Page 11 from: December 2012

Business

N E W S

11December 2012

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Ship scrapping on record
pace in 2012
As a result of the ‘feverish pace’ of
new-building deliveries, 2012 will prove
to be a record-breaker in terms of the
scrapping of older vessels across all
shipping segments, Hellenic Shipping
News Worldwide has reported.
This year’s scenario has been almost the
exact opposite of that of 2008. While scrap
yards were seen pleading with ship owners
to sell them some of their older carriers in
order to make up for the many closures
throughout India and Bangladesh, owners
eager to scrap their vessels are now ‘enjoy-
ing an unprecedented boom’.
Scrapping activity hit record heights dur-
ing this year’s January-October period, a
recent update from shipbrokers Intermo-
dal has pointed out. ‘All ships scrapped
so far in 2012 amount to 55 million
tonnes of active carrying capacity, com-
pared to 44 million tonnes seen in 2011,’
remarks its analyst John N. Cotzias. ‘So

we may well see that more than 1500
ships, surpassing 60 million tonnes dwt,
will have been beached this year.’
Net fl eet growth for bulkers during the
fi rst 10 months of this year was 9.6%,
which could easily climb up to around
11% by the end of the year. Mr Cotzias
concludes: ‘We anticipate that demand
for demolition candidates will remain
strong during 2013, keeping the offered
prices relatively close to today’s levels.’

UK recyclers applaud
ELV recovery move
The incineration of any material that
survives the end-of-life vehicle (ELV) recy-
cling process, ranging from plastics to
foam, textiles and wood, will qualify as
recovery rather than as disposal, the UK
government has announced. This means
burning the varied residual shredder out-
put will impact ELV recovery targets.
The decision by the Environment Agency
and the UK Department for Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has been
warmly welcomed by the nation’s metals
recyclers. They have been told, however,
that the material must be burned in a
facility that meets the effi ciency stan-
dards of a municipal waste incinerator in
order to be classifi ed as ‘recovery’.

Since 2010, the British Metals Recycling
Association (BMRA) has claimed that
re-classifi cation would prove essential
to the UK meeting its fi xed target of
recycling 95% from ELVs, scheduled to
come into effect from 2015. Now the
lobbying has fi nally paid off, the asso-
ciation expects some 800 000 tonnes of
material to be diverted from landfi ll.
‘For more than two years, BMRA and key
players in the industry have been calling
for government to be decisive in provid-
ing a policy framework in which the UK
metals recycling industry can take a lead
in the advanced recovery of end-of-life
consumer goods in Europe,’ BMRA’s
Director General Ian Hetherington has
told letsrecycle.com. With the right
policy framework in place, the metals
recycling industry will ‘endeavour to
retain a lead in developing materials
recycling and recovery’ while also ensur-
ing green jobs and growth in the sector,
he added. www.recyclemetals.org

Schnitzer Steel Industries
US-based Schnitzer Steel Industries has formed a partnership with fi shermen so
as to recover steel from their end-of-life equipment, predominantly fi shing nets
which contain the metal to give them extra strength and weight. Much of the
non-steel content, such as the mesh, will go towards electricity production under
an agreement with waste-to-energy company Covanta Energy. So far, enough
old gear has been converted into ‘clean energy’ to power around 300 homes
on Oahu. www.schnitzersteel.com

A-Ward Attachtment
The latest container loading system from New Zealand equipment manufac-
turer A-Ward Attachments has won this year’s Swedish Steel Prize. Made entire-
ly from SSAB’s high-strength Hardox wear plate, the MiSlide provides a fl exible
system for compressing and packing metallic scrap in containers. A-Ward notes
its victory proves small businesses can match ‘giants of manufacturing’, such as
Volvo and John Deere. www.a-ward.com

National Recovery Technologies
Building on its existing commitment to the Asian market, US-based National
Recovery Technologies Inc. (NRT) has launched a 202-square-metre demonstration
centre at Suzhou in China. It hopes this move will enable it to become ‘an integral
part’ of Chinese recycling efforts for years to come. NRT intends to achieve this by
‘providing best-in-class optical sorting equipment’. www.nrtsorters.com

VinyLoop
A new document from Italian recycling fi rm VinyLoop claims that its recycled
PVC reduces primary energy demand by 46%, compared with production of
virgin PVC compound. The company hopes to ‘create more demand pull for
recycling’ in line with the industry’s VinylPlus campaign, which aims to be recy-
cling 800 000 tonnes of PVC per year by 2020. www.vinyloop.com

SIPA
Italy-based processing technology company SIPA has created a PET version of
the popular water cooler bottle in response to the fact that the original bisphe-
nol A (BPA) type has been banned in many products across most of Europe for
safety reasons. Though the product, made with 100% PET, still has to be com-
mercialised, SIPA trials have indicated that output rates of 250 bottles per hour
are possible. www.sipa.it

Central Recycling Services
From its base in Alaska’s largest city of Anchorage, Central Recycling Services
(CRS) is to resume glass recycling operations that were stopped in 2009. The
construction and demolition debris specialist will collect glass and glass bottles
to create ‘pea gravel’ – tiny pieces of processed glass, similar to the gravel found
in children’s playgrounds, which can be used in construction projects.
www.centralrecyclingservices.com

Interseroh/Curver
The efforts of Germany-based recycler Interseroh Dienstleistungs GmbH and
manufacturer Curver took home the Best Recycled End-Consumer Product 2012
award at this year’s Identiplast congress in the Polish capital Warsaw. The Euro-
pean Association of Plastics Recycling and Recovery Organisations (EPRO) select-
ed the Ecolife series of decorative containers as the winner because the granulates
used comprise ‘nearly exclusively’ recycled plastic granulates derived from con-
sumer packaging. www.interseroh.com and www.curver.com

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