EAF technology with recycled ferrous scrap as the primary input.”

The visible commitment to decarbonization (and recycling) is not temporary, and SDI is backing up that commitment with action, says Wagler. “Some of our customers say our Columbus, Mississippi-based flat-roll division has the lowest SCOPE 1 [direct greenhouse gas] emissions of all their suppliers,” she says.

More decarbonization measures are coming, says Wagler, saying SDI’s target to reach carbon neutrality by 2050 is possible, adding she also would like to see a premium price attached to low-carbon steel “one day.” Wagler says of the feeling within SDI toward its recycling-based, low-carbon approach, “There is an incredible excitement and momentum.”

New features include a triple-deck Mach OCC screen with a fines screen underneath to remove the system fines early in the process.

Machinex, Plessisville, Quebec, has announced the launch of an upgraded a single-stream municipal recycling facility of West County Resource Recovery, located in Richmond, California. The project is the result of cooperation between Machinex and its client, Republic Services, Phoenix, to modernize the existing facility for additional sorting capacity.

Machinex says it was chosen for this upgrade thanks to its capacity to provide and deliver a turnkey solution that increases tonnage while having the same number of sorters.

The company says this design was specifically employed to address the challenges of the existing building while upgrading the system. Before the upgrade, a customer was running about 15 tons per hour and some older equipment was no longer working.

Machinex was asked to increase processing capability without adding to the current sorter count and to eliminate rubber disc screens. Design challenges included working with the existing infeed pit along with putting together a design that utilized the existing baler and storage bunker setup.

“We needed two ballistics to achieve the processing capacity goals set forth by the client,” says Rusty Angel, a regional sales manager for Machinex. “We utilized their existing drum feeder for the system infeed and also reused many of the existing bunkers at the front end of the system such as the presort bunkers and commodity bunkers since those were all live bottom bunkers and already in place. We did have to add one new walking floor bunker for the ferrous metals as they did not have enough bunkers to accommodate all of the recovered materials.”

Features of the facility's new system include a triple-deck Mach OCC screen with a fines screen underneath to remove the system fines early in the process. The new OCC screen features improved disc spacing and larger shafts to reduce daily cleaning. Two Mach ballistic separators were installed to handle the primary and secondary 2D/3D separation, which helps to reduce downtime and overall maintenance costs.

This upgrade required some additional automation to meet this challenge. A Mach Hyspec dual-eject optical sorter has been incorporated to remove polyethylene terephthalate and high-density polyethylene at the start of the container line. A new magnet and eddy current separator also was installed for ferrous and nonferrous recovery.

The company says the features of this system make it reliable, efficient and flexible, with a limited footprint. The new MRF will be able to process more recyclables with the capacity to sort 22 to 24 tons per hour.

Machinex worked alongside Republic to bring its expertise with creative design for retrofits. Requirements for the project were to select a partner that would be able to guide them through this major system upgrade, along with providing them a maintenance-friendly system that could increase the recovery of recyclable material.

The report covers CECO’s sustainability efforts and key milestones.

CECO Environmental Corp., based in Cincinnati, has published its environmental, social and governance (ESG) report. The report looks at the company’s sustainability impact and how it has helped its customers meet or exceed environmental regulations. Sustainability efforts from 2018 to 2020 and key milestones in 2021 are featured.

The report covers topics such as energy consumption and management, waste management and reductions and greenhouse gas emissions.

CECO’s Indianapolis manufacturing facility saw a drastic decrease in energy usage compared with three other U.S. facilities. The Indianapolis facility had an energy reduction of 132,000 kilowatt-hours, which CECO attributes to the conversion to LED lights, investing in efficient machine centers and improving manufacturing throughput.

The company’s Columbia, Tennessee, facility experienced a smaller decrease of at least 6 percent between 2018 and 2020. However, CECO’s Telford, Pennsylvania, and Greensboro, North Carolina, facilities both had increased energy usage from 2018.

Regarding office waste, the report says CECO has invested in recycling programs for papers, toners and other office supplies. In 2020, the company recycled 28,077 pounds of paper from their four U.S. manufacturing facilities. Their plan, according to the report, is to go 15 percent paperless in 2023. Water filtration systems have also been installed, diverting approximately 12,230 plastic bottles annually from landfills and the environment, according to the report.

The report also says CECO repurposes and reuses scrap metal and recycles resin, fiberglass, nylon, cardboard, wood, plastics and acetone. From 2018 to 2020, the company says it recovered and reused 11,800 pounds of acetone, recycling it at a rate of about 80 percent.

Overall, the amount of recycled material at their U.S. facilities has decreased from 521.9 tons in 2019 to 472.2 tons in 2020. The 2020 rate, though, turned out higher than the 2018 rate of 346.3 tons.

At the company’s Mefiag facility in the Netherlands, scrap propylene waste resulting from manufacturing operations is sold to a third party.

To address greenhouse gas emissions, CECO has started converting diesel trucks with compressed natural gas alternatives and replaced two company fleet vehicles at their Netherlands office with full-electric and hybrid alternatives.

For more information about CECO's efforts around ESG, click here.