Agilyx and its chemical recycling technology have evolved since the company’s founding in 2004 as Plas2Fuel.

In the years since Agilyx Corp. was founded in 2004 as Plas2Fuel in Longview, Washington, the company and its technologies have continued to evolve. The last decade has been particularly eventful for the company as Tigard, Oregon-based Agilyx changed its name in 2010 and began commercial-scale production in 2019 with its joint venture Regenyx, using the seventh generation of its technology at its site in Tigard.

The company’s proprietary technology uses a reactor to break down postuse plastics through pyrolysis—a process that uses heat in the absence of oxygen—into smaller molecules that are then converted into gasified plastics. These gases are then cooled into liquid form and further processed into products.

Tim Stedman, CEO of Agilyx AS, Oslo, Norway, the parent company of Agilyx Corp., says, “Agilyx was the first company to demonstrate that most unrecycled plastics are not only valuable but also circular on a commercial scale.”

Stedman came to Agilyx in August 2020. Before joining the company, he was the senior vice president of strategy and corporate development for Trinseo, a global materials company focused on manufacturing plastics, latex and synthetic rubber. Prior to that role, Stedman spent more than 20 years at ExxonMobil as business director of the basic chemical business.

Stedman says Agilyx’s technology initially was designed to convert nonrecyclable mixed postuse plastics into synthetic crude oil. However, he adds, “Agilyx’s technology and chemical expertise were refined over a decade to turn waste plastic into multiple upcycled products and materials: plastic intermediates and virgin-equivalent plastic.”

Stedman says the company’s mission is as clear now as it was when it was founded in 2004. “We want to make plastics a reusable resource and circular,” he says. “To do this, we are focusing on developing new product pathways as well as plastics-to-chemical intermediates. Our advanced recycling technologies and feedstock management system combined enables a new and circular life to plastic waste, supporting multiple United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, brand-owner commitments, EU government policies and societal trends.”

In addition to its pyrolysis process, Agilyx employs two other proprietary systems for feedstock preparation and plastics management through artificial intelligence (AI) models and tools.

“Since the company’s beginnings, Agilyx has been hard at work developing pyrolysis technologies, understanding the complex chemistries of waste plastics, feedstock supply chain issues and comprehensive solution sets to make plastics circular,” Stedman says. “Many things have evolved and changed throughout our 17-year evolution.”

Agilyx’s technology is in its seventh generation, with Stedman saying the company has made significant improvements in the “design, functionality and environmental stewardship of our conversion system” over time.

“In order to make chemical recycling or advanced recycling a reality, you need three things,” he says. “You need to understand feedstock and feedstock technology, you need to understand conversion and then you need to understand the cleanup or the separation technology on the back end of that conversion so that you can optimize it.”

Stedman adds that with the various generations of its technology, Agilyx has made improvements in all three areas.

The company’s conversion technology can accept a broad range of feedstock in terms of the degree of contamination and the physical form of the material, increasing the pool of available material and lowering its acquisition costs, he says. “And it’s something that we can dial in the chemistry for, because we understand the chemistry of what’s coming in through our feedstock technology through Cyclyx,” Stedman adds, referring to Cyclyx International LLC, its Portsmouth, New Hampshire-based joint venture that was formed earlier this year with ExxonMobil to develop new supply chains to aggregate and preprocess postuse plastics. (For more on Cyclyx, see the sidebar titled “Cyclyx seeks to tap into material streams,” below.) “We can also help optimize the chemistry in terms of the heat input we put into the reactor to optimize the output. And then, finally, we’ve been working with AI techniques to improve on and develop the purification processes on the back end.”

While Agilyx has offices around the globe, it currently has an advanced recycling facility in Tigard that it has operated since 2018, with several more in the pipeline with partners globally.

In 2019, Agilyx and AmSty, or Americas Styrenics LLC, The Woodlands, Texas, an integrated producer of polystyrene (PS) and styrene monomer, formed a joint venture company known as Regenyx, with both companies having an equal stake. At that time, Regenyx assumed the assets of Agilyx’s Tigard facility, which is undergoing operational adjustments designed to maximize efficiency and investing in research and development improvements, Stedman says.

