The company has selected Little Rock, Arkansas, for its next capacity expansion.

Trex Co., a wood-alternative decking and outdoor living product manufacturer based in Winchester, Virginia, has announced plans to develop a new multifaceted production site in Little Rock, Arkansas. The company says it believes that building a third U.S.-based manufacturing facility should enable it to increase customer access. 

Trex says it expects to invest an estimated $400 million over the next five years in developing the new Arkansas site. The Trex campus will sit on about 300 acres of land and include buildings dedicated to decking and railing production, plastic film recycling and processing, warehousing and administrative offices. 

Construction is slated to begin early 2022. The development approach will be modular and calibrated to demand trends, with the first production output anticipated in 2024. The campus will expand output and has the potential to be the company’s largest manufacturing facility, according to Trex.

“This new site represents a strategic investment not only in our company’s future but in the future success of our valued channel partners,” says Bryan Fairbanks, CEO and president of Trex. “With the outdoor living category continuing to show strong momentum and our success to date in converting share from the wood decking market, the time is right to further expand our capacity so that we can meet future customer demand efficiently and effectively.” 

Trex says the new production complex will be located within the Port of Little Rock. The location emerged as the best fit for the company’s immediate and future needs with a location closer to essential raw materials, a strong pool of qualified and skilled labor, proximity to key growth regions for wood conversion and adjacency to major transportation hubs. 

The company says the added capacity allows it to better serve its distribution and retail partners domestically and abroad.  

“This is an exciting day for the city of Little Rock and all of Central Arkansas,” says Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson. “Trex is highly regarded as the world’s premier composite decking company, and it is with great pleasure that we welcome them to Arkansas. The jobs created by Trex will significantly enhance our economic climate, and I look forward to watching Trex grow and succeed in the coming years.”

Trex says the facility will bring more than 500 new jobs to the Little Rock area. The company will be interviewing candidates for positions starting this fall. Trex will broaden its recruiting efforts for salaried and hourly positions in spring 2022. 

“This expansion provides Trex with important competitive advantages in today’s dynamic outdoor living market,” Fairbanks says. “It will afford us the ability to flex with demand by adding capacity as needed. Having multiple manufacturing sites also helps mitigate risk while providing bandwidth to pursue new opportunities that will enable us to further leverage our unsurpassed brand recognition and expand our presence both domestically and internationally.”

The product is made from recycled agricultural film.

Norwegian resource management company Geminor says it has played a part in the introduction of a new stretch film developed from 100-percent-recycled plastic feedstock recovered from agricultural applications.

Hundreds of thousands of metric tons of linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) stretch film are used to bale animal feed on European farms, the company says.

Bjorn Haaland, account and development manager at Geminor, says, “We have for a long time handled plastic waste from agriculture and have always wanted a climate-friendly solution for the disposal of plastic volumes. Together with several partners, we have now found a process that ensures complete and efficient reuse of the stretch film.”

The agricultural plastic is collected and sent to a production plant where it is quality checked and run through a washing and preparation process, the company says. The LLDPE film is then processed for use as raw material in the production of new stretch film.

The film was first tested for the baling of waste products, Haaland says, and is now also being used to bale agricultural products.

“We have tested the new and recycled plastic film with regard to UV resistance, tensile strength, puncture resilience and handling. We have also tested it in a production climate from -20 degrees Celsius to +30 degrees Celsius, and together with our partners, we have managed to develop the strongest product possible. In terms of quality, our recycled bale plastic does not lag behind virgin plastic,” he says.

“It makes no sense to use plastic made from virgin raw materials when you have fully recycled and strong alternatives available – and the pricing is reasonable,” Haaland adds.

Geminor has logistic hubs and offices in Scandinavia, Finland, the U.K., Germany, France, Poland and Italy, employing more than 80 professionals. The company handled more than 1.7 million metric tons of feedstock in 2020 and holds contracts with more than 350 waste producers and 180 waste-to-energy and recycling facilities.

Several regulations and proposed bills are influencing paper and plastics commodity markets.

While recyclers’ main focus is on the movement of materials, legislation and regulations in the U.S. and abroad continue to affect commodity markets.

During the 2021 Paper & Plastics Recycling Conference Webinar Series, Adina Renee Adler, vice president of advocacy at the Washington-based Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), outlined how international regulations as well as federal and state regulations are affecting commodity markets for paper and plastic scrap.

