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Terex Materials Processing (Terex MP) has acquired the assets of ZenRobotics, a company that designs and creates robots that pick, sort, and recycle waste material. Based in Helsinki, Finland, ZenRobotics will retain its name and become a Terex brand.

ZenRobotics was started in 2007 by creating a completely new market for robotic waste sorting. Today, it continues to automate the waste industry by helping operators upgrade their recycling infrastructure to become more efficient.

In 2009, ZenRobotics started to use AI-based robots in the waste-sorting process. This led the team to open opportunities by introducing the first ZenRobotics Recycler in Helsinki. Since that time, it has become a global operation including expansion into China and the U.S. market in 2016.

ZenRobotics’ goal is to help recyclers extract higher value out of waste, get more actionable data, and reach ambitious circular economy targets. Terex is already active within global waste markets through Terex Ecotec, Terex CBI, Terex Fuchs, and Terex Recycling. ZenRobotics will add to the Terex portfolio in global waste, where it will continue to be operated as a standalone business while also benefiting from Terex MP’s broader market presence and from efficiencies enabled by Terex MP’s global scale.

“ZenRobotics is an exciting, modern company that lends itself perfectly to our pre-existing environmental expertise, and their ethos of making a circular economy more possible aligns perfectly with our goals and targets for the future of Terex MP,” says Tony Devlin, business director at Terex Ecotec and CBI. “We’re excited to see the many ways that we can apply this technology and what potential this acquisition can bring Terex MP with the application of this technology. The journey that we’re about to begin with ZenRobotics and Terex MP is one that we look forward to starting, and we extend a warm welcome to our new colleagues into the Terex MP team.”

CP Group has been named NWRA’s 2022 Innovator of the Year for the company’s OCC auger screen. The award recognizes recycling equipment designers and manufacturers that successfully challenge and advance recycling sector operations and celebrates innovation in design and manufacturing that increases the effectiveness or efficiency of recycling equipment and operations.

The OCC auger screen is a non-round anti-wrapping and anti-jamming auger screen that does not need to be presorted and creates a finished OCC product. Because the screen is cantilevered, all wrapping materials screw off the end, making it low maintenance with minimal cleaning required. The screen fractionates out the smaller material stream so that sorters only see the larger stream which improves sorter safety by reducing exposure to sharps. The non-round attribute of the auger flights creates the agitation needed to produce a clean OCC product.

The machine prototype design was completed in 2017 and the first machine was manufactured in 2019. After months of testing, the prototype machine was installed in the Waste Connections Ecosort facility in Eugene, Oregon, which processes commercial material and is still running today.

The first residential single MRF utilizing a non-round OCC auger screen for the direct and final screening of OCC material began operation in late 2021. According to CP Group, the Metro Waste Authority (MWA) MRF in Des Moines, Iowa, is the first high-volume single-stream MRF in North America to operate without a pre-sort or post-sort station of any kind – all removal of non-program material is performed at quality control stations or is the negative sort of the system – which is a 100 percent reduction in labour dedicated to non-program material.

Several OCC auger screens are currently in production and are in the quote process.

New research from DS Smith has shown that the generational gap in recycling has gone global with older people more than any other generation holding themselves accountable for the responsible recycling of boxes.

While Gen Z is often considered to be the most environmentally conscious, they have the least confidence among all age groups in knowing how to recycle, based on DS Smith’s new survey in the U.K. that matches a similar company poll in the

United States.

In the latest U.K. poll, two-thirds of Gen Z respondents (those born from 1997 to 2012) blame barriers to recycling, including confusion over what items can be recycled, a shortage of recycling bins, and a lack of clear disposal instructions on products.

Only 41 percent of those over age 55 see such obstacles. Plus, twice as many in the Gen Z group compared to older generations say they don’t know where to find advice on recycling.

A DS Smith survey in the U.S., released in 2021, found that

Baby Boomers are the most motivated to recycle leftover boxes.

Broken out by generation, Baby Boomers (71 percent) hold themselves more accountable for responsibly recycling their boxes than other groups such as millennials (60 percent), Gen Z (59 percent), and Gen X (58 percent).

The U.S. survey found that all groups were united when asked about the surplus of boxes from e-commerce spending and the message was clear: They’re not bothered by the extra packages but do want them made of sustainable materials.

About 44 percent of those surveyed report getting more shopping deliveries during the COVID-19 pandemic, with 15 percent saying they are “drowning in boxes.” Three-quarters (73 percent) of those polled say they care if the box is made from sustainable materials.

Wendt Corporation has formed Wendt Corporation GmbH. The formation represents a continued growth strategy by the company to expand its international presence.

With Wendt’s 45 years of experience in North America, the development of Wendt GmbH establishes an operational footprint for Wendt’s products in the European market. Wendt will leverage the complementary resources of many European partners, including long-standing partnerships with MTB (France) and Moros (Spain), to support manufacturing in central Europe. The partnerships will aid in accelerating the delivery of Wendt’s scrap processing plants throughout Europe and Asia, while also providing sales, service, and support directly from Europe.

The creation of Wendt GmbH comes after the company released international expansion plans. In 2019, Wendt outlined a strategic plan that more closely aligned with the company’s priorities for future growth. These initiatives have aided the company to accelerate enterprise growth and establish a global framework.

GFL Environmental has been awarded the National Waste & Recycling Association (NWRA) 2022 Recycling Facility of the Year award for its multi-material recovery campus in Toronto, Ontario. GFL’s Toronto multi-material recovery campus is located on a 27-acre site that houses two single-stream MRFs that operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The first MRF developed on the campus began operations in 2010 and has since been modified to house an advanced single-stream processing system. The 124 Arrow Road MRF

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was built in 2013 for the City of Toronto’s single stream processing contract, with excess capacity for future opportunities. The facility was designed with sustainability and future needs at the forefront of all decision making.

Both facilities are designed with technology including optical sorting, fully automated sorting robots, and other mechanical separation processes. This design allows GFL to adapt to changing material composition and ensure the end production of high-quality processed recyclables. A dedicated material composition analysis centre is also located on site.

The campus serves the material recovery needs of approximately four million municipal households and has processed over 3.5 million tons of material from municipal and commercial sources since its inception.

Ascend Elements has received a $50 million investment from SK ecoplant. The investment demonstrates SK ecoplant’s commitment to the North American EV battery market. Previously, SK Battery America (SKBA) selected Ascend Elements to recycle lithium-ion battery manufacturing scrap from its facility which produces EV batteries for the Ford F-150 Lightning and the Volkswagen ID.4.

SK ecoplant’s investment will help accelerate the commercialization of Ascend Elements’ hydro-to-cathode direct precursor synthesis process technology, which transforms recycled lithium-ion batteries and manufacturing scrap into customized EV battery cathode precursor and cathode active materials that meet or exceed set performance standards.

Ascend Elements will invest up to $1 billion over several phases to build a sustainable lithium-ion battery materials facility in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. The manufacturing facility, known as Apex 1, will produce enough lithium-ion battery precursor and sustainable cathode active material to equip up to 250,000 electric vehicles per year.

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