He describes the Tigard site, with the capacity to process 10 tons per day, as “the first commercial-scale closed-loop advanced recycling facility of its kind.”

Stedman adds, “We’re able to convert waste material back to its original molecular level, allowing for true circularity and products to reenter the value chain.”

The Regenyx site is International Sustainability & Carbon Certification (ISCC) Plus certified.

Stedman says Agilyx is expanding the number of sites that will operate its technology through recent partnerships, including a second Regenyx site that is under development with AmSty, as well as sites with Braskem, A.Eon and Toyo Styrene.

He says, “Agilyx’s core business model is to license its technology to partners. We have announced numerous collaborations over the last year which are in various stages of development.”

Licensing was not always the plan, Stedman says, as Agilyx originally planned to own and operate facilities before realizing that would limit the company’s ability to drive change. He says Agilyx has signed on to numerous partnerships in the last year to license its technology; however, if it had stayed with its previous facility ownership model, “we may have been able to consider one” project. Licensing its technology also enables the company to “maximize synergies with existing assets,” as it’s doing with its next Regenyx project.

Agilyx formed Cyclyx International in 2020 to leverage Agilyx’s 16 years of expertise in the chemical conversion of postuse plastics and four years of feedstock sourcing and supply chain management, says Tim Stedman, CEO of Agilyx AS, the Oslo, Norway-based parent company of Agilyx Corp., Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

“Cyclyx is designed as an industry consortium, comprised of partners across the value chain,” he says. “This consortium approach allows Cyclyx to partner with businesses, brands, waste service providers and municipalities to serve as a connector between large volumes of plastic waste that are currently not being recycled to create innovative supply chain solutions.”

Earlier this year, ExxonMobil took a 25 percent stake in Cyclyx International. Cyclyx will aggregate and preprocess plastic scrap to meet the technical requirements of a wide range of recycling processes while ensuring reliable supply to its customers.

Cyclyx is said to have a database of more than 1,500 postuse plastic chemical characterizations. Its knowledge is further optimized by General Electric’s proprietary artificial intelligence, machine learning, predictive modeling and optimization tools to help the company’s partners identify the right feedstock for their needs.

Cyclyx’s aim is to “transform the current supply chain and help accelerate the growth of the advanced recycling industry by connecting companies looking for plastic waste solutions with customers engaged in recycling initiatives,” according to a news release issued by Agilyx when the partnership with ExxonMobil was announced.

Stedman says mechanical recycling is addressing roughly 10 percent of the postuse plastics that are generated today globally. However, he says viewing Agilyx’s and other chemical recycling technologies as being in competition with mechanical recycling “is to miss the point that 90 percent of the material is not being addressed. That’s what we’re focused on.”

Stedman adds that the majority of that remaining 90 percent is “extremely complex, it’s extremely contaminated, it’s extremely mixed in most cases.”

He continues, “The question is how you unlock the availability to allow it to actually flow to the conversion systems that can actually take it,” which is where Cyclyx comes in.

Cyclyx is a feedstock management company that is based in Portsmouth that offers chemical characterization of plastics, predictive modeling of feed sources to product pathways, custom feedstock recipes and customized supply chains.

“The importance on developing domestic recycling conversion opportunities has become even more important due to newly implemented regulations like the Basel Convention and China’s National Sword policy. These policies restrict the export of waste and disrupted those recyclers that depended on sending waste overseas. This is where the opportunity for domestic feedstock management systems and advanced recycling come into play,” Stedman says.

“We see Cyclyx as helping to fill an important missing link in the plastics recycling value chain that is needed for advanced recycling solutions to scale,” Karen McKee, president of ExxonMobil Chemical Co., said when the partnership was announced. “We share society’s concern about plastic waste, and our new joint venture is an important step in our efforts to develop advanced recycling technologies and approaches to help meet demand for certified circular polymers.”

