The company says the machine brings a cleaner, greener and more efficient solution for Midwestern customers.
Logistics Recycling Inc. (LRI), a medical waste transport and disposal company based in Green Bay, Wisconsin, has installed an STI Series 2000 medical waste processing machine from BioSAFE Engineering of Indianapolis, Indiana. LRI says the machine was installed with the support of partner Best Choice Environmental (BCE), Somerset, Wisconsin.
The company says the machine brings a cleaner, greener and more efficient solution for midwestern customers to dispose of medical waste in a safe, compliant and cost-effective manner.
"Traditional autoclave processing is antiquated," says Brent DuBois, LRI's president and CEO. "Not to mention it leaves behind materials that still end up in a landfill. Our new STI system provides customers with both landfill and waste-to-energy alternatives for their waste after processing."
The STI Series 2000 offers a mix of time and temperature to ensure safe and complete destruction of medical waste with low water use, no emissions and no odor. Additionally, because medical waste is comprised of a lot of plastic, any sanitized material left behind is likely to be diverted to other recycling streams. This ensures it doesn't end up in a landfill. Processing with the STI Series 2000 can also convert medical waste to an alternate source. This includes concrete kiln, plastic extrusion or waste-to-energy.
LRI says it will offer the same streamlined medical waste services at no additional cost, despite the addition of the STI Series 2000.
LRI says the United States hospitals generate 600 million tons of regulated medical waste annually. DuBois says he sees tremendous potential for a more sustainable solution in LRI's medical waste services.
"In an area with very few choices for safely disposing of medical waste, LRI and BCE are delivering a cost-effective, safer and more sustainable solution to hospitals, clinics, dentists, doctors, funeral homes and other essential businesses that generate medical waste," DuBois says.
LRI serves the Midwestern heartland from locations in Green Bay, Wisconsin and Somerset, Minnesota.
The acquisition increases RNG production and diversifies Kinder Morgan’s portfolio with landfill gas-to-power assets.
Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI), an energy services company based in Houston, recently announced the completion of its acquisition of North American Natural Resources Inc. (NANR), Ann Arbor, Michigan and its sister companies, North American Biofuels and North American-Central. The $135 million acquisition in the combined purchase price and related transaction costs includes seven landfill gas-to-power facilities in Michigan and Kentucky.
“We are excited to continue KMI’s commitment to growing our RNG business through the acquisition of NANR’s facilities and expertise,” says Anthony Ashley, president of Energy Transition Ventures. “We believe this further positions us as a leader in the RNG marketplace and look forward to expanding our RNG footprint to benefit the customers, businesses and communities we serve.”
According to a news release from KMI, the company will make a final investment decision (FID) on the conversion of up to four of the seven gas-to-power facilities to renewable natural gas (RNG) facilities with a capital spend of approximately $175 million. Pending FID, these facilities are expected to be in service by early 2024. Once complete, the facilities are expected to generate about 2 billion cubic feet per year of RNG.
The company says this acquisition and the additional investments discussed above, combined with the recent Kinetrex Energy and Mas CanAm acquisitions, will enhance the company’s vertically integrated platform that delivers differentiated solutions across the RNG value chain. The combined RNG operations will provide KMI with an annual RNG generation capacity of about 7.7 billion cubic feet annually once the RNG facilities are in service. The company says the remaining three NANR assets, projected to produce 4.8 megawatt-hours in 2023, will further diversify KMI’s renewable portfolio by adding electricity generation to its landfill gas-to-power operations.
“We are proud of the business NANR’s employees have built over the past 43 years,” says NANR President Bob Evans. “With the evolution of energy markets, we are excited to join the KMI family as the world transitions to a cleaner energy future.”
KMI expects the investment to be accretive to its shareholders as the four converted RNG facilities become operational over the next 18 months, with the purchase price and additional development capital expenditures representing less than six times the expected 2024 earnings before interest, taxation and amortization.
Énergir expects to purchase approximately 2 million MMBtu of RNG generated by Archaea annually for a fixed fee for a period of 20 years.
Archaea Energy Inc., a renewable natural gas company based in Houston, has announced it is expanding its commercial partnership with Énegir L.P. by entering into a new long-term RNG purchase and sale agreement. This is the second long-term commercial agreement between Archaea and Énegir, the largest natural gas distribution company in Quebec.
