U.S.-based mill services firm will handle scrap procurement for JSW Dolvi steelmaking complex in India.

The Harsco Environmental division of Camp Hill, Pennsylvania-based Harsco Corp. says it has successfully renewed a multiyear mill services contract with JSW Steel for that firm’s Dolvi operation in Maharashtra, India.

The current service contract, which includes the processing of steel melting shop-1 (SMS1) slag, expires in June 2022. The renewed contract adds the processing of SMS2 slag, beginning July 2021, to support Dolvi until it develops a single large metal recovery plant (MRP) at a new location, which will double its capacity. The formal renewal to handle SMS2 slag production begins this summer.

Harsco currently provides several services at the Dolvi mill, including metal recovery, scrap management and under-furnace digging. “These services are directly linked to consistent and continuous steel production and are critical for plant operations,” according to Harsco. In 2019, Harsco secured three additional multi-year contracts to set up, operate and maintain slag briquetting, slag cooling and melt shop services at JSW Dolvi.

“This is another milestone in our longstanding strategic relationship with JSW Dolvi,” says Harsco Environmental Regional President of India Siva Subramaniyam. “It is proof of our client’s trust in us to deliver an upgraded and efficient metal recovery plant in the shortest time to meet the increased slag production as the Dolvi plant doubles its steel capacity.”

The renewal has been designed to ensure Harsco can provide continuity for JSW Dolvi beyond the expiration of the existing contract, with an upgraded plant, to cater excess slag processing until the future expansion at the new MRP takes place.

“JSW always puts emphasis on byproduct/waste product management, its effective utilization and maximization of its value by employing the latest technology, which is both economically and environmentally efficient,” says JSW Dolvi Works President Gajraj Singh Rathore. “With the finalization of this contract with Harsco, JSW has again moved one step ahead towards our objective of solid waste utilization. I wish for a timely and successful implementation of the project, as it is strategically important for us to manage the slag produced from our steel melt shop 2 expansion project.”

The state’s Department of Environmental Quality is distributing about $500,000 in grants to reduce the state’s dependence on landfill disposal.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has announced that its recycling program has provided $492,937 in recycling business development grants to 16 North Carolina recycling companies.

According to a news release from the department, the grants are projected to create 108 new jobs and generate more than $1.3 million in new, private business investments while reducing the state’s dependence on landfill disposal.

“Recycling businesses provide high quality jobs for North Carolinians and play a unique role in boosting the state’s economy while improving the state’s environmental and carbon footprint,” says Jamie Ragan, director of the Division of Environmental Assistance and Customer Service at the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality. “These grant-funded projects will create jobs and put recyclable materials back into the state’s economy, thereby helping manufacturers make new products, reducing North Carolina’s reliance on foreign markets and ultimately diverting material from the waste stream.”

For the fourth year in a row, DEQ says it gave priority to projects that improve North Carolina’s capacity to domestically process and use mixed paper and nonbottle plastics. According to the North Carolina DEQ, strengthening local markets leads to more resilient recycling programs and better value for these materials when diverted from landfill disposal. 

The recycling business grantees are from 13 counties, representing both large and small companies. The North Carolina DEQ says types of grant projects awarded include expanding plastic processing capacity, upgrading material recovery facilities and improving recycling markets for other materials. The following companies received grants:

Grants are offered each year, depending on funding availability, to reduce the flow of solid waste into landfills and continue growing the state’s recycling economy. Recipients are required to provide a minimum cash match of 50 percent of the grant award; however, the level of private investment in 2021 is expected to more than double the total grant funding. The combination of grant and private dollars will result in a nearly $1.8 million investment in the state’s recycling infrastructure.

India-based Khanna Paper is a growing recovered paper consumer.

Khanna Paper began in 1985 as a family-owned paper mill in India. The company was founded by B.M. Khanna, and his sons Rahul and Saurabh joined the busines in the 1990s. Rahul and Saurabh currently lead the business today.

The  company focuses on using recovered fiber in its product mix. Joe Passalacqua, commodity manager for Khanna Paper, says the company is one of the largest importers of recovered paper in India.

Khanna Paper’s mill is based in Amritsar, Punjab, and, according to the company’s website, the mill covers 80 acres, making it the largest single-location plant in India that consumes recovered paper. The company’s website reports that its annual production capacity is 500,000 tons. The mill includes four paper machines, deinking plants and an in-house captive power plant.

Passalacqua describes Khanna Paper as a growing business. He says the company currently imports about 30,000 tons of recovered paper per month from around the globe, including the United States, to make copy paper, packaging board and newsprint. Khanna Paper primarily sells those products in India, but Passalacqua adds that the company has its eyes set on expanding to additional markets.