In addition to supplying end-of-life plastics to Agilyx’s customers and ExxonMobil, Cyclyx also aims to supply other customers with feedstock solutions for a wide range of recycling initiatives.

Among the companies that have signed onto the consortium are Reynolds Consumer Products; material recovery facility operator Casella Waste Systems of Rutland, Vermont; MilliporeSigma, the U.S. life science business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany; packaging producer Sonoco, headquartered in Hartsville, South Carolina; Frankfurt, Germany-based INEOS Styrolution, a styrenics producer that has developed a family of products made from recycled postconsumer plastic as well as materials based on renewable feedstock; LyondellBasell, a virgin plastics and chemical producer with headquarters in Houston and Rotterdam that has pledged to produce and market 1 million metric tons of recycled and renewable-based polymers annually by 2030; and Chevron Phillips Chemical Co., which has announced plans for an annual production volume of 1 billion pounds of its International Sustainability & Carbon Certification (ISCC) Plus certified Marlex Anew circular polyethylene by 2030.

Reynolds’ Hefty EnergyBag program has helped to divert hard-to-recycle plastics from landfills. Since the Energy Bag program’s inception in 2016, Hefty has diverted more than 1,500 tons of plastic from landfills. Hefty’s collaboration with Cyclyx aspires to enhance the program and greatly expand their geographic reach and volume of postuse plastics collected.

As a Cyclyx member, Reynolds says it will work with Cyclyx to leverage lessons from the Hefty EnergyBag program to create various options for corporations, consumers and communities to collect postuse plastics and find their best recycling or recovery pathway.

AmSty and Agilyx are developing a new Regenyx facility to be located at AmSty’s styrene production facility in St. James, Louisiana, that will be able to process 50 to 100 tons per day, Stedman says. A feasibility study for the project began earlier this year, with a timeline for construction and commissioning to be announced as progress continues.

When development of that facility was announced, Randy Pogue, president and chief executive officer of AmSty, said, “Polystyrene is an ideal material for the future of recycling. Not only can polystyrene products offer sustainability advantages where less material is required (e.g., a polystyrene foam cup is 95 percent air), but polystyrene is particularly advantageous for advanced recycling because it can be ‘unzipped’ back to its original liquid form, styrene monomer, using 40 percent less energy than other polymers.”

He continued, “As the global plastics industry moves toward circular recycling to build value and grow access, polystyrene becomes very attractive as a first mover with its inherent conversion advantages. AmSty is committed to keeping polystyrene products out of landfills through circular recycling. We are excited to expand our relationship with Agilyx in this new project to accelerate progress.”

Philadelphia-based polyolefins and biopolymers producer Braskem also has partnered with Agilyx to initiate a feasibility study to explore the development and construction of an advanced plastics recycling project in North America.

That project aims to examine an efficient pathway to produce polypropylene (PP) using difficult-to-recycle mixed postuse plastics for use in applications such as food packaging and consumer and hygiene products.

When the partnership was announced in December 2020, Mark Nikolich, chief executive officer of Braskem America, said, “As the North American leader in polypropylene, Braskem is committed to evolving its feedstock portfolio to leverage more sustainable input sources and is currently evaluating various supply agreements and innovative projects to drive this shift. Our collaboration with Agilyx is just the most recent example of Braskem’s efforts to more holistically address the limited availability of propylene feedstock derived from postuse plastic in the market today.”

The A.Eon Holdings Pty Ltd. partnership is taking a different track. The company and Agilyx have signed a memorandum of understanding to evaluate the construction of a 50-ton-per-day commercial-scale plastics-to-energy facility using Agilyx’s technology in Melbourne, Australia, to convert mixed plastics into Agilyx Synthetic Crude Oil (ASCO). The ASCO produced at the site would be used by A.Eon to generate electricity for the Victorian state government’s redeveloped Footscray Hospital project and local industry, as well as to supply peak energy demand. This initial 50-ton-per-day focus is a starting point, with an option for additional commercial-scale facilities to be developed in Australia by A.Eon, Agilyx says.

