Eagle Crusher Inc., Galion, Ohio, has announced that GT Mid Atlantic, Halethorpe, Maryland, is a new Eagle Crusher distributor for customers in Delaware and Maryland. The company will represent Eagle Crusher’s full line of heavy-duty crushing and screening equipment for recycled concrete, asphalt, aggregate and sand and gravel industries in the two states.

According to a news release from Eagle Crusher, GT Mid Atlantic will offer Eagle Crusher’s line of heavy-duty impact crushers, portable crushing and screening plants, jaw crushers, hammermills and conveyors.

Offering a wide variety of leading manufacturers’ brands of new and used construction equipment for any industry, GT Mid Atlantic has equipment for sale or rent to meet the operational needs of any size business. The GT Mid Atlantic management and sales team, along with its team of technicians, has decades of experience to support customers’ equipment needs throughout GT’s locations, including Aberdeen, Frederick, Halethorpe-Baltimore and Upper Marlboro, Maryland, as well as Greenwood, Delaware. 

After what it calls “a pandemic-driven spike in e-commerce and the spread of unrecyclable problem plastics,” United Kingdom-based DS Smith is marking the first anniversary of the opening of its paper recycling plant in Reading, Pennsylvania.

The company says it is operating a “circular economy trifecta” thanks to the combination of its year-old recycling plant, paper mill and packaging manufacturing facility, all within a few miles of each other in Reading.

“Having these three facilities in such close proximity enables us to reduce corrugated waste to local landfills with our 14-day box-to-box process, where we collect, recycle and convert old corrugated containers (OCC) into new, sustainable packing, ready for the supply chain,” says Giancarlo Maroto, DS Smith managing director of paper, forestry and recycling for North America. “The best part is we can recycle the cardboard and boxes seven to 10 times, contributing to the circular economy model of reduce, reuse and recycle.”

The three Reading plants – deemed essential businesses – kept 300 jobs operating during the past year, processed 20,000 tons of fiber at the recycling facility and consumed nearly 240,000 tons of recovered fiber, mostly OCC, at its paper mill.

The concept allows corrugated packaging to be made, produced, collected and recycled within just 14 days, which DS Smiths calls “critical as retailers have scrambled to keep pace with higher demands for shipping boxes from stay-at-home shoppers over the past year.”

Reading’s circular approach is a model for the company's operational expansion in North America and demonstrates DS Smith’s commitment to accelerating the transition to a circular economy, the firm says.

The local recycling facility, capable of processing more than 36,000 tons of OCC each year, contributes to the company’s goal of sending zero cardboard and paper to landfills after its packaging is used.

The recycling plant takes in scrap paper and cardboard and compresses it into bales as heavy as one ton each. The bales are sent across the street to the paper mill, where it is processed into the recycled-content paper used at the nearby packaging facility.

In addition to material from DS Smith’s Reading corrugated packaging plant, the DS Smith team in Pennsylvania has worked with other companies in the region to recover paper for recycling from local distribution centers, packaging facilities, retailers and print shops.

The result was what DS Smith calls “1 billion square feet of sustainable, recyclable packaging produced at the Reading packaging facility, advancing sustainability while providing critical packaging materials for the global supply chain at a time of unprecedented challenges.”

DS Smith’s North American operations are based in Atlanta, and it has 15 manufacturing, paper and recycling facilities in North America with more than 2,000 employees.

Ohio-based Best Process Solutions (BPS) has filed suit in a United States district court alleging Maryland-based Blue Phoenix Inashco has violated the terms of a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) between the two firms.

The complaint, filed in late March in the northern district of the Eastern Ohio division of the U.S. District Court system, recounts previous efforts by the two firms to work together on installations to use the BPS RecoverMax Fines Process to recover metals from incinerator bottom ash.

According to the complaint, Blue Phoenix Inashco signed an agreement to purchase a RecoverMax system and to license the BPS RecoverMax technology in two U.S. states and several overseas countries.

In North America, Blue Phoenix Inashco installed RecoverMax technology at a location in Connecticut but expressed dissatisfaction with the results. The two companies ended their cooperation and, according to the legal complaint filed by BPS, signed a Mutual Release and Termination Agreement. According to BPS, the agreement held that a previously signed NDA would “survive the termination of the RecoverMax agreement and shall continue until August 3, 2031.”

Subsequently, according to BPS, Blue Phoenix installed Palla equipment, which originates in Europe, in Connecticut and at another location. BPS contends in those installations, Blue Phoenix Inashco has been engaged to “accomplish the same results as the RecoverMax system using the Palla Mill system and additional components from the same vendors used by BPS.”

BPS says it “has suffered financial damages in an amount greater than $50 million [as] a result of Inashco’s improper use of its trade secrets.”

As more countries join the fight to address global challenges such as food waste, climate change and global hunger issues, The Global Food Donation Policy Atlas, produced as part of The Atlas project, serves as a resource in making recommendations to address critical gaps identified while mapping existing food donation laws and policies across the world.

Research from The Atlas project, which is produced by the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic (FLPC) and The Global FoodBanking Network, is now available for 14 countries: Argentina, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, India, Mexico, Peru, Singapore, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The Atlas project, supported by the Walmart Foundation, examines six major legal issues that impact food recovery: food safety for donations, date labeling, liability protection for food donations, tax incentives and barriers, government grants and funding, and food waste penalties or donation requirements. The Atlas project compares the legal frameworks impacting these issue areas across participating countries and provides policy recommendations for countries to overcome common barriers to food donation. The results have sparked dialogue among country leaders who are now drawing on best practices from other countries to inform their own food recovery policy development. 

"Hunger is a longstanding and completely solvable problem made worse by the pandemic. We produce more food globally than we need to feed all those suffering from hunger. There is no time better than now to implement policies and laws that eliminate senseless barriers to food donation and align incentives to encourage this beneficial practice," Emily Broad Leib, clinical professor of law at Harvard Law School and director of FLPC, says. "We have heard from policymakers around the world who are using the Atlas analyses and recommendations to inform efforts in their home countries. We hope that our research empowers our food bank partners and their community allies and encourages more governments to systematically work toward closing the gap between surplus food and rates of food insecurity."

"The Global FoodBanking Network is honored to be a partner in this important research identifying policy solutions to stem food loss and waste and promote food recovery for hunger relief," Lisa Moon, president and CEO of The Global FoodBanking Network, says. "Food banks are a community-based solution to effectively redirect safe, wholesome surplus food to people in need. With more than 1 billion tons of food wasted each year, the Atlas offers stakeholders a policy roadmap for greater food security and sustainability." 

One-third of food produced across the globe is lost or wasted, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, while global hunger persists at crisis levels exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Atlas project addresses this asymmetry while contributing knowledge to achieve the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, which includes zero hunger, good health and wellbeing, sustainable cities and communities, responsible consumption and production, and climate action.

"Walmart Foundation has a longstanding commitment to increasing access to healthier foods in communities around the world, and we are pleased to support the Global Food Donation Policy Atlas, because of its potential to accelerate effective and sustainable solutions," Eileen Hyde, director of sustainable food systems and food access for Walmart.org, says. "This project provides not only groundbreaking research to address the complexity of public policy relating to food donations, but it also presents clear opportunities to improve how surplus food gets to communities that need it."  

An interactive map, legal guides, policy recommendations, and executive summaries for 14 countries are available at atlas.foodbanking.org.