Regarding the international trade of paper and plastic scrap, Adler said ISRI has been looking closely at a few key markets.

Although China has closed its doors to recovered fiber imports, she said the association continues to keep close tabs on what is happening with trade regulations in China.

“China, as you know, over the last few years is in this drive toward some self-sufficiency in creating a domestic, insular circular economy, trying to improve their ability to secure raw materials for their manufacturers,” she said. “But, of course, as we all know so well how strong that economy is and how much construction continues … that [China] can’t fulfill all of that demand from domestic sources … so they do continue to need to import recycled commodities.”

Adler noted that China is implementing quality standards for importing scrap metals, adding that the association will be tracking whether anything similar plays out for paper scrap in the future.

Malaysia, another key market for paper and plastic scrap, has implemented scrap import requirements that are similar to those in China. Adler said Malaysia has been engaging in stakeholder outreach as it develops scrap import guidelines specifically for metal and paper scrap.

On the paper side, she said Malaysia is planning to continue to follow the European BS EN 643:2014 standard for recovered paper. Adler said Malaysia is expected to recognize that different grades of paper scrap will need to follow different standards based on quality. She added that the nation plans to have a zero-tolerance level for what it calls “scheduled waste,” including plastics and other waste.

Indonesia also is actively updating its regulations for paper scrap imports. In the summer, that nation confirmed it would accept up to 2 percent prohibitives in paper scrap imports. Adler said Indonesia is supposed to provide guidance on that update to preshipment inspection agencies, though as of late October that had not yet happened.

Within the United States, much activity is happening at the state level, and much of the regulation pertains to extended producer responsibility (EPR) and recycled-content mandates.

“States have been very active on a range of policy issues,” Adler said. “You can see a number of states have introduced or are considering EPR legislation, which is being driven by a need to increase recycling, finding ways to help pay for it as municipalities are being impacted by changes in the marketplace.”

Maine and Oregon passed EPR bills earlier this year, and Adler said a handful of other states have similar legislation in the works, including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Washington.

Similarly, she said, state lawmakers are discussing recycled-content bills to ensure packaging contains minimum postconsumer recycled (PCR) content. Adler said Washington and New Jersey lawmakers are considering recycled-content mandates . However, she said, these mandates could be sidelined as EPR schemes have gained more traction.

Adler said ISRI tends to oppose product stewardship programs, including most EPR proposals, because they interfere with commodity markets.

“We want [the] supply and demand pieces of our economy and marketplace to move materials where they need to be,” she said. “But we do understand these bills are coming, and many proposals out there include what’s called [a] producer responsibility organization structure. We want to make sure there is recognition [in these bills] that infrastructure already exists and could be fully utilized.”

Along similar lines and in response to demand for brand owners to develop recyclable packaging and packaging that incorporates recycled content, Adler said ISRI is developing a recyclability protocol for fiber-based packaging.

“There are so many labels out there, it’s hard to know if there are teeth behind them,” she said. “At ISRI, we are developing a standard that would clearly identify packaging that is recyclable. The idea of this is to plain old reduce confusion among the population of what is and is not recyclable, and their decision for packaging to go in a bin will lead to recycling.”

Adler said the protocol will start by looking at setting criteria for fiber-based materials that would end up in residential recycling streams. The association has formed a brands council with several major brands to help craft the criteria.

At the state level, Adler said ISRI has noticed more activity related to environmental justice (EJ).

The Environmental Protection Agency defines EJ as “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin or income, with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies.”

Lawmakers in New Jersey already passed an EJ bill in the fall of 2020.

“What New Jersey did is they target businesses that are in what they call overburdened communities, and by addressing that they would apply additional permitting requirements [and] also require businesses that are seeking these permits to address environmental justice in their compliance,” Adler said. “New Jersey, in particular, did specifically identify scrap metal facilities and solid waste facilities as public health stressors. We’re in the process now of working with the Department of Environmental Protection in New Jersey as they implement the bill.”

She added that more than 20 other states have introduced similar legislation. She said these bills will add permitting requirements for not just scrap metal facilities but also those that handle solid waste and plastic scrap.

The Paper & Plastics Recycling Conference Webinar Series aired Oct. 20-21 and Oct. 26-27, with on-demand viewing also available. Learn more at http://paperplasticsna.recyclingtodayevents.com/schedule. 

The revised outlook follows continued strength in key metrics during the third quarter, the company says.