Despite the focus on PS at the Regenyx site in Tigard, Agilyx says its conversion technology can handle a range of plastics, including mixed plastics. Stedman says at the Tigard site, Agilyx is testing other infeed materials and recycling pathways to broaden the scope of its technology.

“Agilyx has plastic-to-plastic conversion technology that can utilize a wide range of postuse plastic feedstock, including PET [polyethylene terephthalate], HDPE [high-density polyethylene], PVC [polyvinyl chloride], LDPE [low-density polyethylene], PP, PS, PMMA [polymethyl methacrylate] and more,” Stedman says. “Our technology converts these polymers into multiple commercial products, including styrene monomer, acrylic, propylene, naphtha, olefins, as well as fuels.”

The company recently was granted a patent continuation for its process of breaking down postuse PS into its chemical building block, styrene monomer. According to a news release from Agilyx, “The continuation of U.S. patent number 11,041,123 further confirms Agilyx’s depolymerization technology extends to the breaking down of all waste plastic polymers into their respective discrete monomers and is not only limited to polystyrene. This patent demonstrates the versatility of Agilyx’s innovation portfolio while continuing to advance its position as a leader in the depolymerization of waste plastics.”

“This patent continuation demonstrates the robustness and versatility of the Agilyx technology, not restricting our claims to polystyrene to styrene monomer,” says Chris Faulkner, chief technology officer at Agilyx. “Essentially, our process has not changed. We are using the same technology on the same machinery, though it may be operated in a slightly different way depending on the polymer. The recognition that this technology applies to a broader range of polymers is an exciting advancement in our mission to increase recycling and circularity of postuse plastics.”

Stedman says Agilyx’s goal is “to deliver the conversion of at least 1,500 tons per day of postuse plastic annually by 2030,” adding that the market is “very receptive” to Agilyx’s solutions and “competitive price point.”

He continues, “The entire plastics value chain is under pressure—from customers, consumers and regulators—to transform and redesign products and processes to create a more environmentally responsible life cycle—and to do so urgently. Agilyx is well-positioned to enable and accelerate the necessary change to make the circular economy a reality.”

The author is editor of Recycling Today. Email her at dtoto@gie.net.

Extended producer responsibility (EPR) is not a new concept in the United States. Twenty-four states have EPR legislation for end-of-life electronics, for instance. While some provinces in Canada and the European Union have EPR for paper and plastic packaging, such legislation has failed to gain ground in the U.S. until recently.

This summer, Maine and Oregon became the first U.S. states to pass EPR laws for packaging. Legislatures in California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Vermont have introduced similar legislation.

For more on EPR for packaging, read “Who foots the bill?”

In addition to introducing an EPR bill for packaging, known as AB 842, California legislators have proposed bills that target plastic packaging in various ways, with associations representing the plastics industry and plastics recyclers voicing their support for one in particular.

This summer, the California legislature passed AB 881, a bill designed to ensure that only plastics that are actually recycled count toward California’s recycling goals. The bill was submitted to Gov. Gavin Newsom Sept. 8 for signature, but as of press time, it had yet to be enacted into law. (It was signed Oct. 5.)

According to a news release from Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, who authored the legislation, a large percentage of plastics from California is shipped overseas, where the plastics can end up burned, dumped or landfilled.

The legislation applies to mixed plastics “unless the mixture includes only certain plastics destined for separate recycling and satisfies other specified requirements, in which case that export would constitute diversion through recycling.”

The American Chemistry Council (ACC) and the Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR), both based in Washington, have voiced support for the bill.

“ACC and its member companies are committed to eliminating plastic waste in our environment,” says Joshua Baca, vice president for plastics at the ACC. “AB 881 supports this objective by establishing a more accurate baseline of recycling rates for industry and government to take further action, including increasing access to waste collection and recycling; supporting deployment of technologies, such as advanced recycling, to increase the circularity of plastics; and supporting innovation in product and packaging design to improve recyclability and increase the use of recycled materials in new packaging.”