Among the recovered paper grades it consumes, Khanna Paper focuses mostly on mixed paper and sorted office paper (SOP), as well as some coated book stock and sorted residential news, Passalacqua says.

“We’re very big on SOP,” he says. “We’re one of the largest consumers of SOP in the country.  “SOP and high grades, all the mills are asking for it,” he says, adding that it seems like India’s economy is opening up more since the pandemic started. “We’ll be making more copy paper as [Indian] schools might be going back.”

He adds that the company uses some virgin pulp, too.

“We take about 1,500 tons a month for virgin pulp also, and we use that for brightness—copy paper needs a different kind of brightness,” he explains.

At the start of the year, Passalacqua said Khanna Paper had a hearty appetite to consume SOP in part because India’s economy was reopening since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“SOP and high grades, all the mills are asking for it,” he tells Recycling Today in mid-January. “We’ll be making more copy paper as [Indian] schools might be going back.”

But one challenge Khanna Paper has been working through, along with many other exporters and importers of recovered fiber, is ocean shipping backlogs. Passalacqua says he has noticed “packed” piers this year as well as rolled bookings and vessels not coming in.  

As of mid-January, he also says India’s economy is “stronger” than it was in most of 2020. He adds that the nation in general has been industrializing more and has had a “growing economy” in recent years.

Although recently rising COVID-19 cases in India could adversely impact that nation’s economy this year, The Economic Times reports in mid-March that it expects India’s economy to grow by 12 percent this year following a 7.1 percent contraction in 2020. 

As businesses reopen from COVID-19-related shutdowns, Passalacqua says he anticipates demand for Khanna Paper’s products, such as copy paper and board, to rise.

Editor’s Note: Recycling Today plans to run a longer version of this article in its May 2021 edition.

Scrap and auto dismantling firm purchases closed auto salvage yard site in Windsor, Colorado.

Greeley, Colorado-based Andersen’s Sales & Salvage Inc. has purchased land where a shuttered auto salvage firm used to conduct business to open a new location in Windsor, Colorado.

An April 8 online news item from the Greeley Tribune says Andersen’s has purchased the site of the former Martin Supply Inc. salvage yard. The newspaper cites Andersen Salvage’s Sarah Willcutts as saying the firm is cleaning up the 17-acre property before opening it this summer.

Andresen’s Salvage, on its website, describes itself as a family-owned business that has been in operation since 1959. In addition to its 38-acre Greeley location and the new site in Windsor, the company also lists locations in Atwood, Colorado, and Cheyenne, Wyoming.

In addition to self-service auto salvage, the company’s scrap processing operations have included a shredding plant since 1995. The company’s says the shredder it installed in 2008 “brings Andersen's into the premier auto shredding industry, with complete ferrous and non-ferrous production lines.”

In 2014, the company added a shredder downstream system in Greeley in cooperation with San Antonio-based Riverside Engineering, installing separation equipment from vendors including Eriez, MSS Inc. and Steinert US.

The Tribune story quotes Willcutts as saying some permits are still being finalized for the Windsor location, and the new location will operate under the name Iron Ridge Auto & Metal LLC.

California-based commercial waste equipment provider increases presence in Pacific Northwest with acquisition.

Emeryville, California-based American Trash Management (ATM), a provider of waste and recycling equipment, chute installation, and repair and maintenance services, has expanded to the Pacific Northwest with its acquisition of Portland, Oregon-based RamCoNW.

Existing RamCoNW customers will continue to receive chute and compaction services but will also now have access to ATM’s “full suite of trash management services,” says ATM.

“Adding RamCoNW to the ATM family is an exciting step for us,” says Steven Seltzer, ATM’s chief operating officer. “Clients rave about the service and quality the company offers its Oregon clients, and we’re thrilled to continue that tradition while also providing additional products and services.”

“This feels like the right next step for our company,” says Lisa Menken, president of RamCoNW. “Our clients are our lifeblood, and being able to not only continue providing top-notch chute and compactor services, but also offer next-generation waste solutions is a dream for us.”

In 2021 and beyond, ATM says it is seeking to partner with other “high-quality, well-established and respected regional trash system service operations.”

On its website, RamCoNW has retained its brand name while also referring to itself as “an American Trash Management company.”

Founded in 1990, ATM says it provides sophisticated, cost-saving trash management products and services to private and public sector customers in North America, including waste and recycling equipment, trash chutes and accompanying installation, repair and maintenance services and—through its SmartTrash subsidiary—ongoing waste management services.