Recyc Systems Southeast

Jan 25, 2021

Denali Water Solutions acquires Recyc Systems Southeast Recyc Systems Southeast is a provider of transportation and land application services for industrial food processing residuals and municipal biosolids. Recyc Systems Southeast, which predominantly operates in Alabama and Georgia, is a Columbus, Georgia-based provider of transportation and land application services for industrial food processing residuals and municipal biosolids. Recyc Systems has over 25 years of experience in biosolid production, tracking, transportation, disposal and land application services. JGS Resources , a Holmdel, New Jersey-based transaction advisory firm for the waste and freight logistics industries, acted as exclusive financial advisor to Recyc Systems Southeast on the transaction. “We are thrilled to welcome the team at Recyc Systems to the Denali Water Solutions family. Our shared values of integrity, high-quality service for our customers, and respect for our employees are congruent with the culture and purpose we are proud to have cultivated here at Denali,” Denali Water Solutions CEO Andy McNeill says. Keith and Greg Paul, owners and founders of Recyc Systems Southeast, issued the following statement regarding the deal, “This new relationship with Denali Water Solutions is a great opportunity for both our customers and our team members. The synergies developed by coming together with Denali will benefit everyone involved and will allow us to continue to provide excellent quality of service at a more productive level. The potential for the newly combined companies is substantial. We are proud to join the Denali team and have high expectations of where Denali can lead us going forward.” If the idea that “misery loves company” is any solace, recyclers can take comfort that the container availability, freight costs and shipping date delays plaguing them are being shared across seemingly all business sectors. A January 25 online article by the Washington Post refers to “disrupted global supply chains” with symptoms that include “fresh shipping headaches” that are delaying United States exports, “crimping domestic manufacturing and threatening higher prices for American consumers.” “The cost of shipping a container of goods has risen by 80 percent since early November and has nearly tripled over the past year, according to the Freightos Baltic Index,” writes David J. Lynch, the article’s author. In a mid-January online event  hosted by the Brussels-based Bureau of International Recycling (BIR), discussion panelists referred to a scarcity of containers, difficulty securing shipping space, and a recent demand by some shipping companies that recyclers try to load or unload their container shipments within seven days instead of a more common 14-day window. Murat Bayram, who works near the port of Hamburg, Germany, for United Kingdom-based EMR Ltd., says he knows of exporters there who “had material at the port in November, but it didn’t leave the port until January.” In addition to shipping companies saying they are “missing up to 12 percent of their containers,” Bayram said absent port workers and efforts to keep workers farther apart means “only half of the containers are able to be moved” on a given day compared with normal times. Sources in the North American paper recycling industry told Recycling Today Managing Editor Megan Smalley late last year that shipping containers had been hard to come by, and that It was difficult to secure space on sailings. “Space is tight,” said Steve Frank, president and CEO of Pioneer Recycling Services, which has material recovery facilities in Tacoma, Washington, and Clackamas, Oregon. “Even though you have a booking, at the last minute it can get rolled. It is very challenging in the [U.S.] Northwest. I’m hearing about this all over in our area.” Sources based on the U.S. East Coast told Smalley they were experiencing the same challenges securing containers. Frank posited that the global reworking of shipping lanes to Southeast Asia since China stopped importing recovered paper at the start of 2021 was playing a role. “Southeast Asian economies are rebounding fast,” Frank remarked. “They’re trying to get containers, and maybe in some cases, they are happy to take them back empty.” The Washington Post report indicates retailers such as The Gap and consumer goods producers including the makers of WD-40 are running into “sticker shock” and delays. Lynch cites Germany-based Ocean Insights GmbH as a source indicating that “more than one-third of the containers transiting the world’s 20 largest ports [in December] failed to ship when scheduled.” Regarding sticker shock, a January 24 article posted to CNBC.com says spot freight rates in December “were 264 percent higher for the Asia to North Europe route, compared with a year ago,” and that “for the route from Asia to the West Coast of the U.S., rates are up 145 percent year-over-year.” The news organization cites Germany-based DHL Resilience360 for those figures. The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), in a 70-page report on the People’s Republic of China’s World Trade Organization (WTO) status issued to Congress in mid-January, has included sections on recycled materials and remanufactured products. The Washington-based USTR, part of the executive branch, has been issuing such reports annually since 2002, the year after China signed on to the WTO agreement. According to the Washington-based Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), however, this year’s report increases the agency’s attention to the complaints of the recycling industry, compared with last year’s document. In a five-paragraph section in the 2020 review titled “Import Ban on Recyclable Materials,” USTR writes, “Since 2017, China has issued numerous measures that limit or ban imports of most scrap and recovered