Kara Pochiro of the APR says, “This is something APR has been asking to have enacted, even prior to ‘National Sword.’”

It’s often said that you can’t fix what you can’t measure, and measurement has been an issue in residential recycling, particularly with plastics. California’s AB 881 and the EPR legislation in Maine and Oregon have the potential to increase transparency into end-of-life plastic packaging.

Ekman Group has grown its presence in recovered paper trading by taking calculated risks.

Ekman Group is a relatively new name in the recycling industry—the company has had a presence in recovered paper trading for the past 17 years as Ekman Recycling—but it has been operating and trading in various products for centuries.

The Ekman family started the Europe-based company as an iron and timber business in 1663. After some diversification, the business was incorporated in 1802 as Ekman & Co. AB and focused on sawmill and rolling mill operations. Ekman increased its involvement in the pulp and paper industry in the late 1800s and expanded its presence in that sector in the mid-1900s, when it became a subsidiary of the Säfveån Group. Its pulp division remains Ekman’s largest operating division.

Ekman Recycling is the company’s recovered materials division that focuses on trading recovered commodities. Ekman developed Ekman Recycling when it acquired New Jersey-based K-C International in 2004. The division has grown substantially since it started 17 years ago.

Executive team: CEO Jan Svensson, Chief Operations Officer and Senior Vice President of Pulp Michael Flynn, Executive Vice President of Paper & Packaging Peter Sandberg, Senior Vice President of Recovered Materials Frank Crowley, Director of the European Recovered Materials Division Markus Ocklind and Managing Director of Bioenergy Ronnie Kristensen

Locations: The company is headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden. It operates U.S. offices for its various divisions in Appleton, Wisconsin; Auburn, Maine; Austintown, Ohio; Diamond Bar, California; Fort Lee, New Jersey; Miami; Virginia Beach, Virginia; Wall, New Jersey; and West Linn, Oregon. Outside of the U.S., Ekman operates offices for its various divisions in Australia, Belarus, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Poland, Republic of Singapore, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and Vietnam.

Divisions: Pulp, Paper and Packaging, Recovered Materials, Bioenergy and Innovare

Currently, Ekman Recycling trades about 1.4 million tons of recovered paper per year.

“From a volume point of view, we’re four or five times as big today as we were when we started the division with the acquisition of K-C International,” says Neil Cooper, vice president of marketing and finance at Ekman Recycling. “The business started here in the U.S., and we’ve grown the business outside of the U.S., expanding into Europe and the U.K.”

Markus Ocklind, director of the European Recovered Materials division at Ekman, says the company’s work culture promotes entrepreneurship, which also has helped foster the company’s growth and diversification.

“We have a lot of freedom within our divisions,” Ocklind says. “We have to follow the rules and compliance of Ekman, of course, but it is pretty free with how we want the business to be done locally.”

Frank Crowley, senior vice president of recovered materials at Ekman Recycling, says the company has lasted for centuries by being “conservative” yet strategic with its investments.

“One of the mantras we say is if you would do it with your own money, then Ekman will probably do it,” Crowley says. “So, that’s the way to think about an opportunity. There are plenty of thought processes and opportunities out there that are kind of outlandish and one-sided. Ekman has lasted this long by being very conservative overall. That doesn’t mean you don’t take chances. It means that you think through the chances you’re taking. So, I think Ekman does a very good job in looking at the opportunities very, very closely rather than just jumping in with both feet.”

Because Ekman had expertise in selling finished paper goods, the company decided to expand into recycled materials in the early 2000s.

Cooper says Ekman recognized that it could provide more services to paper mills if it got into recovered materials. He says, “Our philosophy was we can go into a mill, and we can sell you wood pulp, we can sell you recycled paper and, depending on your needs, we can take finished paper and sell that as well.”

Ekman entered the recycled materials space as soon as it acquired K-C International in 2004. K-C International was a paper scrap trading business that was started by Ken Choi in 1976 in Beaverton, Oregon. Crowley, who served as Choi’s partner at K-C International for many years before Ekman acquired the company, says the trading firm initially focused on selling scrap paper to South Korea.

