Producers of packaging, paper products and food service ware will be required to share responsibility for supporting in-state recycling programs.

Oregon became the second state to require producers of packaging, paper products and food service ware to share responsibility for supporting in-state recycling programs when Gov. Kate Brown signed SB 582, known as the Plastic Pollution and Recycling Modernization Act, into law Aug. 6. Sen. Michael Dembrow and Rep. Janeen Sollman were the chief sponsors of the bill. 

Maine Gov. Janet Mills signed a similar extended producer responsibility (EPR) law into effect July 12.

Under Oregon’s new law, brand owners selling packaging, paper products and food service ware into Oregon will join stewardship organizations and pay fees to support the improvement and expansion of recycling programs and infrastructure statewide. This new packaging EPR program is intended to reduce the impacts of waste on the environment and human health, keep plastics out of rivers and oceans and take steps toward addressing the inequitable impacts of the waste system on vulnerable communities, legislators say.

“With this new law, Oregon ratepayers will be provided a much more accessible, responsible and stable recycling system,” says Scott Cassel, CEO and founder of the Product Stewardship Institute (PSI), which advocates for the promulgation of responsible recycling through EPR legislation. “It will also provide producers with the financial incentive to make their packaging more sustainable, and local communities with funding for reuse and waste prevention programs.”

Under the new system, consumer brand payments will cover roughly one-quarter of the costs of a modernized recycling system. In contrast to Maine’s law, which covers all recycling costs, producers under Oregon’s law will not cover the costs of collection, which will continue to be paid for by residential and commercial ratepayers. Local authorities will maintain operational control for collection services and public education programs, while producer funding will enable improvements such as recycling facility upgrades, broader collection services and more accessible educational resources.

Producers will finance their obligations through fees on covered products that they pay to stewardship organizations. These fees will be based on factors such as recyclability, use of postconsumer recycled content and the life cycle impacts of the materials they use. The largest producers also will be required to perform lifecycle assessments on 1 percent of their products every two years. 

The new law will create a uniform statewide collection list and expand recycling access to multifamily housing and those living in rural and remote communities. A new multistakeholder group, known as the Oregon Recycling System Advisory Council, will advise the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and stewardship organizations on key elements of the new program, including producer implementation plans. 

Oregon’s law promotes equity and environmental justice by requiring Oregon DEQ to conduct regular studies on access to recycling and enacting new permitting and certification requirements for processors to provide living wages and benefits for their employees. Recycling processing facilities will also be required to meet new performance standards, such as for material quality and reporting, and will share responsibility with consumer brands for ensuring that collected materials reach socially and environmentally responsible end markets. The costs of meeting these new standards will also be offset by producer funding.  

“It’s encouraging to see the extensive provisions aimed at addressing recycling inequities and environmental justice in Oregon’s new law,” says Sydney Harris, policy and programs manager and packaging lead at PSI. “We have these elements in PSI’s policy model and hope to see them included in all packaging EPR legislation.”

PSI has promoted EPR for packaging for the past 15 years and developed a model bill that has informed legislation introduced in eight states, including Oregon, over the past two years. Oregon’s bill emerged from a multiyear stakeholder engagement process, led by Oregon DEQ, to gather input and identify solutions best suited to the state.

Oregon is one of the nation’s leaders when it comes to successful EPR programs. Working with PSI, state and local governments, the paint industry, and other key players, Oregon was the first state in the country to pass EPR legislation for paint in 2009. It also has EPR programs for electronics and pharmaceuticals, as well as a decades-long EPR program for beverage containers.

Tissue demand had spiked in the second quarter of 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cascades Inc., a tissue and packaging producer based in Kingsey Falls, Quebec, experienced a slight decline in sales in the second quarter of the year compared with the same fiscal quarter in 2020. According to the company’s latest earnings report, it attributes this decline to lower demand in its tissue business.

“Our second-quarter results were below expectations, with the sequential shortfall driven by our tissue segment,” says Mario Plourde, president and CEO of Cascades, of the company’s second-quarter earnings. “This reflected several factors, the most prominent being $12 million due to higher raw material costs and $9 million related to the net impact of sales prices and mix variance in the current period. We continued to see lower demand levels in tissue in the quarter, notably in U.S. consumer retail product categories, as customers worked through inventories built up throughout 2020 in response to COVID-19 demand volatility.”

