The company will collect polypropylene at the team’s home games to recycle at its facility in Ironton, Ohio.
PureCycle Technologies Inc., Orlando, Florida, has partnered with the Cleveland Browns to serve as the plastics recycling partner for the NFL team.
According to a news release from PureCycle Technologies, the Cleveland Browns and PureCycle will partner to enhance waste management solutions at the FirstEnergy Stadium in Cleveland on gameday as part of PureCycle’s PureZero waste program.
Through the partnership, PureCycle plans to provide community messaging to educate fans on recycling plastic scrap at the stadium. The company says it will collect polypropylene from Cleveland Browns’ home games to be recycled into ultrapure recycled plastic at PureCycle’s facility in Ironton, Ohio, with the goal of increasing recyclable materials and advancing sustainability efforts for the NFL team and its stadium. PureCycle plans to open the Ironton facility by the fourth quarter of 2022.
The company says PureCycle and Cleveland Browns volunteers will participate in a Community Day of Action Nov. 15 at Chambers Elementary School in Cleveland in honor of America Recycles Day and this new partnership.
“As someone born and raised in Ohio, I’m thrilled that the first sports team to adopt PureCycle’s PureZero program is the Cleveland Browns organization,” says Mike Otworth, CEO of PureCycle. “With PureCycle’s PureZero program, cups from each home game can be recycled into an ultrapure recycled plastic that can become next season’s stadium cup. We will work with the Browns to create a beneficial environmental impact that will bolster their efforts to be leaders in the community. The Cleveland Browns are the perfect partner for this program with our flagship recycling plant just a few hours away.”
The company says the second shift will allow it to process an additional 20,000 devices monthly.
S3 Recycling Solutions, a full-service technology recycling firm in Springfield, Tennessee, is launching a second shift at its 75,000-square-foot electronics recycling facility in Springfield. The additional operating hours are expected to add 15 jobs to the facility over the next 12 months.
S3 says it will begin accepting applications immediately for sorters, freight handlers and data entry technicians. The second shift is expected to be fully operational in early 2022.
“With the recent uptick in hacks and data security breaches, many companies are putting more emphasis on physical destruction of hard drives and data wiping,” says Rod McDaniel, S3’s CEO. “A second shift will allow us to process an additional 20,000 devices every month.”
The company says increased demand for e-scrap solutions is driving the expansion. Information technology equipment management and data-bearing device security are becoming critical business components.
Demand for containerboard stayed strong and grew throughout the year.
Atlanta-based WestRock achieved record net sales for its 2021 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30. According to the company’s latest earnings report, the sustainable packaging producer achieved net sales of $18.7 billion in 2021, up 7 percent compared with $17.6 billion for its 2020 fiscal year. The company says it achieved net sales of $5.1 billion for its fourth quarter, up 14 percent compared with $4.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2020.
The company achieved net income of $838 million in the 2021 fiscal year compared with a net loss of $691 million in 2020. For the fourth quarter, WestRock achieved a net income of $324 million compared with a net loss of $1,156 million in the prior-year quarter, which included a $1,314 million goodwill impairment net of tax. WestRock’s adjusted segment earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) was $3 billion in its 2021 fiscal year compared with $2.8 billion in its 2020 fiscal year, and adjusted segment EBITDA was at $878 million in the fourth quarter, up 22 percent compared with $721 million in the prior-year quarter.
“The WestRock team delivered strong results in fiscal 2021, with record net sales and strong cash flows for the full fiscal year,” says David B. Sewell, chief executive officer of WestRock. “We executed on our capital allocation priorities, and I’m pleased to announce that we reached our target net leverage ratio in the quarter. In addition, we recently announced another increase to our dividend, which will result in a 25 percent increase since February.”
Since the fourth quarter of 2020, WestRock has published several price increases for its packaging materials due to inflation. According to the company’s earnings presentation Nov. 9, WestRock raised its North America containerboard prices by $160 per ton and coated recycled board (CRB) prices by $270 per ton this year. The company reported that some key inflation drivers include recycled fiber, virgin fiber, energy, freight and chemicals.
WestRock’s Corrugated Packaging segment net sales increased $500 million in the fourth quarter of the year compared with the prior-year quarter. The company attributes the segment’s net sales increase to higher selling price and mix, higher volumes and favorable impact of foreign currency. WestRock reports that the Corrugated Packaging segment delivered a segment EBITDA margin of 17.8 percent and a North American adjusted segment EBITDA margin of 19 percent. Additionally, the company says Corrugated Packaging segment income increased $93 million in the fourth quarter of the year compared with the fourth quarter of 2020 primarily due to the margin impact of higher selling price and mix as well as higher volumes that were partially offset by net cost inflation and other items.
The company reports that its Consumer Packaging segment net sales increased $156 million in the fourth quarter compared with that same time frame last year. That segment’s income also rose $60 million in the fourth quarter compared with the fourth quarter of 2020.
