Page 22 from: November 2007

MARAD
removing 100th
obsolete ship

The U.S. Department of Trans-
portation’s Maritime Administration
(MARAD) completed arrangements
for the removal and disposal of the
100th antiquated ship from govern-
ment storage since the ship disposal
program first received ongressional
appropriations in 2001. The Dutton
was originally constructed in 1945
as the Tuskegee Victory, one of
534 Victory ships constructed by the
Maritime Commission during World
War II. The vessel was decommis-
sioned in 1988. The agency has
awarded the ship disposal contract
to All Star Metals, Inc., to remove
the ship from the agency’s Beau-
mont Reserve Fleet in Texas and for
the aging vessel’s subsequent dis-
mantling in Brownsville, Texas. The
total value of the contract award is
US$ 1.078 million.

The Maritime Administration
keeps ships in three National De-
fense Reserve Fleet sites to support
Armed Forces movements and to re-
spond to national emergencies.

Those sites are the James River
Reserve Fleet in Newport News,
Virginia., the Beaumont Reserve
Fleet in Beaumont, Texas, and the
Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet in Beni-
cia, California. When the ships be-
come obsolete, the Maritime Admin-
istration arranges for their disposi-
tion in an environmentally sensitive
manner.

Newalta to
acquire battery
recycling
company

Canadian waste management
company Newalta Income Fund is
acquiring Nova Pb Inc., the country’s
largest battery recycling facility.

Newalta is paying around
US$ 55 million (Euro 39 million) to
purchase the operation which is locat-
ed in southern Montreal, roughly
12 km from Newalta’s transfer station
in the province of Quebec. The recy-
cling facility comprises two long-body
rotary kilns capable of processing up
to 200 000 tonnes of used batteries
per annum and producing as much as
100 000 tonnes of recycled lead.

CEO of Newalta Al Cadotte com-
ments: ‘The addition of Nova’s in-
dustry-leading operations and expe-
rienced people doubles Newalta’s
presence in Quebec, provides

tremendous opportunity to expand
our market coverage in the province,
and diversifies our services for our
customers in Eastern Canada.’

VRP sees poten-
tial in recycling
automotive
foams

The United States Council for Au-
tomotive Research’s Vehicle Recy-
cling Partnership (VRPP) is evaluat-
ing a process that could potentially
divert 250 000 short tons of post-con-
sumer shredder residue foams from
landfills annually.

The VRP – composed of re-
searchers from DaimlerChrysler
AG, Ford Motor Co. and General
Motors Corp. – is evaluating a gly-
colysis process that converts post-
consumer shredder residue foam
into usable automotive foams, as one
of many potentially promising recy-
cling solutions for the remnants of
end-of-life vehicles.

Currently, more than 84% by
weight of materials, of each vehicle in
the USA is recycled, with 95% of the
vehicles going through the existing
infrastructure. The glycolysis process
being evaluated addresses the unre-
cycled portion of ELVs, which com-
prises the shredder residue that of-
ten ends up in landfills.

The method has been developed
by Troy Polymers Inc., one of several
private firms working to develop
shredder residue recycling solutions.
The process uses elevated tempera-
tures to ‘melt’ the foams into a new
polyol, free of residual contami-
nants. This can be used to make new
polyurethane foam.

The foams derived from the Troy
Polymers’ tests were compared to
foam standards currently employed
by the VRP partners and demon-
strated characteristics suitable for
use in a number of flexible and rigid
automotive foam applications.

Old rubber in
new tyres

A research team from Swansea
University’s School of Engineering
in Wales has developed a new
method of incorporating old rubber
in the production of new tyres.

In order to avoid melting the rub-
ber, it is reduced to particulate form
before being mixed with another ma-
terial. However, this ‘crumb’ rubber
has low bonding properties – a prob-
lem that has been overcome by the re-
search team in co-operation with a lo-
cal company. Subjecting the ground
rubber to an ionised gas treatment to
change the chemical structure of its
surface can significantly improve the
material’s bonding properties, it has
been found. In this way, increased
quantities of old rubber can be com-
bined with new rubber to produce new
tyres of flawless quality, it is claimed.

Following an on-going trial period,
the Swansea team hopes to market
this new approach to recycling.

Copper price
may reach
US$ 9000

According to Chris Welch of
Bloomsbury Metals, the copper price
may rise to a level of US$ 9000 per
tonne before a combination of physi-
cal demand and speculative hedge
fund activity takes its toll.

According to the analyst, copper has
been systematically under-valued in

www.recy cling mag a zin.de

A mag a zine for the recy cling indus try is pub lished in
many coun tries. Although these pub li ca tions main ly
cover news of the domes tic mar kets, many of them also
sig nal inter na tion al trends. Recycling International
rounds-up items from these mag a zines which are of
inter est to the inter na tion al recy cling indus try.

The mag a zines we co-oper ate with in pub lish ing
extracts from their edi to ri al pages are:
• Scrap (USA)
• Recycling Today (USA)
• Recycling mag a zin (Germany)
• Magazine Recycling Benelux (The Netherlands/Belgium)
• Recy cling & Waste World (UK)
• Recykling Poland

R O U N D U P

Magazine Round Up

www.mrb-uit gev ers.nl

Recycling International • November 2007 22

www.recy cling to day.com

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