Recycling equipment maker adds 24,000 square feet of manufacturing space in Jesup, Georgia.

Bakersfield, California-based Sierra International Machinery is citing “the overwhelming demand for the Sierra REB line of two-ram balers and conveyors” as having prompted an expansion project at its manufacturing facility in Jesup, Georgia.

What Sierra says is its fourth expansion project since the plant in Jesup opened in 2008 will add 24,000 square feet of space to its manufacturing facility there. The expansion will allow Sierra to increase its production capacity and meet steady demand for the Sierra product line, says the company.

“I’m incredibly excited to be able to expand for our fourth time in Jesup, Georgia,” says Sierra President and co-owner John Sacco. “The market acceptance of our machines has been so great that we need to increase our capacity to move more equipment through to be able to deliver on a more timely basis.”

Sacco continues, “The team at Sierra in Georgia has done incredible work of delivering quality products, top engineering, and it’s time we expand again. We are blessed beyond.”

Every machine in the Sierra product line passes through the Georgia facility, according to the company. Additionally, every Sierra two-ram baler and conveyor is fully engineered, manufactured and assembled in Georgia.

The company calls the Jesup plant “truly the birthplace of the Sierra two-ram balers,” referring to a product line that offers three different two-ram models and numerous conveyor models.

Once the phase-four expansion is completed, Sierra’s Georgia manufacturing facility will be 96,000 square feet in size.

View a four-minute video tour of the plant conducted with Emory Olds and Jose Pereyra of Sierra below. 

The South Carolina-based company is acquiring commercial waste collection assets from Pascon.

Capital Waste Services LLC (CWS), a Columbia, South Carolina-based portfolio company of New York-based Kinderhook Industries LLC, has acquired the commercial, front end-load waste collection assets of Pascon LLC. Pascon is based in Lexington, South Carolina, and serves as a solid waste hauler that provides dumpsters, roll-off containers and hauling services to residential and industrial customers.

“We are excited to expand our commercial presence in our core Columbia market,” says Matt Parker, chief executive officer of Capital Waste Services. “The routes acquired from Pascon will be serviced through existing Capital Waste facilities in both Columbia and Aiken. We plan to build off of Pascon’s history of success and provide Capital Waste’s best-in-class service to our new customers.”

According to a statement from Kinderhook, CWS is acquiring six front end-load waste collection vehicles from Pascon along with routes associated with those vehicles. All Pascon employees associated with the acquired routes will be joining CWS. Kinderhook told Waste Today that Pascon will continue to operate its remaining business divisions separately.

According to a news release from CWS, this is the company’s seventh add-on acquisition and Kinderhook’s 62nd environmental and business services transaction since its inception.

Previous Capital Waste acquisitions as a Kinderhook company include the Pee Dee C&D materials landfill in South Carolina this April and Superior Sanitation of South Carolina last August.

“Pascon represents a strategic acquisition for Capital Waste. We continue to build density in the Columbia market focusing on commercial collection accounts,” says Rob Michalik, managing director of Kinderhook. “Matt and his team sought this acquisition from the onset of our partnership due to its strategic fit and will solidify CWS’ position as the independent market leader in Columbia.”

Capital Waste reports that Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP served as legal counsel for this transaction, and a syndicate led by Comerica Bank provided financing for the transaction.

Several trade groups have expressed concern surrounding Canada’s ban on single-use plastics.

Canada’s Environment Ministry has released regulations to ban single-use plastics in the country. Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault and Minister of Health Jean-Yves Duclos published regulations that prohibit single-use plastics, including checkout bags, cutlery, foodservice ware made from or containing plastics that are hard to recycle, ring carriers, stir sticks and straws (with some exceptions).

According to a news release from Canada’s Environment Ministry, the ban on the manufacture and import of these single-use plastics will come into effect in December. The government will allow businesses time to transition and deplete their existing stock of these single-use plastic products through December 2023. The ruling also prohibits the export of plastics in those six categories by the end of 2025.

Canada’s Environment Ministry says it expects this ban to result in the estimated elimination of more than 1.3 million metric tons of hard-to-recycle plastics and more than 22,000 metric tons of plastic pollution.

“We promised Canadians we would deliver a ban on single-use plastics. Today, that’s exactly what we’ve done,” Guilbeault says. “By the end of the year, you won’t be able to manufacture or import these harmful plastics. After that, businesses will begin offering the sustainable solutions Canadians want, whether that’s paper straws or reusable bags. With these new regulations, we’re taking a historic leap forward in reducing plastic pollution and keeping our communities and the places we love clean.”

Some industry associations have expressed concern over this ruling. The Plastics Industry Association (Plastics), Washington, states that it is disappointed in the ban.

“The disregard for manufacturing jobs on both sides of the border is alarming,” says Matt Seaholm, president and CEO of Plastics. “The lack of a comprehensive economic analysis in imposing such sweeping regulations is really frustrating. There will be plastics companies that have to cut jobs or outright close facilities because of this action.

“Our members never want to see one of their products end up where it doesn’t belong. But while banning a product will certainly make it go away, replacing it with an alternative that is likely to have a bigger impact on the environment is wholly counterproductive.”

Seaholm adds that the regulations ignore opportunities for recycling single-use plastics. “Banning these products will increase costs to businesses and consumers in the U.S. and Canada, while doing nothing to significantly reduce litter or waste.”

The Chemistry Industry Association of Canada (CIAC), Ottawa, Ontario, also expressed disappointment in the ban. CIAC states that, “bans of some single-use plastic items will not solve the overall problem of plastics pollution and the management of postconsumer plastics.”