Under the agreement, which is subject to regulatory approval by the Quebec Energy Board, Énergir expects to purchase approximately 2.04 million MMBtu of RNG generated by Archaea annually from its portfolio of RNG production facilities for a fixed fee for a period of 20 years. The agreement is expected to commence in October 2023.
The RNG produced by Archaea for this expanded long-term partnership is expected to be a key contributor toward Énergir’s interim target of delivering 2 percent of its total annual natural gas volumes using RNG by 2023, with a longer-term target of 5 percent by 2025.
“We are excited to extend and expand our multi-decade partnership with Énergir as a result of this second long-term agreement,” says Brian McCarthy, Archaea’s co-founder, chief investment officer and interim chief financial officer. “The team at Énergir has been tremendous to work with, and from the top down the organization is focused on executing its mission of decarbonization. We continue to see natural gas utilities, such as Énergir, as first-movers in the voluntary RNG market who are looking to RNG as a primary method of decarbonization in response to regulatory and existential mandates.”
He adds, “We are proud to be one of the few RNG producers capable of offering tailored long-term, fixed-price agreements that can scale with the growing demands of our customers, thereby giving our RNG can a growing impact as a sustainable, multi-decade decarbonization solution.”
According to McCarthy, this growth will be enabled by Archaea’s “extensive, high-quality RNG development backlog,” including projects related to the company’s Lightning Renewables joint venture with Republic Services and the acquisition of Ingenco, which successfully closed in July 2022.
“We are thrilled to pursue our relationship with Archaea, a proven RNG producer with an innovative-driven approach,” says Renault-François Lortie, vice president of customers and gas supply at Énergir. “If this agreement is approved by our regulatory authority, it will represent an important addition to our RNG supplies target. It will inevitably strengthen the development of the RNG industry in Quebec, as it will allow a greater number of customers who are concerned about reducing their carbon footprint to benefit from renewable energy at a competitive cost.”
Related articles: Archaea Energy signs 21-year RNG agreement with Northwest Natural Gas Co. | Archaea Energy partners with Rumpke on LFG-to-RNG project
VTT research center says its Olefy technology converts mixed plastics into “usable virgin-grade materials an infinite number of times.”
The Espoo, Finland-based VTT Technical Research Centre says, after four decades of thermal conversion technology development, it is ready to commercialize a process it says “can affordably convert most of the world’s waste plastics back to usable virgin grade materials an infinite number of times.”
VTT says it will begin introducing its Olefy technology in October and that it has submitted eight patent applications for the process.
Its plans include the creation of a new company called Olefy Technologies that will put into place the new technology VTT says “can extract over 70 percent virgin grade plastics and chemical raw materials components from plastic waste.”
VTT says, “The new process can be done in a single step, majorly reducing the cost of plastic recycling and making recycling a preferred option for massive amounts of landfill-bound plastic waste that current methods are unable to process.”
The research center cites limitations of mechanical recycling, including that some recycled plastic “cannot be used in food packaging and pharma applications.”
VTT continues, “The opportunity to get virgin quality plastic from previously unusable plastic waste means that with Olefy it is economically viable to recycle most of the world’s plastics with minimal sorting by consumers and businesses.”
VTT CEO Antti Vasara says,“Olefy is a quantum leap in recycling that will change the way the world views plastic by making it truly circular and guiding us towards carbon neutrality even faster.”
A VTT researcher says an advantage of the Olefy process is that it enables plastic to be recycled an infinite number of times.
“One of the problems with current recycling methods is that the quality degrades every time plastic is recycled,” says Matti Nieminen, head of technology at Olefy. “After several rounds of mechanical recycling, the quality becomes too poor, and the plastic is no longer usable and goes to a landfill. With the Olefy recycling process, the quality of the plastic is equal to virgin grade, so it can be recycled indefinitely, and materials no longer need to end up in landfills. In essence, Olefy will make it possible for plastic to be a true part of the circular economy.”
Olefy’s new technology also reduces the need for naphtha feedstock and can produce its own energy to carry out the recycling process.
“The economic benefits of having virgin grade components from recycled materials can completely change the dynamic of global oil consumption,” Nieminen says. “Olefy will significantly reduce the need to use new oil for making plastic and maybe even create a new economic incentive to clean up plastic from land and water as it becomes a valued commodity.”
Noting that “demand for sustainable and recycled plastics is higher than ever,” VTT says that “essentially, with the Olefy process, it takes the same amount of ethylene or propylene-based waste plastic as higher-cost naphtha feedstock to produce a ton of virgin grade plastic material.”