“Ken was one of those success stories where he came [to the U.S.] with less than $100 in his pocket and had worked for Willamette Falls Paper on the West Coast,” Crowley adds. “Ken asked permission to leave the company and do his own thing, and that’s how K-C International started.”

Crowley says Ekman approached K-C International’s team about a possible acquisition. “We saw a great opportunity with a company that understood trading—they lived and breathed it,” he says. “We fit right in.”

Cooper says K-C International offered the perfect fit for Ekman to get into recycled materials.

“It really rounded out our product portfolio at the time,” he says. “It was the right size. It was the right people. That’s really the key to any acquisition—bringing in people that can fit within your organizational culture.”

Cooper adds, “Without that, you’re going to fail. K-C was an exceptional fit, and they proved to be a very good acquisition.”

He says the fact that Crowley has stayed with the business since the acquisition, and that Phil Epstein, Crowley’s other business partner in K-C International, stayed with Ekman through to his retirement a few years ago, serve as testaments to the acquisition’s success.

One of Ekman’s mantras is “bringing the world to your business.” The company buys and sells materials across all parts of the world.

Ekman certainly has been doing that since it started Ekman Recycling. The company trades just about any kind of recovered paper, including mixed paper, old corrugated containers (OCC), news grades and various high grades, from its offices in the U.S. and Europe.

The company buys scrap mostly from the U.S., Canada, Italy and the U.K. but occasionally from Spain, France and countries in Central and South America.

Cooper says Ekman Recycling also trades postindustrial and postconsumer plastic scrap as well as some postconsumer aluminum and tin. In Europe, along with traditional bales of recovered paper, the Recovered Materials division sells off-specification rolls.

Ekman Recycling sells recycled materials to buyers all over the world, including in the U.S., Europe, Southeast Asia, South America and Central America. Ocklind says Ekman always has prioritized selling to “many markets.”

He says, “Diversification is a big thing for our division—we are not so focused on one market.”

Ekman also looks for ways to provide solutions to its customers’ problems, and one way it can do that is by getting to know its customers well. Crowley says the company likes to go the extra mile to try to understand its customers. That includes visiting recycling facilities as well as paper mills.

“We put ourselves into the facilities, large or small, and try to understand the complexities of what they need, and then we tailor solutions to their needs,” Crowley says. “You give them solutions as if you’re their partner, not as if they are a tool to be used.”

The company was able to partner with one paper mill group in Europe by providing an additional service recently. That paper mill group was not sure how to handle its off-specification paper rolls, so Ekman proposed a solution. Ekman offered to warehouse all nonprice paper rolls and to sell them only to markets that had been approved by the paper mill.

In addition, Ekman installed equipment as well as placed some of its personnel at that paper mill to manage all its scrap. Ocklind says this service ensures that the off-specification paper rolls are properly handled and that the mill does not need to worry about the difficulties of processing and managing its paper scrap. He adds that providing these solutions has helped boost the paper mill’s trust in Ekman. The company also has the capability at that mill to bale scrap paper from external sources.

“That is quite unique, and normally that is not the usual business we do,” Ocklind says of Ekman’s work with that paper mill group. “It’s taking things one step further—not just buying the paper for them, but we’re also providing the service.”

Ekman’s focus on hiring experts also has helped it to successfully grow throughout its history. The company acquired K-C International largely because of the people involved in that trading business. Ocklind stepped into Ekman Recycling in 2015 to run the Recovered Materials division in Europe because Ekman was impressed by his two decades of experience managing IL Recycling AB in Sweden.

“Markus ran the biggest recycling company in Sweden for many years, and I knew he had the tools and the ability to do something,” Crowley says. “Our people are our biggest asset. That’s the reason why we’ve grown in Europe to the size that we have. Markus has recognized that through his previous experiences and grown a great team.”

However, hiring has been a little more challenging in recent months, Crowley admits. “There’s a shortage of workers around the world, and it’s very difficult when the government is giving so many subsidies not to work. … Finding people who have expertise in our business is a big challenge. To find a salesperson may not be so hard, but to find a salesperson who understands scrap paper” is more difficult.

