Recyclops, a Utah-based recycling and sustainability company, has secured an investment from the Clorox Co. and is partnering with Clorox brand Glad to serve additional American households.

Recyclops, founded in 2014, has a similar business model to a company like Uber. Consumers without access to local recycling services place their recyclables in clear plastic bags and use Recyclops’ website to schedule collection. Recyclops works with nearby material recovery facilities, or MRFs, allowing for proper disposal of recyclables and enabling the company to expand recycling access.

Founder and CEO Ryan Smith had the idea for Recyclops in college when his was living in a building that did not provide recycling services.

“I always grew up recycling,” Smith says. “It wasn't something I ever thought about, it was just something that I did. And that changed when I was in college. I remember this moment so vividly,” he says recounting the story of when he went to dispose of a soft drink he bought from a vending machine on campus and realized his apartment didn’t have a recycling bin. “I go out to the dumpster, and there is no recycling dumpster. And that just blew my mind. “

According to a random sample taken by the Recyclops team, out of a thousand U.S. cities, approximately 34 million single-family homes and 16 million apartments don’t have curbside recycling access. This means that for every 10 Americans, four households don’t have curbside recycling access.

Recyclops uses a gig-economy model where drivers use an app to locate, pickup and deposit recyclables from families who are scheduled to have their recycling collected.

While it is not an on-demand service, the company is currently running a pilot program in Dallas that is testing out such a service rather than the scheduled pickups city recycling services provide, Smith says.

With operations in 10 different states across the country, combined with the new investment, Recyclops will be able to expand from 10,000 customers to 100,000 more potential customers, as well as increase its technical flexibility and reach as a company. This allows Recyclops to not only expand its customer base and grow the size of its operation but also provide a basic recycling service to families or municipalities. According to a press release from the Clorox Co., Recyclops diverted more than 3 million pounds of recyclables from the landfill in 2020 alone. Recyclops currently gathers recyclables such as plastics, carboard, glass, metal and paper while looking to expand into food waste and packaging return programs.

“We're experimenting with that right now,” Smith says of the packaging return program. “We started to work a lot with brands that … are delivering something to their consumer that … can't be recycled. So, they create a packaging return program or a textile return program.”

Having a brand such as Clorox backing the company also provides opportunities for Recyclops to build its visibility.

“Clorox is one of the most trusted companies. They bring a lot to the table, and they're a huge company,” Smith says. “Then they also have a national reach, and they're in every grocery store in the country. And it gives us the ability to reach places that we might have a harder time reaching because they have that footprint.”

With the help of the Clorox investment and its partnership with Glad, Recyclops and Smith are looking forward to additional growth, though Smith expresses disbelief about how far the company already has come.

“Literally if you look at where we were seven years ago and where we are today, you'd be like, are those the same company?” says Smith. “We’ve changed a lot. In the last three years is really when we became the company we are today.”

An assessment of earnings reports by Denmark-based consultancy Sea Intelligence shows 11 of the largest ocean shipping lines combined to yield more than $16 billion in earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) in the first quarter of 2021.

According to Sea Intelligence, the same 11 shipping lines “saw unprecedented levels of operating profits” in the second half of 2020, “to the tune of a combined $13.3 billion in operating profit.”

While the first quarter of the calendar year “is traditionally considered a slack season for container shipping,” says the consultancy, “revenues have soared to unprecedented levels” in early 2021. Of the 11 carriers that report their figures, “only three carriers recorded a year-on-year increase in revenue in the first quarter of under 50 percent, with three carriers more than doubling their revenue year-on-year.”

For the first time in 10 years, says Sea Intelligence, “All major carriers recorded a positive first-quarter EBIT, with seven carriers recording an EBIT of more than $1 billion, and three carriers recording an EBIT of more than $2 billion.”

According to the Danish firm, from 2010 to 2020, only twice did any carrier record a positive EBIT of more than $500 million. The combined EBIT in the first quarter of 2021 of the reporting carriers “was a staggering $16.19 billion. For all 11 carriers, their EBIT in the first quarter of 2021 was their highest across all previous first quarters [from 2010 to 2020] and was greater than the sum of the first quarter EBITs of all of the previous 10 years combined.”

The enormous profits come at the same time recyclers and most other long-distance shippers have a litany of complaints about high pricing, a lack of available containers, and difficulty in making bookings that actually come off as scheduled.

The same first quarter that witnessed the enormous profits lined up with rising freight rates and difficulty for exporters in the United States—including scrap recyclers—in obtaining containers and bookings. In February, the Washington-based Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) requested a dialog with the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) regarding the legal obligation of shipping lines to give exporters access to containers rather than having shipping lines send them back to Asia empty.