materials, such as certain types of plastic, paper and metals,” a circumstance well known to recyclers in North America and beyond. Acknowledging the move by China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEEE) to reclassify some scrap materials from banned “waste” to importable “resources,” USTR adds that MEEE initially “failed to provide a definition, scope or timeline for implementation.” In the case of some nonferrous and ferrous scrap grades, some of this initial lack of guidance has been addressed. Overseas recyclers of paper and plastic, however, continue to have limited access to the Chinese market. The USTR report spells out the harm to the U.S. recycling sector by writing, “U.S. exports to China of the scrap and recovered materials covered by the Chinese measures in effect in 2020 totaled $479 million in 2016, the year before China started to pursue its more restrictive policies. Since then, U.S. stakeholders have reported significant negative impacts on their exports. In 2018, total U.S. exports of scrap materials to China were reduced by one third, with some of these materials experiencing a complete cessation of trade.” The agency also points to barriers on the import of used and remanufactured goods. “China prohibits the importation of remanufactured products, which it typically classifies as used goods. China also maintains restrictions that prevent remanufacturing process inputs (known as cores) from being imported into China’s customs territory, except special economic zones. These import prohibitions and restrictions undermine the development of industries in many sectors in China because companies in these industries are unable to purchase high-quality, lower-cost remanufactured products produced outside of China,” writes USTR. Scrap trade restrictions imposed by China have been creating impacts for several years, as noted by USTR, and often are the topic of discussion when recyclers gather. In a mid-January online event held by the Brussels-based Bureau of International Recycling (BIR), panelists offered updates on the current status of scrap trade into Chinese ports. The 2020 USTR report on China’s WTO obligations was prepared during the term of Donald J. Trump. To what extent the Joe Biden administration will change the content or tone of the annual reports is uncertain. However, a recent CNBC report indicates his pick to lead USTR, former USTR lawyer Katherine Tai, “will likely carry on a tough line against China.” A former Trump administration trade negotiator characterizes the Connecticut-born Tai to CNBC by saying, “She is not a pushover and is going to have the ability to stand up for U.S. interests against countries like China, [and] her substantive expertise will allow her to make sure USTR holds its own in the interagency debate on trade issues, which can be quite vigorous.” The full 70-page USTR report on trade with China can be found on this web page . Greenville, North Carolina, has launched a mobile app to make it easier for residents to stay informed about solid waste and recycling collection, WNCT9 reports . Greenville Collects is available to download for Apple and Android smartphones, and can be found in the Apple App Store or the Google Play store. Residents can also use the desktop version of the app, which can be found at  greenvillenc.recollect.net . The app provides residents with a calendar that shows the garbage, recycling and yard waste collection schedule specific to their home address. This calendar also reflects changes to collection days during weeks when there is no service on a specific day due to a holiday, or if service is altered due to inclement weather, the city’s public works department says. Residents will have the option of enabling notifications that act as reminders to place solid waste and recycling carts at the curb for collection. The app also features a “Waste Wizard” feature that allows residents to perform a search on hundreds of household items to find out if they should be placed in the garbage or in their recycling container. “We are very excited to make Greenville Collects available to our residents,” Public Works Director Kevin Mulligan said. “This app is going to be an extremely useful tool to help them stay informed about their solid waste collection, as well as cut down on potential recycling contamination.” A new municipal waste recycling plant in Gary, Indiana, will begin construction in the spring, reports the Chicago Tribune . Jimmy Ventura, president and CEO of Maya Energy LLC, the company constructing the facility, said the proposed $40 million plant is ramping up to open later this year at 2727 W. 35th Ave., near the Little Calumet River. “We have contracts and letters of intent, it’s been real positive,” Ventura said. “Local cities in Lake County are waiting for us to open.” Ventura said an office trailer will be at the site soon. He said a 165,000-square-foot building will be built for the project. In 2018, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) awarded an operating permit to Maya, despite objections from neighboring landowners, Steel City Charter school students and environmentalists. The controversy led to a defamation suit filed by Maya against the HEC that’s since been resolved. Maya is leasing 35 acres through an agreement with the Little Calumet River Basin Commission, which owns the property, the Chicago Tribune reports. Dan Repay, executive director of the commission, said Maya’s lease calls for a payment of $100,100 for the first 10 years. In a document submitted to IDEM, Maya said it intends to recycle municipal solid waste and construction and demolition (C&D) debris including paper, plastic, cardboard, glass, wood, concrete, drywall and metals. Maya said it would not accept hazardous or medical waste. The recycled materials are expected to be sold to paper and packing manufacturers for re-use.