In the second quarter of 2020, tissue demand had spiked in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cascades achieved sales of $956 million in the second quarter, which ended June 30. This compares with sales of $942 million in the first quarter of this year and $1,020 million in the second quarter of 2020. Operating income was at $23 million in the second quarter compared with $44 million in the first quarter and $64 million in the second quarter of 2020. Operating income before depreciation and amortization was at $87 million for the recently completed quarter compared with $109 million in the first quarter of this year and $127 million in the second quarter of 2020.

Plourde says Cascades decided to “curtail some tissue converting production” in June to manage inventories. He says the demand contraction is tissue is likely “an interim response to COVID-19 volatility given the essential nature of these products. Looking ahead, the modernization completed across our tissue platform has equipped this segment to generate important benefits when demand levels begin to normalize.”

On the packaging side of the business, Plourde says Cascades’ Containerboard and Specialty Products business segments delivered strong quarterly results. He says higher selling prices in the Containerboard segment reflect two of the three announced price increases the company has made, and he adds that volumes in that segment have been strong.

Raw material costs were high in the quarter, though. Plourde says Cascades lacked sufficient funds to fully cover raw material costs and production cost inflation in the second quarter for the Containerboard segment. Its second-quarter earnings presentation notes that old corrugated containers (OCC) prices were up in the second quarter compared with the first quarter of 2021 as well as compared with the second quarter of 2020, driven by high domestic demand and high export activity. Sorted office paper prices also rose in the second quarter of the year compared with the first quarter, negatively affecting raw material costs for Cascades.

The company’s Specialty Products division benefited from volume growth, helping to offset raw material costs, Plourde adds.

In July, just after the second quarter ended, Cascades announced that it would monetize its 57.6 percent controlling equity interest in Reno de Medici S.p.A. for 1.45 euros (about $1.71) per share, which the company says it expects to result in total net proceeds of $461 million. Reno de Medici operations include six recycled paperboard mills and two paperboard sheet mills located in France, Spain, Italy and Germany. The company says that transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of the year.

Plourde adds that he expects to see improved results in the third quarter, supported by the rollout of announced price increases in the company’s Containerboard and Specialty Products segments as well as a gradual normalization in demand for tissue products.

“The COVID-19 pandemic continues to bring with it the potential for volatility in operational and financial performance,” Plourde says. “As our second-quarter results highlight, continued fluctuations in demand as well as pricing of raw materials and other input costs remain difficult to accurately predict, as does the timing and scope of economic reopening across North America. We are focused on effectively managing these uncertainties, taking decisive and necessary steps to meet the sometimes changing needs of our customers while also ensuring the safety of our employees.”  

NWRA says upgrades would benefit waste workers that travel the nation's roadways every day.

The National Waste & Recycling Association (NWRA), Arlington, Virginia, joined other associations in a letter to senators urging support for the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). 

According to a news release from the NWRA, the investments included in the bipartisan bill would facilitate needed infrastructure repairs and improvements. This includes $110 billion for roads and bridges and $66 billion for freight rails as well as other critical infrastructure needs.

“NWRA is proud to support robust investment in our infrastructure,” says NWRA President and CEO Darrell Smith. “The waste and recycling industry and the U.S. Postal Service are the only two entities that travel every road in America at least once every week. This makes the waste and recycling industry one of the most significant stakeholders in the surface transportation system. We urge the Senate to pass this bipartisan infrastructure legislation.”

According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, growing wear and tear roads have left 43 percent of public roadways in poor or mediocre condition, with an overall report card grade of D.

Germany-based copper producer cites recycling operations as key driver of its profits.

Hamburg, Germany-based copper producer Aurubis AG says its fiscal third quarter “continued the positive trend of the current fiscal year” with earnings through nine months that are more than double those of the previous fiscal year.

The company has reported earnings before taxes of 268 million euros ($315 million) in the first nine months of its current fiscal year compared with 133 million euros ($156 million) in the same time frame last year.