In recent months, Ekman Recycling has kept busy buying and selling recovered paper. Crowley says there is “unbelievable demand for fiber” this year. He says Ekman suspects demand has increased because of the Amazon effect, with more people ordering packages online since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020.

“Consumer demand increased tremendously during COVID,” Cooper says. “You couldn’t spend money on travel and hospitality. So, what did people do? They bought stuff. So, that spurred a tremendous increase in e-commerce. With e-commerce, you need packaging, and that is a big user of recycled paper and bulk grades.” Yet that surge in demand for packaging has had a ripple effect in the transportation sector, increasing demand for ocean shipping containers this year.

Cooper adds, “The increase in consumer spending—not just in the U.S. but also Europe—has created demand for export containers from China and Southeast Asia. It has made vessels very full, and it’s created tremendous congestion at the ports. That creates backlogs and delays and constraints on vessel space and container availability, so it’s a tremendous impact of COVID.”

With ongoing shipping constraints a concern for many traders this year, Ekman Recycling is working to ensure it can find domestic buyers for its materials.

“I think we’re facing the same problems as most other exporters,” Cooper says. “It’s difficult to find vessel space. Being able to deliver containers per the shipping line return date has been very difficult.

“The way we navigate that is we stay in contact with the shipping lines as much as we can, and we try to stay current to manage the ever-changing delivery dates,” he continues. “You also need to have a domestic business to move tons when you can’t get export containers or vessel space.”

Ekman expects that more paper scrap will remain in local markets and that its domestic business in the U.S. and Europe will grow.

Ocklind adds that having a diversified business has helped Ekman Group to fair well during challenging seasons, with customers in many different markets. He says, “We try to sell to many markets and to have this service for our suppliers.”

The company wants to continue to grow in the same way—by taking calculated risks and maintaining a high level of service to its customers.

Cooper says, “Our philosophy is that we’re a global presence, but we support the local businesses in the markets in which we operate. It’s important that we deliver value in the supply chain for all the partners that we do business with.”

The author is managing editor of Recycling Today and can be contacted at msmalley@gie.net.

UNTHA America introduces a new two-shaft shredder—the ZR—following 24 months of rigorous industry research and development.

UNTHA America is proud to introduce a new two-shaft shredder—the ZR. And, following 24 months of rigorous industry research and development—including prototype trials in Europe—this dual-shaft machine now promises the lowest lifecycle costing (LCC) for waste, wood, electronics and metal shredding in its class.

The high-performance ZR has been purposefully engineered for multishift, continuous preshredding—even when handling difficult materials some would consider economically unshreddable.

The machine’s low-speed, high-torque drive means it can process severe duty applications with ease for a high level of shredder and plant availability. And the modular, quick-change cutting table design presents versatility at the core.

The ZR2400H, for example, has been specifically engineered for high throughputs when shredding a variety of bulky waste, C&I waste, waste wood, MSW, mattresses, carpets, railroad ties, bales and rolled goods. Available as a static or mobile machine with crawler tracks, the goal for this model is volume reduction (90 percent at less than 12 inches), material breakdown for further treatment and alternative fuel production. This cutting system is therefore perfect for cement plants, operators in the biomass and energy recovery industries, material recovery facilities, sorting and waste disposal firms.

The ZR2400W is the perfect metal scrap shredder. It also excels in the processing of electronic scrap and large domestic appliances. Again, the goal is to achieve a rough material breakdown (90 percent at less than 12 inches) for downstream sorting, making this the ideal machine for metal processors, recyclers and aluminum and metal manufacturers.

The ZR’s independent, bidirectional shaft rotation means the aggressive cutters grab, shear and liberate material in forward and reverse for a machine action that always shreds.

Both preshredders are also supplied with the UNTHA Eco Power Drive with water-cooled synchronous motors—an energy-efficient concept that has become globally renowned for its ability to reduce energy consumption by up to 75 percent.