Demand for containerboard also was strong in the 2021 fiscal year, and WestRock worked to build its recycled fiber inventory levels this year in response to that demand.
“We knew we had a heavy outage in the first quarter [of 2021] with maintenance, and we had to delay some of that maintenance because of the ransomware attack and with COVID getting contractors into our mills,” Sewell said during the earnings call Nov. 9. “So, that kind of created the perfect storm for our first quarter. But if you look at the inventory builds that we wanted to do, we did build inventory coming into this [fourth] quarter. I would say it wasn’t as much as we would have liked because of the demand that we’re seeing. So, we’re probably a little behind in the inventory levels we’d like to be at, but we were able to build a little bit going into this first quarter.”
During the earnings call, Sewell said the company wants to remain focused on developing sustainable, recyclable packaging solutions in the future.
He said, “Tim Hortons recently announced our partnership to test a recyclable and compostable hot beverage cup. We look forward to this work with a valued customer to move the recyclability of cups forward.”
He added that the company had received a Sustainability Award of the Year from the Paperboard Packaging Council for the packaging producer’s partnership with Coca-Cola Europacific Partners on the CanCollar.
Looking to the first quarter of its 2022 fiscal year, the company reported during its earnings call that it expects to take about 200,000 tons of maintenance downtime in the first quarter. The company expects the first quarter to be its peak maintenance outage period for the 2022 fiscal year.
“We have 10 major mill maintenance outages in the first fiscal quarter, one of the largest amounts in one quarter in WestRock’s history,” Sewell said. “These assumptions, combined with three fewer shipping days and the normal seasonality in our consumer business, results in forecasted adjusted segment EBITDA of $660 million to $700 million. In fiscal 2022, we expect solid demand across most of our end markets and continued flow-through of the previously published price increases.”
Additionally, the company expects to see inflation increase in the first quarter of the year, driven by higher fiber and energy costs.
Sewell added, “We have a resilient business model, which was reinforced with record adjusted free cash flows in fiscal 2021 in the face of many challenges. Our outlook for fiscal 2022 continues the remarkable trend of growth in sales and adjusted segment EBITDA as well as strong cash flow.”
Veteran board member Francisco Donoso accepts president’s role.
The board of the Paper Division of the Brussels-based Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) has appointed Francisco Donoso as its new divisional president.
Donoso is Managing Director at ALBA Servicios Verdes (Spain) and is described by the association as a long-standing member of BIR, having been active on the Paper divisional board since 2008. He also is a vice president of the Spanish BIR member association Repacar and board member of the Union de Empresas de Recuperacion in Spain.
Donoso’s appointment was recommended to the divisional board by its Nominating Committee. In his capacity as Paper Division president, Donoso also becomes a member of the BIR Executive Committee and will serve as a vice president of the organization.
“Francisco has not only a deep knowledge of the paper recycling industry but also of the important associative work provided by BIR’s Paper Division,” says BIR President Tom Bird. “I am sure that under his leadership, the Division will grow and diversify in order to reflect the global importance of the recovered paper industry. I am very much looking forward to working with him within the BIR Executive Committee.”
Bird also credits Jean-Luc Petithuguenin of France-based Paprec Recyclage for his prior service as president of the BIR Paper Division during his two terms and for his “continuous support to BIR in the past difficult period.”
Steelmaker says cancellations by automakers harmed its sales efforts in 2021’s third quarter, but margins were good.
Luxembourg-based steel producer ArcelorMittal says it enjoyed “improved operating results” in the third quarter of 2021, even though it shipped less steel than projected because of automotive order cancellations.
Despite the impacts of the global microchip shortage on automotive production, ArcelorMittal says its third-quarter operating income of $5.3 billion compared with a figure of $4.4 billion in the prior quarter. The steelmaker says its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of $6.1 billion in the most recent quarter represented “the strongest quarter since 2008” and was 19.9 percent higher than in the prior quarter.
“Our third-quarter results were supported by the continuing strong price environment, resulting in the highest net income and lowest net debt since 2008,” says ArcelorMittal CEO Aditya Mittal. The CEO also praised the company’s safety record during the quarter and its carbon emissions reduction efforts.
In North America, ArcelorMittal’s crude steel production decreased by 12.2 percent year on year, with the company citing the sale of its former mills to Cleveland-Cliffs in December of last year and “operational disruptions (including the impact of hurricane Ida) in Mexico.”
Setting aside 2020 output at the mills sold to Cleveland-Cliffs, ArcelorMittal says its crude steel production in North America declined just 0.5 year on year.
Looking ahead, Mittal comments, “The outlook remains positive: underlying demand is expected to continue to improve; and, although marginally off the recent record highs, steel prices remain at elevated levels, something which will be reflected in the annual contracts for 2022.”