Gershow Recycling donates scrap metal for robotics competition (2023)

Gershow Recycling has opened its Medford, New York, facility for nearly 10 years to the Long Island, New YorkFIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) robotics teams, including coaches, students and their parents, so they can collect aluminum scrap to use in building 120-robots. This year, 16 teams participating in Gershow’s Scrap Metal Day donation event, which was Saturday, Dec. 9, 2017.

Gershow has nine New York locations: Brooklyn, New Hyde Park, Valley Stream, Freeport, Lindenhurst, Huntington Station, Bay Shore, MedfordandRiverhead.

Following the 2018 FIRST Robotics Competition kick-off, which was Saturday, Jan. 6, at Stony Brook University, each of the teams has six weeks to construct a robot using the aluminum and prepare for the upcoming competition, presented by School-Business Partnerships of Long Island Inc. (SBPLI).

The 16 Long Island teams that participated in Gershow’s Scrap Metal Day were Bridgehampton High School, Central Islip High School, Center Moriches High School, Half Hollow Hills High School, Hauppauge High School, Kings Park High School, Longwood High School, Miller Place High School, North Shore High School, Patchogue-Medford High School, Plainview-Old Bethpage High School, Rocky Point/Shoreham, Townsend Harris High School, Ward Melville High School and Westhampton Beach High School. One rookie team, Mineola, also attended the event under the guidance of veteran team representatives.

Now entering its 19th season, the annual SBPLI Long Island Regional FIRST Robotics Competition is at Hofstra University’s David S. Mack Sports and Exhibition Complex in late March or early April. Following record-breaking registration for the 2017 SBPLI Long Island Regional, the organization is now hosting two regional tournaments across two sets of consecutive dates, April 9 to 11 and April 12 to 14, 2018. Each event will serve as a separate regional, with different teams from across the northeast, including Long Island, New York City, Greater New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Washington, competing. Canada, Croatia and Turkey also have teams in the competition. The participants will compete in separate alliances and in tournament rounds.

Ashland, Kentucky-based aluminum producer Braidy Industries Inc.has announced executive hires and promotions pertaining to the 300,000-ton-capacity aluminum rolling mill it is buildingin eastern Kentucky.

On the operations side, Gregg Whigham has joined Braidy Industries as general manager of the Braidy plant. He previously served as operations manager for Arconic’s Global Rolled Automotive and Aerospace Aluminum Products Division’s Davenport facility in Iowa. At the Davenport facility, Whigham managed all aspects of operations for 2,600 employees, serving 1,100 customers involving some 8,000 different product specifications, according to a Braidy news release.

David Durci is joining Braidy Industries as the operational readiness manager. He previously was employed as light metals engineering manager at Arconic’s Davenport facility.

Among promotions announced by Braidy, Retired United States Air Force Brigadier General Blaine Holt is assuming the role of chief operations officer after his previous role as executive vice president of operations. He will continue to report to Braidy Industries CEO Craig Bouchard and will manage operations and logistics, including the company’s “war room,” and general oversight of the $1.3 billion rolling mill.

Jaunique Sealey is the new executive vice president of business development and will continue to report to Bouchard. Sealey will hold responsibility for business development and strategy, investor relations, community and government relations, corporate communications and marketing.

Eric Dahlgren has joined Braidy Industries as a vice president of research and development, focusing on mill process improvement, recycling optimization and cost reduction. Dahlgren was the co-founder and chief scientific officer of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology- (MIT-) incubated spin-off company focusing on new processes to manipulate solidification of metallic melts for newly deveveloped materials. He received his doctorate degree from Columbia University and was a visiting scientist at MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

Retired U.S. Navy Captain David Shealy is joining Braidy Industries as managing director of the war room, Braidy Industries’ operational center, which the company describes as being “dedicated to efficient lean Six Sigma enterprise management and strategy deployment.” Shealy joins following four tours at sea with the U.S. Navy, including support for Operation Desert Shield, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom and Joint Task Force Liberia. He also served as commander of the Defense Logistics Agency Distribution Center in San Diego and was selected to join the U.S. Military Delegation to the Military Committee of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Matt Rakes and Cassandra Flocker, both lifelong eastern Kentucky residents, have assumed the roles of information and technology operations engineer and administrative assistant, respectively. Flocker’s hire resulted from her submission to the Braidy Industries website job portal, according to the company.