At the same time, the process itself lowers the cost of production of recycled plastic so significantly that it can lower the bar for global companies to use it as a higher percentage of recycled material in their products and packaging, contend the researchers.
“Demand for recycled plastics is growing much faster than the supply,” says Timo Sokka, head of business at Olefy. “All major brand owners are committed to fighting climate change, and they are responding to consumers’ growing concerns on waste accumulation by utilizing recycled materials in their products. Olefy responds perfectly to these challenges by making plastics recycling truly feasible on an industrial scale.”
About 500 industrial steam cracker operations are located around the world. A steam cracker is a petrochemical plant that breaks down light hydrocarbons, such as ethane, propane, and light naphtha, to produce ethylene. Olefy’s new technologies economically open up a new world and value for plastic scrap for these facilities, say the researchers.
“This technology enables direct parallel integration of the Olefy modules into existing steam cracker sites around the world to effectively produce virgin grade olefins, which are converted back to virgin grade plastics, significantly lower capital expenditure requirements, accelerating market demand, and price premiums make these investments also very attractive for the steam cracker operators,” Sokka says.
A working Olefy pilot is running at the VTT Bioruukki Pilot Centre in Espoo, Finland. The newly established Olefy Technologies company is currently discussing partnerships and negotiating with investors for scaling, business development and licensing of the technology. The first industrial demonstration operation is expected to be operational by 2026, VTT says.
The Olefy process is based on gasification, and the process is tolerant to contaminants in the feed. “This means easier pretreatment of the feed before the Olefy processing,” according to VTT.
The company is recognized for the invention of the OCC Auger Screen which eliminates the need for a presort.
CP Group, headquartered in San Diego, has been named the National Waste & Recycling Association’s (NWRA) 2022 Innovator of the Year for the patented OCC (old corrugated containers) Auger Screen.
The award recognizes “recycling equipment designers and manufacturers that successfully challenge and advance recycling sector operations. It celebrates innovation in design and manufacturing that increases the effectiveness or efficiency of recycling equipment and operations.”
The OCC Auger Screen is a nonround anti-wrapping, anti-jamming machine that does not require an upstream presort and creates a finished OCC product. Because the screen is cantilevered, all wrapping materials screw off the end, minimizing maintenance and cleaning. The screen fractionates out the smaller material stream, so sorters only see the larger stream which improves sorter safety by reducing exposure to sharps. The patented nonround attribute of the auger flights creates the agitation needed to produce a clean OCC product.
The machine prototype design was completed in 2017, and the first machine was manufactured in 2019. After months of testing, that prototype machine was installed in the Waste Connections Ecosort facility in Eugene, Oregon, which processes commercial material. It is still running today.
Over the past several years, CP has invested in its production capabilities to keep pace with growing demand. With this specialized flight-forming machine and CP’s manufacturing capabilities, CP fulfills orders in-house. This includes the production of the patented non-round auger of the OCC Auger Screen that creates the material agitation needed to produce a clean OCC end product.
The first residential material recovery facility (MRF) began using a nonround OCC Auger Screen for the direct and final screening of OCC material operation in late 2021. The Metro Waste Authority (MWA) MRF in Des Moines, Iowa, is the first high-volume single-stream MRF in North America to operate without a presort or post sort station of any kind. All removal of nonprogram material is performed at quality control stations or is the negative sort of the system – which is a 100 percent reduction in labor dedicated to nonprogram material. This is because of the innovation of the OCC Auger Screen paired with the CP Primary Auger Screen.
“MWA is the first single-stream processor in the world to adopt and implement the OCC Auger Screen,” MWA Executive Director Michael McCoy says. “The screen, located at the front of the system, captures more material, decreases contamination, significantly reduces maintenance downtime, and eliminates the presort, making the process safer and much more effective.”
This is a landmark MRF that brings the entire industry a significant step closer to full automation, while also reducing labor and downtime caused by the challenges of traditional presorts.
“The OCC Auger Screen is truly a first-of-its-kind innovation that lends itself to the next phase in MRF process evolution and automation,” CP Group Director of Sales and Marketing Ashley Davis says. “It is the catalyst to the MRF of the future by eliminating the presort and enabling more automation.”
Several OCC Auger Screens are in production, and even more are in the quote process. CP says it thanks the NWRA, Arlington, Virginia, for this prestigious award that recognizes the value that CP and this machine have brought to the industry.