Medicine boxes are part of the state's drug recycling program, which transports unnecessary or unused drugs to factories where waste is converted into energy.

The California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) and the California Product Regulatory Commission (CPSC) through the State Opioid Response (SOR) grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) have completed the installation of approximately 250 drugs throughout California Treatment boxes have expanded the statewide network of medical boxes for free use by the public.

The medicine cabinet can safely dispose of unwanted, unnecessary, and/or expired medicines and is provided as part of the federally funded California Medicine Recycling Program.

The plan helps protect the California community from the harmful effects of opioids and other prescription drugs. It includes detailed publications explaining how the public uses medicine chests, a comprehensive medicine chest location map, and education about the benefits of using medicine chests, such as:

"Due to the ongoing pandemic, the expansion of the medical kit program couldn't have been more timely. Unused drugs that are not handled properly can cause countless serious public safety issues," CPSC executive director Doug Kobold said in a press release. “Fortunately, California’s medical kit network helps solve the problems associated with the opioid crisis, especially the lack of safe and convenient disposal options. With the addition of nearly 250 new kits across the state, when consumers want They can get more convenience in their own communities when dealing with unnecessary drugs."

The program ends on March 31, 2021, and is funded by a US$3 million grant provided by DHCS through the Drug Assisted Therapy (MAT) program, which is in turn funded by SAMHSA under the SOR grant.

The Global Food Donation Policy Atlas can be used as a resource to provide recommendations to address key gaps found in mapping existing food donation laws and policies around the world.

As more and more countries join the fight against global challenges such as food waste, climate change and global hunger, the "Global Food Donation Policy Atlas" produced as part of The Atlas project serves as a resource Existing food donation laws and policies around the world.

The Atlas project research is produced by the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic (FLPC) and the Global Food Bank Network, and is now available to 14 countries: Argentina, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, India, Mexico , Peru, Singapore, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The Atlas project, supported by the Walmart Foundation, studied six major legal issues affecting food recycling: donated food safety, date labeling, liability protection for food donations, tax incentives and barriers, government grants and funds, and food waste penalties or donations Require. The Atlas project compares the legal frameworks of participating countries affecting these problem areas and provides policy recommendations for countries to overcome common barriers to food donations. The result has triggered a dialogue between leaders of various countries, who are now learning from the best practices of other countries to provide information for their country’s food recovery policy. 

"Hunger is a long-standing and completely solvable problem. The pandemic has made the problem worse. We produce more food around the world than we need to feed all people suffering from hunger. Now it is time to implement policies and laws to eliminate uselessness. The best time for food donation barriers and adjust incentives to encourage this beneficial practice,” said Emily Broad Leib, professor of clinical law at Harvard Law School and director of FLPC. "We have listened to the opinions of decision makers around the world who are using Atlas analysis and recommendations to inform their country’s efforts. We hope that our research will enhance the capabilities of our food bank partners and their community allies, and encourage more governments Systematically work to close the gap between food surplus and food insecurity."

"The Global Food Bank Network is honored to be a partner in this important research that identifies policy solutions to prevent food loss and waste and promote food recovery to alleviate hunger," Lisa, President and CEO of the Global Food Bank Network · Moon said. "Food banks are a community-based solution that can effectively redistribute safe and wholesome surplus food to those in need. More than 1 billion tons of food is wasted each year. Atlas provides a policy route for stakeholders Map to improve food security and sustainability." 

According to data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, one-third of the food produced globally is lost or wasted, and global hunger continues to be at a crisis level, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Atlas project solves this asymmetry while contributing knowledge to the achievement of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, including zero hunger, good health and well-being, sustainable cities and communities, responsible consumption and production, and climate action .

"The Walmart Foundation has long been committed to increasing the opportunities for communities around the world to obtain healthier food. We are pleased to support the Global Food Donation Policy Atlas because it has the potential to accelerate effective and sustainable solutions," said Irene Hyde, Director of Sustainability Walmart.org's food system and food access, said. "The project not only provides breakthrough research to address the complexities of public policies related to food donations, but it also provides a clear opportunity to improve how surplus food reaches the communities that need it."  

