A predicted slowdown in global recovered paper demand and trading did not take place after China’s import ban.

The evolution of the containerboard sector in the People’ Republic of China since that nation banned scrap paper imports at the start of this year was a prominent theme at the 10th Asian Recycled Fiber and Containerboard Conference. The early December RISI Fastmarkets event is being held in Wuhan, China, and online for those unable to attend in person.

However, another prominent theme brought out in presentations and panel discussions was the vibrancy of the global scrap paper trade (and the strength of prices) in the immediate aftermath of China—for many years the world’s largest buyer—leaving the global market.

Figures presented by Brett Biggers, senior economist with the Washington-based Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), indicate scrap paper exports from the United States increased by 14 percent in the first nine months of 2021 compared with the same timeframe the prior year.

Helping absorb the recovered fiber surplus in the U.S. have been buyers in several nations, although India stands out as the largest volume buyer. The nation has recorded a 134 percent increase in tonnage purchased from the U.S.

Mexico and Canada also are among the 10 largest volume U.S. recovered paper buyers in 2021, but then seven more Asian countries join India on the list. Buyers in both Thailand and Vietnam purchased more than 1.3 million metric tons of material in the first three quarters of 2021.

Those two countries, along with others in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region, are among places where recycled-content pulp is being made from imported old corrugated containers (OCC) and other grades. That pulp often is then shipped to containerboard mills in China, said panelists and presenters.

Shawn Wang of Fastmarkets RISI, who moderated a panel discussion, acknowledged that in 2017, when China’s looming ban was announced, many observers thought scrap paper in North America and Europe might soon be headed to the landfill. Instead, she commented, “U.S. exports have increased [and] that is so different from our expectations.”

Fastmarkets RISI Senior Economist Hannah Zhao said mixed paper values indeed headed to zero in early 2018, but any landfilling of even that grade “has ceased.” Her colleague Echo Xu commented that with the ban in place in China in 2021, it served to “fundamentally change the flow of scrap paper” globally and changed “the direction of investment” in China and elsewhere.

India is importing more fiber not only to feed its own paper and board mills, said Xu, but also to produce rolled recycled-content pulp that is being exported to China. Some of this product is likely “imported under a finished paper code,” Xu said, so it is not always tracked in recycled-content pulp flow figures or maps.

Large tonnage recycled-content pulp facilities in Thailand and Malaysia also have helped supply Chinese containerboard mills. Since July 2020, the recycled pulp price “has increased dramatically,” she said. Xu added that it is not being purchased for its low cost but instead plays a role as “a fiber supplement” for mills in China.

While scrap paper collectors and traders can be pleased that they have weathered the initial turbulence caused by China’s ban, they likely will continue to deal with tighter specifications and potentially costly inspection procedures in other nations.

In the panel discussion at the conference, Candy Chen of trading firm Vecycle Ltd. said the inspection procedures put in place in Indonesia make it “highly complicated” to complete export arrangements to that destination at a time when making shipping bookings that stay in place already is a difficult endeavor.

Pellitteri Waste Systems, which services residential recycling customers in Madison, installed technology to sort paper cups at its facility.

The city of Madison, Wisconsin, has added paper cups to its list of acceptable recyclable materials in its residential recycling program. Pellitteri Waste Systems, which operates a material recovery facility (MRF) near Madison, provides residential and commercial recycling services in and around the Madison community.

According to a joint press release from Pellitteri Waste Systems and the city of Madison, Pellitteri Waste Systems’ MRF recently added sorting technology that would enable it to recycle paper cups along with food and beverage cartons. The company tells Recycling Today that it invested $4.5 million in its MRF to upgrade and enhance sorting systems with optical sorters and robotics. The company says the new technology makes it easier for the MRF to sort 3D paper cups and cartons.

The city and company add that Pellitteri received a grant from the Foodservice Packaging Institute, Falls Church, Virginia, and the Carton Council of North America, Denton, Texas, that mostly helps to support the educational promotion of the newly accepted materials. The company told Recycling Today that it did not want to share how much it received in grant funding.

Pellitteri Waste Systems’ residential recycling customers include the Wisconsin cities of Brodhead, Fitchburg, Middleton, Monroe, Sun Prairie and Wisconsin Dells, along with 16 townships, 10 villages and 29 homeowners’ associations in southern Wisconsin. In addition, Pellitteri’s commercial customers can include paper cups in their single-stream recycling bins.

The presentation will cover how to recover, separate and regenerate cathode material.

The Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, Illinois, has announced a webinar on how to make battery recycling for electric vehicles (EVs) cost-effective. The webinar is free and takes place Dec. 7 at 10 a.m. Central Time.

According to a news release from Argonne, the webinar will be 15-minutes long and presented by materials scientists Jessica Durham and Albert Lipson. The two will discuss how to recover, separate and regenerate the cathode material, a battery’s positively charged electrode, at scale. The process was developed by Lipson and Durham and, once complete, will help pave the way for the large-scale recycling of EVs.

More than 1 million EVs are now driving on U.S. roads. Companies need to start thinking about what will happen when those cars go out of service. Without recycling, their batteries would become 8 million tons of global scrap by 2040, according to Argonne.

Those interested in watching the webinar can sign up here.

The company says the acquisition expands its capabilities for green energy transition by providing integrated solutions for customers with quality control of production units and resilience of the supply chain during manufacturing.

Raven SR Inc., a waste-to-renewable energy company based in Pinedale, Wyoming, has acquired Benicia Fabrication & Machine Inc. (BFM), a fabrication and machine shop based in Benicia, California. The acquisition will help Raven SR meet the increasing demand for green hydrogen and renewable synthetic fuels.

According to a news release from Raven SR, BFM has experience in producing pressure vessels, heat exchangers and other crucial operational equipment for the upstream and downstream oil, gas, power and utility sectors. BFM will fabricate the proprietary reactors of the Raven SR systems to be installed in 2022 for waste-to-energy projects in California and serve Raven SR’s expanding global project pipeline.

“By acquiring an American firm with a record of success in the energy sector, we will reliably deliver our renewable fuels production units to a growing market,” says Matt Murdock, Raven SR CEO. “Companies and consumers are demanding responses to climate change sooner rather than later, and our acquisition of BFM means we can meet the challenge now and mitigate manufacturing disruptions.”

By acquiring a specialized fabricator, Raven SR says it will ensure quality control of its production units, maintain competitive pricing of its retail fuels and manage its equipment supply chain to successfully meet project demand.

Raven SR says BFM will retain its name. Its CEO, Carmelo Santiago, will become vice president of manufacturing at Raven SR and president of BFM as a subsidiary of Raven SR. BFM will also continue to serve its existing customers in the refining and utility sectors.

“Becoming part of Raven SR launches us into renewable energy, giving us the immediate opportunity to join the energy transition,” Santiago says. “By combining our mechanical engineering know-how and Raven SR’s chemical engineering advances, we can serve a broader array of customers across the energy spectrum.”

The BFM acquisition comes after Raven SR announced its partnership with Republic Services to site its first California waste-to-hydrogen production facility at the West Contra Costa Sanitary Landfill in Richmond, California. Raven SR will convert organic waste with its noncombustion process to produce green hydrogen for commercial fueling stations in northern California to power passenger and heavy-duty fuel cell vehicles. Raven SR says it will break ground in early 2022 at the Richmond location.

The association says the bill would eliminate more than $1.5 billion in import tariffs over three years.

The National Waste & Recycling Association (NWRA), Arlington, Virginia, joined with other associations on a letter urging Congress to pass the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill (MTB) by the end of the year. The association says the bill temporarily reduces or suspends tariffs on goods not made domestically or that are not available in sufficient quantities in the United States. 

The previous MTB expired in 2020 and, since then, manufacturers and other businesses have been paying $1.3 million per day in anti-competitive tariffs, the NWRA says.

“As manufacturers and businesses work to lead the U.S. economic recovery in the face of supply constraints, shipping challenges, rising prices and other COVID-19-related issues, Congress can lift one hurdle by passing the MTB,” says Darrell Smith, president and CEO of the NWRA. “The MTB supports manufacturers and other sectors in the U.S. and the workers they employ. We urge Congress to pass this important legislation.”

Based on analyses by the National Association of Manufacturers, the MTB would eliminate import tariffs of more than $1.5 billion over three years with full retroactivity to January 2021. NWRA says this would bolster manufacturers and other businesses in the United States, especially small and medium-sized manufacturers. 

The NWRA says this tariff relief translates into U.S. economic growth. According to the U.S. International Trade Commission, tariff relief under the previous MTB boosted U.S. gross domestic product by $3.3 billion and output by $6.3 billion annually.

In 2018, the MTB passed both chambers of Congress unanimously, and in June 2021, the Senate voted by a margin of 91-4 to include the MTB and other trade priorities in the United States Innovation and Competition Act.