Aurubis credits its acquisition of the Metallo Group refineries as one source of its increased revenue and earnings. “The substantial increase in copper scrap/blister copper (up 22 percent) and other recycling materials (up 54 percent) compared to the previous year is mainly due to the inclusion of the Beerse, Belgium, and Berango, Spain, [former Metallo] sites,” writes Aurubis. “This led to higher revenues from refining charges as well as higher metal sales volumes, especially for tin, zinc, nickel and lead.”

The metals recycling firm continues, “The excellent result was mainly influenced by significantly higher refining charges for copper scrap and other recycling materials, a considerably higher throughput of other recycling materials, and a higher concentrate throughput, which was counterbalanced by lower treatment and refining charges for copper concentrates due to market factors.”

Aurubis adds, “The only negative impact on the result was significantly higher energy costs due especially to increased electricity prices.”

Aurubis CEO Roland Harings says, “Aurubis’ development in the first nine months is extremely gratifying. Aurubis demonstrates that it is robust, even in uncertain times. We are benefiting from strong demand for our high-quality products, especially in the automotive, construction, energy and cable industries.”

One week ago, the company announced an investment to expand the capabilities of the scrap-fed former Metallo Group refinery in Belgium. Aurubis will build a hydrometallurgical Advanced Sludge Processing by Aurubis facility to extract metals from anode sludge, an intermediate byproduct from electrolytic copper refining.

Battery and power grid metals are likely to remain in high demand throughout this decade, according to Wood Mackenzie.

A newly released analysis predicts “metals critical to the energy transition will take center stage, with a sustained period of extraordinary demand growth” that can last until 2030, according to United Kingdom-based consultancy Wood Mackenzie.

The U.K.-based firm, which recently acquired metals sector analysis firm Roskill, also predicts a potential “rise of ‘consumption consciousness’” could undermine “the long-term use of primary metal.”

The new report’s author, Simon Morris, says that unlike the early 21st century commodities boom sparked by China’s urbanization and infrastructure spending, this time not all commodities will enjoy a surge in demand or pricing.

Instead, Wood Mackenzie sees an estimated $50 trillion “to be invested [globally] over the next three decades to electrify infrastructure and engineer out the aspects of modern life that most significantly contribute to carbon emissions” as a scenario that means “hydrocarbons will be bystanders.”

While fossil fuels may not be part of the anticipated boom, Morris writes, “The winning commodities from the energy transition are a set of industrial metals that will electrify society.” He later identifies aluminum, copper, nickel, lithium and cobalt as metals that will enjoy high double-digit or even triple-digit growth in annual consumption by 2030.

Under one scenario presented by Wood Mackenzie, the annual demand for those metals would grow by the following percentages by 2030: aluminum, 29 percent; nickel, 65 percent; copper, 85 percent; lithium, 130 percent; and cobalt, 167 percent.

Metals producers, miners, investors and policy makers are faced with needing “dizzying levels of additional metal that will feed the energy transition over the next 20 years – 360 million metric tons (Mt) of aluminum, 90 Mt of copper and 30 Mt of nickel” under one Wood Mackenzie scenario.

A frenzy of mining activity could result in the sector becoming the next environmental bogey man, following in the footsteps of single-use plastic, warns the consultancy. “If metals producers are too successful in drawing attention to how much of their primary (that is, nonrecycled) metal will go into cars, phones, telecoms and energy transition infrastructure, they may find themselves the new target of consumers’ ire,” Morris writes.

He continues, “And if they, with government policy, force manufacturers to reduce their use of primary metals, the super cycle story may lack a ‘happily ever after.’ Taking this one step further, consumers might conceivably switch off more fully from some types of consumption. For instance, if the ‘Uberfication’ of private transport [drives] a switch to pooled rather than individual vehicle ownership, cutting car consumption, metals demand will suffer.”

Investments in the mining and recycling of these metals is likely to continue in the short and medium terms, the consultancy finds. “There is a unique opportunity for the sector to act pre-emptively to ensure supply is available when it is most needed,” Morris concludes.