“Braidy Industries is making progress at an unprecedented pace,” says CEO Bouchard. “We’re currently over 160 percent pre-sold for our mill capacity, and have closed our initial land parcel acquisition. We expect to break ground roughly one year from the date of our [April 2017] announcement in Greenup County [Kentucky]. I am proud to welcome our new hires, congratulate Blaine and Jaunique on expansion of their roles and look forward to several more exciting announcements in the very near future.”

Braidy Industries has stated its plans include the construction of a 2.5-million-square-foot aluminum mill on more than 300 acres near South Shore in Greenup County. The company says it expects construction to be completed in 2020.

Initially, the facility will produce some 300,000 tons of aluminum per year for the automotive and aerospace industries, with opportunities to expand over time. On its website, Braidy indicates it will use “minimill scrap-driven technology” and will offer “closed-loop scrap recycling for automotive companies.”

Recycling Management Resources (RMR), a Duluth, Georgia-based recycling company celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2018, has acquired the assets of National Paper Recycling (NPR), based in Camden, New Jersey. With the acquisition, RMR has added three facilities in: Camden; Wilmington, Delaware; and Richmond, Virginia. RMR now has eight facilities, processes around 450,000 tons of recyclables per year and employs more than 230 people.

After the acquisition, completed Jan. 1, 2018, RMR will relocate its existing Philadelphia facility to the newly acquired plant in Camden and close its Philadelphia plant.

Privately owned RMR operates facilities primarily on the East Coast. The company specializes in commercially generated fiber. Reece Whitley, RMR’s president and managing partner, says the company’s growth can be attributed to a “boutique” approach the company takes with handling material.

While larger MRFs may handle 10 grades of fiber, RMR is able to handle around 60 different types of recyclables. To help process the diverse range of materials, the company’s plants are equipped with roll cutters, shredders and balers, which allow RMR to provide a wide range of services to its customers, according to Whitley.

Whitely says the acquisition has allowed RMR to fill in some of the geographic gaps the company has on the East Coast.

In addition to the newly acquired plants, RMR has plant locations in Atlanta; Raleigh and High Point, North Carolina; Louisville, Kentucky; and Barton, Alabama.

Switzerland-based conference organizer ICM AG has issued the following wrapup of its IERC (International Electronics Recycling Congress) 2018 event, which was held in Salzburg, Austria, Jan. 17-19. About 480 experts from 42 countries took part in the event.

“Who will benefit the most from the increasing volume of electrical and electronic scrap worldwide in the future?"

This was one of the central questions that industry representatives discussed at this year’s IERC 2018 as part of a panel discussion. The roundtable concluded a two-day conference program covering all aspects of electronics recycling—from current market developments and new technological trends to new legal frameworks and specific country reports.

Stephan Schwarz, ALBA International Recycling; Professor Jinhui Li, Tsinghua University, China; Stuart Fleming, EnviroServe; and Steve Skurnac, Sims Recycling Solutions, took part in the panel discussion.

Schwarz explained that some recycling companies have benefited from substandard recycling activities. In many cases, waste has been shipped to developing countries and, as a result, large profits were achieved.

However, Schwarz believes that these cases will decrease. The e-scrap market has become very dynamic. Products have become increasingly powerful and complex but also smaller and less valuable. The classic recycling strategy of recovering valuables, mostly metals, will no longer work, the ALBA representative said. Handpicking in developing countries also will no longer produce enough valuable substances.

Instead, new recycling technologies and increasingly automated processes are needed. However, not only is it important to implement the right technology but also to be able to access sufficient volumes of material. According to Schwarz, those who can meet both these requirements have a good chance of being among the winners in the e-scrap market.

Fleming took a different view of things. The CEO of the electronics recycler EnviroServe expects that the OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) will be the winners. But only on the condition that they are clever enough to take over e-scrap recycling companies so that they can harvest the raw materials at reduced rates. In this scenario, he suggests that the OEMs will invest some of the extra margin they return into research and development on sustainable practices.

