Facility accepts used foam cups, food containers, egg cartons, electronics packaging and more.

Dart Container Corp., headquartered in Mason, Michigan, has opened a polystyrene (PS) foam drop-off center in Chicago. The center is accessible by the public 24 hours per day, seven days per week and provides an free option for local residents, businesses and organizations to recycle foam labeled with the No. 6 chasing arrows symbol. PS foam is used frequently to make take-out containers for food.

The Chicago drop-off center at 7575 Kostner Ave. will accept a wide variety of recyclable foam, including cups, food containers, egg cartons, meat trays, ice chests and packaging frequently used to protect fragile materials, such as TVs, during shipping, the company says.  

“Dart is pleased to provide Chicago with an opportunity to recycle their expanded polystyrene foam,” said Michael Westerfield, director of Recycling for Dart Container. “We offer this service for free, and our hope is that this center will encourage Chicago residents to recycle foam materials they might otherwise have thrown away.”

Once collected, the foam can be recycled into many different products, including picture frames, baseboards and crown molding.

To participate in the program, area residents should:

Foam packaging peanuts will not be collected at the center. Instead, residents should call 800-828-2214 or visit www.loosefillpackaging.com for drop-off sites.

Those with large deliveries should call 773-838-2515.

Chris Hawn, David Marcouiller and Jonathan Menard promoted.

Machinex Group, based in Plessisville, Quebec, has announced that Nicolas Belanger has sold his stock in the company. With this sale, Pierre Paré has become the sole owner of the company.

In a news release announcing the sale, Machinex acknowledged Belanger’s contribution to the company throughout the last 20 years and wished him personal and professional success.

The company has put together a new organizational structure that involves the promotion of three Machinex employees.

Chris Hawn, who has worked at Machinex for the past six years as North American sales director, was appointed executive vice of president sales and business development. Hawn helped to broaden sales and business development in the North American market for the company and will continue to ensure this role while also being in charge of all business growth plans, Machinex says.

David Marcouiller, who has worked at Machinex for the past 13 years as a project manager and a sales project director in North America, has been appointed to the post of executive vice president of sales engineering. Machinex says he has expertise in sorting system design and will ensure the company’s sorting solutions meet the quality requirements of the continuously evolving market.

Jonathan Menard, who has worked at Machinex for the past eight years as a sales project director, has been named executive vice president of sales and strategic positioning. Menard, who has worked mostly in the European and international markets, has developed expertise in waste-to-energy and mixed waste processing projects, Machinex says. He will continue to expand the Machinex presence on the international scene while also positioning the company in the North American emerging markets, the company adds. 

Jana Davis is promoted from chief financial officer within the magnetics company.

Bunting Magnetics Co., Newton, Kansas, has announced that Jana Davis has been promoted to chief operating officer (COO), a new position within Bunting Magnetics, effective May 30, 2016. Davis joined the company in 2011 as chief financial officer (CFO).

As COO, Davis will be responsible for overseeing day-to-day business operations—including manufacturing, distribution and engineering—of all four Bunting Magnetics divisions: Bunting Magnetics Company, based in Newton; Bunting’s Magnet Materials Division, including its e-commerce site www.buymagnets.com, based in Elk Grove Village, Illinois; Bunting Magnetics Europe, based in the United Kingdom; and Magnet Applications Inc., based in DuBois, Pennsylvania.

Davis will continue to report to Bob Bunting, president and CEO, who announced the promotion.

“Jana is a trusted leader who, as CFO, consistently delivered results in financial management, corporate strategy development, operational efficiencies and people development,” Bunting says. “I can think of no one better to ensure operational excellence and drive our continued market leadership.”

He says the firm will search for a new CFO and adds, “This addition of a COO to our executive management team greatly adds to our capacity to implement our growth strategy and allows me to focus on broader strategic issues.”

“I’m proud to take another step within Bunting Magnetics,” says Davis. “I look forward to this new role and helping the company take its next stage of growth.”

Bunting Magnetics, founded in 1959, offers metal detection, magnetic separation, material handling and printing cylinder product lines for several global markets, including recycling, food packaging and processing, feed and grain, plastics, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, offset printing, metal stamping and automobile manufacturing.  

Company’s Redwave Waste subsidiary has projects underway in Europe and China.

Austria-based sorting and sensing equipment maker Redwave, a division of BT-Wolfgang Binder GmbH, has expanded its commitment to the waste processing sector by founding a subsidiary called Redwave Waste GmbH. The new subsidiary, based in Wetzlar, Germany “adds the important area of mechanical-biological waste treatment (MBT) to Redwave’s product portfolio,” says the company.

The new division “provides waste processing solutions, using automated mechanical sorting and processing technologies, for converting waste into secondary fuel and usable recycling fractions,” Redwave says in a news release announcing the new subsidiary.

Among the technologies it offers is bio-drying, which Redwave says greatly improves the sortability of wet waste streams with high organic content, and turnkey plants for the composting of organic waste, such as kitchen waste, waste food and residual materials from biogas fermentation plants.

“By combining the two major areas of technology – sensor-based sorting on the one hand and classical mechanical-biological treatment on the other – we have become one of only a few suppliers on the market who are able to offer clients complete solutions designed individually to meet their needs,” says Silvia Schweiger-Fuchs, the CEO of Redwave. “Working with our new colleagues from Wetzlar is going smoothly, and including them in the Redwave group has been a big step forward that opens up new developments and growth.”

Redwave Waste is currently working on projects in Finland, Scotland and China. The project in Finland “is a combined plant for sorting the light fraction of household waste and waste packaging and for mechanical processing of household waste to fuel,” says Redwave. The two plants together have a capacity of 175,000 metric tons per year. Construction of both plants began in December 2015 and are scheduled to begin operating in the summer of 2016.

In Scotland, Redwave is supplying the fuel storage and feed technology for a gasification plant for a project that is currently in the design phase and is planned to go into operation in the summer of 2017.

The project in China represents “a new kind of process in terms of plant size and MBT technology in China,” according to Redwave, with an annual capacity of 270,000 metric tons, in which household waste is first dried biologically and then processed mechanically. The plant will be built in eastern China, north of Shanghai. “This project is a milestone in the development of the Chinese market for our company,” says Redwave Waste CEO Andreas Puchelt. “The approach of sorting the waste before incineration, in order to recover recyclable materials and also to make energy generation from waste more efficient, is new in China and has huge potential for us,” he comments.

Furnace maker adds Julia DiNova as its director of operations.

Recycling Services International LLC, based in Cohoes, New York, has added Julia DiNova as its director of operations, according to Dave Conway, a principal with the firm.

“Julia was added to our team at the beginning of the downturn in the metals markets,” says Conway. “She sees the value in investing in products such as ours in the down markets [and] she knows the capabilities of our equipment for increasing profit margins in this type of market. Her main goal is to position people for maximum profits for the years to come.”

Recycling Services International manufactures and markets aluminum sweat furnaces, precious metals recovery furnaces, high-temperature afterburners and other products designed to purify and reclaim metals from scrap.

Conway says DiNova will help the firm communicate with and follow up with current and prospective customers. “Julia’s years of sales expertise and how well she follows up and assists her customers is impressive. She strives to give our customers all the knowledge they need to make a good investment. This is the key to the way we do business,” he comments.

Adds Conway, “She wants to make sure our customers get the product they need by asking the right questions as far as product type or volume, and how they are looking to grow when the market comes back. She believes, as we do, that if you focus on service to others first, success will follow for all parties involved.”