Interactive maps, legal guides, policy recommendations and executive summaries for 14 countries can be found on atlas.foodbanking.org.

The state's Department of Environmental Quality is distributing approximately $500,000 in grants to reduce the state's reliance on landfill disposal.

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

According to the department’s press release, these grants are expected to create 108 new jobs and generate more than $1.3 million in new private enterprise investment, while reducing the state’s reliance on landfill disposal.

"Recycling companies provide North Carolina people with high-quality jobs and play a unique role in improving the state's environment and carbon footprint while promoting the state's economic development," North Carolina Department of Environmental Assistance and Customer Service Director Jamie Ragan said. Environmental Quality. "These grant-funded projects will create jobs and bring recyclable materials back to the state’s economy, thereby helping manufacturers create new products, reducing North Carolina’s dependence on foreign markets, and ultimately diverting materials from the waste stream. ."

For the fourth consecutive year, DEQ stated that it is prioritizing projects that improve North Carolina's domestic capacity to process and use mixed paper and non-bottle plastics. According to DEQ in North Carolina, strengthening the local market will lead to more flexible recycling programs and higher value of these materials when transferred from landfills. 

Recipients of the recycling business come from 13 counties, representing large and small companies. The North Carolina DEQ stated that the types of grants granted include expanding plastic processing capacity, upgrading material recycling facilities, and improving the recycling market for other materials. The following companies have received grants:

According to the funding situation, grants are provided every year to reduce the flow of solid waste into landfills and continue to develop the state's circular economy. Recipients must provide at least 50% of the grant; however, the level of private investment in 2021 is expected to be more than twice the total grant. The combination of grants and private funds will invest nearly $1.8 million in the state's recycling infrastructure.

The California-based supplier of commercial waste equipment has increased its presence in the Pacific Northwest through acquisitions.

American Waste Management Corporation (ATM), located in Emeryville, California, is a provider of waste and recycling equipment, chute installation, and repair and maintenance services. Through the acquisition of RamCoNW in Portland, Oregon, it has expanded its business to the Pacific Ocean Northwest.

ATM said that existing RamCoNW customers will continue to receive chute and compaction services, but they can now also use ATM's "full set of waste management services."

"Adding RamCoNW to the ATM series is an exciting step for us," said Steven Seltzer, ATM COO. "Customers are full of praise for the service and quality the company provides to customers in Oregon. We are very happy to continue this tradition while providing more products and services."

"This is the right next step for our company," said Lisa Menken, president of RamCoNW. "Our customers are our lifeline. Not only can we continue to provide first-class chute and compactor services, but it is our dream to be able to provide next-generation waste solutions."

ATM said that in 2021 and beyond, it is seeking to cooperate with other "high-quality, complete and respected regional waste system service operators."

On its website, RamCoNW retains its brand name and also refers to itself as "an American waste management company."

ATM was established in 1990. It stated that it provides advanced and cost-saving waste management products and services to private and public sector customers in North America, including waste and recycling equipment, garbage chutes, and supporting installation, repair and maintenance services. SmartTrash subsidiary-continuous waste management services.

The company has invested in technology that can increase recovery rates and reduce reliance on manual sorters.

Every recycler knows that the success of its operations depends entirely on the quality and efficiency of its sorting process.

Melimax is a construction and demolition (C&D) recycler located in Chateauguay, a suburb of Montreal. Due to the poor performance of the sorting system, it has to pass the same material multiple times and a large number of manual sorters.

"Our old system has many problems, but the main pain point is the double and triple processing of materials to achieve purity standards, while having a large number of pickers. Our goal is to reduce the number of pickers as much as possible, and at the same time Have a'one in, one out' system in which anything that enters the system is the final product or garbage," said Mario Landry, president and owner of Melimax.