The situation on either side of the Pacific Ocean seems little better as of mid-June. Shanghai-based financial advisor and trader John Browning of BANDS Financial, in a mid-June e-mail to his customers, comments, “China’s imports and exports remain highly vulnerable to dockside logistics and COVID lockdowns. Ships being delayed up to 16 days to unload/reload are not unknown, causing huge ripple effects in shipping timetables. Perhaps, for this reason, the cost of moving a 40-foot container by sea from China to Northern Europe has exploded from $2,800 [at] pre-pandemic levels to $20,000 currently.”

Some China-based exporters are deciding to withdraw from shipping altogether, says Browning, only exacerbating the container availability problem. “Exporters and their importing partners are having to make very fine calculations as to the ‘profit content’ of each container. The knock-on effect has been if the contents of the container are low value, for example, assembled wooden furniture, it is no longer economic to ship the container at all, and it will remain dockside in China, adding to port congestion.”

At the online Plastics Committee meeting of the Brussels-based Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) in early June, Theo van Ravesteyn, nonexecutive chairman with Mediterranean Shipping Co. (MSC), portrayed the shipping lines as overdue for some good fortune.

He said after three decades of “boom and bust” cycles and overly optimistic investments made in the container shipping industry, consolidation and alliances have created a sector that has “completely changed.”

Carriers have “managed capacity” throughout the post-COVID-19 shipping rebound, said van Ravesteyn. “Basically, prices are going up in all markets every day. All available ships are deployed currently [and] shippers are finally making a profit.”

The MSC board member said shipping lines would rather maintain their discipline and not reengage in “optimistically ordering ships and bigger ships” and “falling into a race to the bottom.” Concluded van Ravestyn, “We won’t go back to the days [where] shipping rates were zero” to ship scrap to China. “Those days are over.”

The Sea Intelligence report refers to 11 different shipping lines that reported their financial figures. Skeptics of the current scenario may wish to point out that eight of those 11 companies are part of three “alliances” that have leeway to work together on routes and bookings.

The major alliances are 2M (Maersk Line and MSC), THE Alliance (Ocean Network Express, Hapag-Lloyd and Yang Ming), and OCEAN (CMA CGM/APL, Cosco Shipping and Evergreen Line). In late 2020, the FMC in the United States indicated it was “reviewing data pertaining to the trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic trades” of those three alliances, according to an online Journal of Commerce article.

“The three major global carrier alliances are the top (regulatory) priority and receive the highest scrutiny,” the FMC vowed last November. “These three agreements have the greatest potential to cause or facilitate adverse market effects based on the agreement’s authority and geographic scope in combination with underlying market conditions.”

The shipping lines are certainly entitled to be profitable and to share those profits with shareholders. However, their customers, recyclers and secondary commodity traders included, would likely prefer the profitability was combined with the adequate provision of service.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced June 16 that package delivery companies United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) and TForce Freight Inc. must pay a $3.8 million fine in exchange for the agency dropping administrative claims that they polluted communities in five states with hazardous waste, Reuters reports.

Under the terms of a consent agreement filed at the EPA, UPS and TForce have two years to become compliant with the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) at 183 facilities in Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas. 

The EPA claims that the companies failed to notify environmental regulators they were discarding excessive amounts of hazardous substances for five years beginning in 2015, Reuters reports.

The agency also says that the companies did not prepare accurate manifests that recorded the hazardous waste being processed at their facilities. 

Atlanta-based UPS and TForce, formerly known as UPS Ground Freight, do not admit to the agency’s allegations.

"We have long-standing procedures in place for handling hazardous waste and will take additional steps to further enhance our practices," UPS spokesperson Matthew O'Connor told Reuters.

According to the consent agreement, the shipping companies sort packages and freight that sometimes contain RCRA-regulated substances, including ignitable and corrosive products, at large hubs. Hazardous waste enters the environment when a package is damaged.

Under the deal, the companies will also improve their reporting and provide training and education to their employees on how to package hazardous materials and how to record them.

The Northeast Recycling Council (NERC), Brattleboro, Vermont, has published its seventh "Summary of Announced Increased Capacity to Use Recycled Paper" report, which highlights projects to consume recovered paper in North America. According to the report, half of the projects tracked have been completed, while others are moving toward projected opening dates.

When NERC first published this list in November 2018, it included new capacity at 17 mills, of which three projects were completed. The list includes totally new paper mills, expansions of existing capacity at paper packaging mills and conversions of printed paper machines at existing mills to produce packaging paper. The list also includes several mills that are now producing recycled fiber pulp for export in addition to making packaging paper.