LKQ Corp., which offers a broad range of recycled and aftermarket parts, replacement systems, components, equipment and services to repair and accessorize automobiles, trucks and recreational and performance vehicles, has reported third-quarter 2021 results that it says reflect continued strength in the key metrics of total revenue, segment profitability and free cash flow. The company, which has operations in  North America, Europe and Taiwan, also revised its outlook for the year, updating its diluted earnings per share (EPS), adjusted diluted EPS, free cash flow and full-year 2021 segment earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) for Europe.

"Our operating excellence initiatives continue to drive record results for LKQ; in the quarter, we recorded the highest third-quarter EPS and segment EBITDA margin in the company's history,” says Dominick Zarcone, president and chief executive officer of the company, which is headquartered in Chicago. “We are particularly pleased with the results of our Europe segment, as its third-quarter margin of 11.5 percent is the highest in over nine years. This performance validates our confidence in the 1 LKQ Europe program, the strategic initiatives that underpin it and the capabilities of the team driving the implementation.”

LKQ’s revenue for the third quarter totaled $3.3 billion, an increase of 8.2 percent compared with $3 billion in the third quarter of 2020. The company says the increase reflects the annualization of the pandemic impact during the third quarter of 2020. For the third quarter of 2021, parts and services organic revenue increased 4 percent, while the net impact of acquisitions and divestitures increased revenue 0.5 percent and foreign exchange rates increased revenue 1.5 percent for a total parts and services revenue increase of 6.1 percent. Other revenue grew 45.3 percent in the third quarter of 2021, driven by higher scrap steel and precious metals prices, LKQ reports.

Net income for the third quarter of 2021 was $284 million versus $193 million for the same period in 2020, an increase of 46.8 percent. Diluted earnings per share for the recently completed quarter increased 50 percent relative to 2020 at 96 cents compared with 64 cents.

On an adjusted basis, LKQ’s net income in the third quarter was $300 million compared with $228 million in the same period of 2020, a 31.6 percent increase. Adjusted diluted earnings per share for the third quarter totaled $1.02 versus 75 cents in the third quarter of 2020, a 36 percent increase.

Cash flow from operations totaled $429 million during the third quarter of 2021, while cash flow from operations for the nine months ended Sept. 30 was $1.4 billion.

Oct. 26, 2021, LKQ’s board of directors declared the company's first-ever quarterly cash dividend. The quarterly dividend of 25 cents per share will be paid Dec. 2 to stockholders of record at the close of business Nov. 11.

Varun Laroyia, executive vice president and chief financial officer, says, “We are increasing our full-year 2021 outlook—a clear testament to our teams' ability to drive operational excellence initiatives in the midst of an operating environment that includes challenging inflationary and supply chain pressures. The announcement of our inaugural quarterly dividend reflects our confidence in our strategy and strength of our business and underscores our commitment to deliver long-term value to stockholders while continuing to allow for the repurchase of shares.”

For 2021, LKQ says its management is anticipating this revised outlook:

Canadian scrap firm and steelmaker create joint venture to prepare Algoma for potential EAF capacity.

Brampton, Ontario, Canada-based Triple M Metal and Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario-based Algoma Steel Group Inc. say they have entered into a joint venture (JV) known as ATM Metals Inc. The JV has been designed to source prime ferrous scrap and other iron units to meet Algoma’s business needs, including in connection with its potential transformation to electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmaking.

“By combining the experience and expertise of Algoma and Triple M, we believe we can build a powerful supply chain solution to realize the iron unit needs of the business today and in the future,” says Algoma CEO Michael McQuade.

“Algoma and Triple M have a long history of working together, so this joint venture was a natural fit for both organizations,” comments Chris Galifi, chief operating officer of Giampaolo Group Inc., parent company of Triple M. “We are both engaged in the steel economy, including sourcing, processing, manufacturing and the recycling of metals.”

Algoma Steel says it has a current raw steel production capacity of up to 2.8 million tons at its Sault Ste. Marie basic oxygen furnace (BOF) integrated complex. When the company changed ownership in May, McQuade commented, “We continue to evaluate our strategic options, including the potential for a substantial investment in EAF steelmaking.”

Triple M Metal describes itself as one of North America’s largest privately owned recyclers and processors of scrap metal, with more than 40 locations in Canada, the United States and Mexico. Parent firm the Giampaolo Group Inc. also produces secondary aluminum under the name Matalco.