Professor Jinhui Li sees the development in a similar way. In the past, informal recycling has benefited from the increases in volume, he explained. Nevertheless, this form of recycling, in the past, has led to serious environmental and human health disasters in developing countries. The situation is changing now with the strengthening of legislation and extended producer responsibility (EPR). At least in China, the producers of electrical appliances will be among the winners, he said, because the levy paid for electronics placed on the market by producers is much less than the subsidy paid from government to recyclers within the WEEE (waste electrical and electronic equipment regulation) system.

According to Skurnac, the ever-increasing volumes of e-scrap present opportunity and risk for recyclers and producers alike. Ever-changing material composition and shrinking product size coupled with higher collection costs meanthat e-recycling will become much more local in many jurisdictions, he explained. In countries without well-developed regulations or collection mechanisms, this means that recyclers will need to put in significant resources to help develop the markets. In more advanced regions, the declining material value and smaller products suggest more hands-on processing rather than larger mechanical solutions for initial material sourcing.

“The future winners will be companies that partner effectively with the entire circular supply chain to optimize collections, efficiently process material and find sustainable homes for the recovered commodities,” Skurnac said.”

ICM AG is an internationally leading event organizer that specializes in the field of recycling. With four congresses each year, ICM covers major topics that impact the circular economy, primarily focusing on the recycling of electrical and electronic goods, end-of-life vehicles and batteries. The events are held alternately in various countries in Europe, North America and Asia.

The Plastics Industry Association (PLASTICS), which is based in Washington, has announced that it has adopted of its first-ever Sustainability Statement, adding that it “codifies the association’s dedication to sustainability.” By releasing the statement, the association says it hopes to inspire other like-minded organizations and plastics companies to commit to these principles.

The statement, which was unanimously approved by the association’s leadership, reads:

“The Plastics Industry Association encourages all companies engaged in plastics manufacturing to make sustainability a guiding principle at all levels of operation. Sustainable plastic manufacturing conducts business in a way that seeks to drive value creation for society, the environment and the industry. It also strives for improvement to reduce impacts on natural resources, minimizing waste generation and shifting toward renewable energy options, all of which reduce greenhouse gas impacts. Efforts should be guided by scientific data that measures the impacts of the many life cycle stages of plastic products, consistent with the values of sustainable materials management, and strive to keep materials in circularity for remanufacturing whenever it yields the greatest environmental benefit. These activities should be measured and reported with integrity and transparency.”

PLASTICS Vice President of Sustainability Kim Holmes says, “We want to provide our members with a guiding principle for how they should integrate sustainability into their operations. Further, we want people to understand PLASTICS’ ongoing and tireless efforts to help improve sustainability in our industry.”

“As a brand owner, we’re familiar with the importance of making a bona fide commitment to sustainability,” says Jay Olson, materials engineering and technology manager at Deere & Co. and a member of PLASTICS’ Sustainability Advisory Board. “PLASTICS, however, is unique among manufacturing trade associations for taking the lead and creating a statement that challenges companies in the industry and makes it clear for all to see that this association walks the walk when it comes to promoting sustainable practices.”

The association says it has been working for many years to increase sustainability in the industry by leading and supporting a number of sustainability initiatives. For example, PLASTICS’ Zero Net Waste program educates companies on how they can turn their waste into valuable resources or altogether eliminate waste in manufacturing.

PLASTICS also leads demonstration projects intended to challenge industries, like automotive and retail, to redefine their supply chains to incorporate more recycled plastics. PLASTICS’ End of Life Vehicle (ELV) project explores the technical and economic feasibility of recovering and recycling plastics from obsolete vehicles, while the Supply Chain Guide to Circularity: Retail Series informs brand retailers about how to incorporate recycled content into high-end packaging and connects them with the full plastics supply chain to find solutions to their recovery challenges.

The association says it also has demonstrated its interest in sustainability by funding projects intended to create new end market opportunities for plastic film, such as the Materials Recovery for the Future (MRFF) program, a research collaborative to make all flexible plastic film recyclable at the curbside in residential recycling programs.

More information about PLASTICS’ recycling and sustainability initiatives is available at www.plasticsindustry.org/supply-chain/recycling-sustainability.