NERC last updated this report in January. The following projects have been completed since December 2020:

• Packaging Corp. of America has converted from fine paper to linerboard production at the end of 2020 at its mill in Wallula, Washington. The conversion adds 350,000 tons per year of capacity. The mill consumes old corrugated containers (OCC).
• Green Bay Packaging opened a mill in the spring of 2021 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. It produces 685,000 tons per year of containerboard and consumes OCC and mixed paper.
• Nine Dragons has begun operations as of late 2020 and early 2021 at its mills in Fairmont, West Virginia; Biron, Wisconsin; and Rumford, Maine. All sites can consume OCC to produce recycled pulp.

In the first half of the year, Georgia-Pacific, Atlanta, also opened its Juno Technology facility in Toledo, Oregon, which serves as a stock prep system for the company’s mill that’s located in Toledo.

According to NERC, the following projects have been announced but not yet opened:

• Nine Dragons is converting an existing machine to produce 200 tons per day and 70,000 tons per year of unbleached recycled pulp in Old Town, Maine. The site will consume OCC and is expected to begin operations this year.
• Phoenix Paper planned to produce recycled pulp for export to China and initially had been scheduled for completion in the third quarter of 2021. (Editor’s note: Bill Moore, president of Moore & Associates, tells Recycling Today he suspects this project has been canceled.)
• Total Recycle Fiber planned to open a new mill in Chesapeake, Virginia, to produce 203,000 metric tons per year of dry recycled pulp and consume OCC in the fourth quarter of 2021. (Editor’s note: Moore tells Recycling Today he suspects this project has been canceled.)
• NORPAC is converting existing production capacity to make linerboard, corrugated medium, bags and specialty kraft papers. Once completed in 2022, it will consume about 400,000 tons per year of OCC and mixed paper.
• Crossroads Paper planned to make containerboard for corrugated boxes, producing 350,000 tons per year of packaging paper, at a new mill. It planned to consume 380,000 tons per year of OCC and mixed paper and to begin operations in 2022. (Editor’s note: Moore tells Recycling Today he suspects this project has been canceled.)
• Kamine/Celadon is opening a facility in Tampa, Florida, that will make 400,000 tons per year of recycled pulp. It will consume OCC and mixed paper, with plans to begin operations in 2022.
• Sonoco is increasing capacity at its facility in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, to produce uncoated recycled paperboard, which will consume OCC and mixed paper. It’s anticipated to start in 2022.
• CorrVentures planned to build a mill in Albany, New York, to produce 300,000 tons per year of recycled lightweight containerboard, linerboard and corrugating medium using OCC and mixed paper. (Editor’s note: Moore tells Recycling Today he suspects this project has been canceled.)
• Ecomelida in Orangeburg County, South Carolina, will process food and beverage cartons, including aseptic packages, and paper mill pulp byproducts. It’s expected to come online in the first quarter of 2022.
• Graphic Packaging International is replacing smaller machines to make 500,000 tons per year of recycled paperboard. It’s expected to be finalized in the first quarter of 2022.
• Atlantic Packaging Products is planning to open a mill to produce 400,000 metric tons per year of corrugated medium and linerboard in Whitby, Ontario. It will consume OCC and mixed paper and is expected to open in the first quarter of 2022.
• Empire Recycled Fiber is opening a new facility in Fairless Hills, Pennsylvania, that will make 300,000 tons per year of containerboard. (Editor’s note: Moore says this facility initially was planning to make recycled pulp but it changed plans to make containerboard. Furnish will be 340,000 tons of OCC and mixed paper. He says it will likely be open by the third quarter of 2023.)
• Cascades is converting a closed recycled newsprint mill to produce recycled lightweight linerboard and corrugated medium at a rate of 400,000 metric tons per year in Ashland, Virginia. It will consume OCC and mixed paper. It is expected to be operational by the fourth quarter of 2022.
• Domtar is converting an existing printed paper mill to make packaging grades in Kingsport, Tennessee. It’s expected to produce 600,000 tons per year of recycled-content linerboard and corrugated medium and will consume OCC and mixed paper. It’s expected to come online in the first quarter of 2023.
• Pratt Industries has announced plans to build two new mills that will consume OCC and mixed paper that will be built by 2026, but no locations have been formally announced.

NERC says most of these capacity increases are for mills producing linerboard and corrugated medium—they will use primarily OCC as their feedstock. These projects are less likely to use mixed paper unless their stock preparation system allows for its use. According to NERC, up to half of these mills plan to use mixed paper, though, but at lower input volumes than OCC.

Whether all of the new capacity is built depends on economic circumstances and demand for final products, NERC says. Total announced new capacity, if all projects are completed, will use more than 5 million tons per year of OCC and mixed paper.

The full report can be accessed online.