In early 2020, Landry began to negotiate with Sherbrooke OEM about possible solutions to these problems. According to Billy Brasseur, marketing manager of Sherbrooke OEM, the company proposes to implement new sorting technology at the Melimax site to increase the recovery rate of materials larger than 2 inches and fine powder materials and reduce labor costs.

Being skeptical at first, when seeing the first technical sketches and the financial terms of the project, the management staff of the facility quickly became enthusiastic. According to Brasseur, Sherbrooke OEM developed the entire project and shared the plan in great detail, not only on the technical side, but also on the financial impact of the project centered on improving the recovery rate.

After preliminary discussions showed the company the value of upgrading site equipment, Melimax signed a comprehensive sorting system overhaul.

The manufacturing and design of the system will begin in May 2020. Installation work started at the end of June and was completed in early October last year. After the installation is complete, Melimax starts to operate with the new system.

According to Brasseur, “The system was built from scratch. We did not use anything from the old system. However, the core difference between the new equipment of the system was the implementation of an optical sorter and the use of fine particles for sorting materials. Part of the various equipment."

Brasseur says that until recently, in the C&D field, only fairly large pieces of wood could be easily recycled. With the advent of more complex sorting methods, this situation has changed.

Brasseur said that in order to help Melimax to better recycle its wood, Sherbrooke OEM advocates the introduction of optical sorters, which has proven successful in other C&D sites.

Brasseur says color sorters are ideal for this application because they can perform hundreds of thousands of rejections per hour. The company stated that the capture rate of this classification method is between 95% and 98%.

“Now, every piece of wood over 1/8 inch in size can be recycled, which represents a huge improvement because it now allows wood recycling rates in C&D facilities to exceed 95%,” he said.

According to Brasseur, the color sorter's ability to distinguish between required and unneeded materials is one of the main selling points of the system.

"There will always be unneeded materials ejected with the required materials. We call it the drag factor, and it is usually not considered when talking about sorting. In fact, it has a significant impact on the capture rate and purity of your material. The drag factor is due to the unneeded material being too close to the required material, or just being attached to the required material in some way."

Brasseur said that when programming the ejector parameters of the machine used by Melimax, the company prioritized the selection of some unwanted materials.

“By replacing the manual quality control with an optical sorter, the quality of the wood can be improved and the melamine, embossed board and plastic can be sorted out to produce two different wood grades with interesting value,” he explained.

When it comes to the processing of fine powder materials, Sherbrooke decided to design the system in the same way it has been in the southern United States for many years, namely to recycle 1/8 inch fine powder from 0 to 2 inches of the material. This is done not only to recycle this part of the wood, but also to recycle the aggregate, which accounts for a large part of the material.

"The start of the Melimax facility made us quickly realize that [partial separation of 1/8 inch fine powder from 0 to 2 inches] reduced the total volume of 0 to 2 inches of material from 30% to less than 15%," Blaser Er said. "In addition, the observations so far continue to show that the total amount of 0 to 2 inches is as much as the total amount of 2 inches and above, considering that [0 to 2 inches of material-inch material] is usually not affected at all. Recycle."

Landry said that due to improvements in the sorting system, Melimax can now process 50 tons per hour, an average of 400 to 800 tons per day. Landry said that the new system not only enables field improvements to better recycle materials, it also helps the company better market its products.

"The first improvement we saw was that we reduced the number of pickers from the initial 25 people to 5 people-it was a big expense for us. Not only that, we also used the Sherbrooke OEM system to improve Product quality because it is fully automated. Our uptime and hourly throughput have also increased," Landry said. "Perhaps the biggest benefit of our use of this system is the classification of fine powder materials. Being able to extract wood and aggregates from that part has a great impact on us."

This article originally appeared in the March/April issue of Construction and Demolition Recycling. The author is the editor of the "Construction and Demolition Recycling" magazine and can be contacted at aredling@gie.net.