“With the ZR, we’re talking a reliable powerhouse that pays for itself,” says UNTHA Sales Director Peter Streinik. “Like all our shredders, the innovation is engineered for long service intervals, easy maintenance, safe operations and high uptime. But what will really make it stand out in its class is the ability to tackle difficult materials at low cost.

“We believe this will open up a whole new world of shredding possibilities.”

Strong in performance and smart in saving, the ZR will be supplied with UNTHA GENIUS—the condition monitoring system which provides operators with access to their shredder’s performance data in real-time from any device.

Commenting on his 12-month trial of the ZR prototype during the machine’s R&D phase, Hubert A. Schwarz, head of processing and process development at Austrian tooling company Schaufler, says, “The most important advantages of the ZR are versatility—the unit can shred both large, coarse nonferrous metals and composites; fast, easy and efficient cleaning and maintenance; and low energy consumption compared to other manufacturers. We’re saving $82,000 in energy costs a year as a result of using the ZR.”

Technology from BHS is ensuring Indorama Ventures can produce high-purity rPET flakes at its Alabama plant.

Technology from Bulk Handling Systems (BHS) is helping Thailand-based Indorama Ventures Public Co. Ltd. (IVL) meet its commitments to sustainability and recycling. A new highly automated front-end polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic sorting and recycling system, paired with the two other BHS systems in the Indorama portfolio, is leading the way for IVL to meet its ambitious goals in North America. IVL is a large-volume producer and recycler of PET with a truly global footprint, including a growing presence in North America.

“As the world’s largest manufacturer of PET for packaging, IVL has a responsibility to drive the sustainability of our sector,” says Yashovardhan Lohia, the company’s chief sustainability officer. “We take this responsibility seriously.”

BHS is helping IVL reach its PET recycling target in the U.S. at several locations, including the large-scale sorting and reprocessing plant in Athens, Alabama. IVL purchased the former Custom Polymers PET LLC facility in Athens in 2019. It also acquired a former CarbonLite PET recycling facility in Dallas, a reprocessing site that has a BHS rPET sorting system at the front end of its process.

In Athens, Indorama has deepened its reliance on BHS’ integrated technologies by starting up the expanded system in mid-2021. The highly automated system features the latest in BHS screens, NRT optical sorters, Max AI® robotic sorters and advanced controls.

Paul Holman, director of sales - North America at BHS, says IVL is familiar with BHS’ capabilities, with BHS technology already on-site both in Dallas and Athens. He says the new system being added in Athens “triples the plant’s production.”

According to BHS Sales and Application Engineering Manager Chris Parr, the IVL facility in Athens can produce more than 100 million pounds of clean recycled PET (rPET) flake annually.

“The system is controlled by BHS’ proprietary Total Intelligence Platform (TIP), which provides operators with intuitive system control and provides unprecedented insight to key performance indicators,” Parr says. “For example, NRT and Max-AI® technology provide a dozen data points that measure material composition throughout the system. TIP allows an operator to track material quality in both real-time and trending (such as hour-to-hour, shift-to-shift, month-to-month, etc.), providing valuable information to help Indorama Ventures’ operators to optimize performance.”

Eight NRT optical sorters and four BHS Max-AI® robotic sorters allow IVL to produce high-purity rPET flakes free of contaminants. The information-intensive TIP data enables IVL’s managers to stay in touch with the plant’s output and operations at any time of day from anywhere, an important feature for a plant that has the capacity to run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. To IVL’s Lohia, the BHS system is a core part of the company’s sustainability mission.

“Recycling is critical to our sustainable future as it delivers fewer greenhouse gases and less waste,” he says. “IVL believes that the recyclable properties of PET will drive growth in our sector.”

BHS’ Holman says the Indorama system is an excellent example of the enormous benefit obtained by integrating NIR, AI and Controls Automation technologies. “Our integrated optical and AI technologies are key to successful systems such as these. The ability to monitor product quality throughout the system is a game-changer, especially in facilities with stringent purity and performance requirements,” he says.

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