“We are disappointed that safe, inert plastic materials that play such an important role in Canadians’ lives are being banned when innovative technologies like advanced recycling are available to manage them effectively,” says Elena Mantagaris, vice president of the CIAC Plastics Division. “Rather than bans, we need to invest in recycling infrastructure and innovation, including infrastructure to manage compostables, to harness the $8 billion value of plastics that are currently sent to landfill and recirculate them in the economy.”

CIAC reports that it plans to work with Canada’s federal government to understand the scope of impacts the ban will have on businesses.

Ardagh Metal Packaging and Crown Holdings are helping to provide the financing for the leases.

Ardagh Metal Packaging (AMP) and Crown Holdings, along with the Washington-based Can Manufacturers Institute (CMI), plan to provide financing for leases of can capture equipment for recycling facilities.

According to a news release from CMI, this new leasing option allows material recovery facilities (MRFs) to receive equipment at no cost and pay it off through the additional cans captured with the equipment. CMI will continue to offer aluminum can capture grants as well. Last year, AMP and Crown helped to fund five grants through a program in partnership with The Recycling Partnership that went toward purchasing can-capture equipment in MRFs.

To show the economic and environmental impact of the need for additional can-capture equipment, AMP and Crown funded in-person testing at three MRFs that showed what it calls “significant opportunities” for capturing missorted cans. CMI reports that the testing focused on five points across the three MRFs where cans tend to be missorted, and those five points averaged between seven and 36 UBCs missorted every minute.

“CMI modeling finds that if all of the more than 350 MRFs sorting residential recyclables across the United States has perfect sortation of used beverage cans (UBCs), 3.5 billion cans could potentially be captured,” says Jennifer Cumbee, chief sustainability officer at AMP. “We are committed to continuing to activate additional can capture equipment in MRFs as part of our industry’s effort to build on our industry-leading recycling and recycled-content rates, further strengthening the beverage can as the idea sustainability choice for our customers.”

In addition to the testing program, CMI also released two additional online resources for MRFs to determine the benefits of additional can-capture equipment. One is an easy-to-use return on investment (ROI) calculator to determine the ROI from installing additional can-capture equipment. The other tool is a companion playbook that explains how to test levels of can missortation and then plug the data into CMI’s ROI calculator.

“This initiative is designed to add data from the field, produce useful tools and develop new case studies of MRFs using the revenue from the cans captured from the equipment to pay for its cost,” says John Rost, vice president of global sustainability and regulatory affairs at Crown. “With these new proof points and tools, the goal is to spur recycling facilities around the country to choose to invest their own capital in capturing more UBCs, often the most valuable commodity flowing through MRFs.”

Resource Recycling Systems (RRS), Ann Arbor, Michigan, conducted the testing on behalf of CMI in March and April at three MRFs that vary in modernization levels and geographic locations. CMI says the testing results indicate the ability of revenue from captured cans to pay for investments in can capture equipment.

While actual revenue generation may differ for MRFs depending upon regional factors, the testing results showed that the average annual revenue loss from beverage cans per loss was $71,940 using a five-year average of UBC scrap prices. CMI reports that at this revenue level, it will only take an average of three years of accumulated revenue from cans captured at one of these loss points to equal the cost to acquire, install and operate additional equipment at a loss point that ensures the cans are captured.

“A lease where the material captured pays for the equipment is uniquely suited for aluminum beverage cans because UBCs are one of the most valuable commodities in the recycling system,” says Scott Breen, CMI vice president of sustainability. “The plan is to use the money paid back on the loans to finance equipment at other MRFs.”

Additionally, the data taken from these three facilities shows that nearly 22 million more UBCs could be captured each year at these three MRFs if they were to install additional equipment to capture cans at the points that were tested.

CMI says MRF operators interested in doing tests at their facilities or looking into financing options from CMI should reach out to Breen at sbreen@cancentral.com.

Company earns 64 percent increase in pretax profits in recently completed fiscal year.

DS Smith, a London-based paperboard and packaging maker that also has operations in the U.S., has reported double-digit increases in operating profits and earnings per share in its fiscal year ending April 30.

The company says its 2021/2022 results show “continuing momentum” in the form of a 64 percent boost in profits before tax, 27 percent growth in adjusted earnings per share and a 21 percent increase in revenue compared with the prior fiscal year.

“It has been another year of volatile trading conditions where we have worked through the tail end of the pandemic and, more recently, the tragic events of the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” says Miles Roberts, the company’s group chief executive.

Roberts continues, “We have delivered strong operational, environmental and financial results. The actions we have taken, driven by our strategic focus on our customers and their changing needs, including an ever-increasing focus on sustainability, have resulted in record volume growth. This, together with price increases which have offset significant cost inflation, has driven a strong improvement in profitability and high cash generation.”

The company says it continues to invest in the paperboard section, with the recently completed fiscal year including an investment in a new greenfield site in Italy that is now operational and one in Poland “currently being commissioned.”

In its new fiscal year that started May 1, DS Smith points to capital expenditures it says will increase to approximately $615 million “to invest in customer-led growth opportunities, including sustainability, at attractive financial returns.”

Looking ahead to future results, DS Smith says, “Despite a more challenging backdrop, the structural growth drivers together with a resilient fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) customer base and our compelling offering underpin our confidence for fiscal year 2022/2023.”

The company is forecasting corrugated box volume growth of 2 percent to 4 percent for the current fiscal year, which would be lower than the 5.4 percent growth rate achieved in the completed 2021/2022 fiscal year.

In the recently completed fiscal year, DS Smith says it experienced 10 percent revenue growth in its North American operations. “Packaging volumes in the region have continued to see the strongest increases within the group, reflecting continued excellent customer traction with growth across a number of packaging sites and the increasing utilization of the box plant in Indiana,” the company says.