NuCycle Energy produces its Enviro-Fuelcubes with the help of size-reduction equipment and custom densifiers.

NuCycle Energy manufactures Enviro-Fuelcubes, an engineered alternative fuel that is designed to be a cost-effective and cleaner replacement for coal and other traditional fossil fuels. The company opened its manufacturing facility in Plant City, Florida, in 2019. The 103,000-square-foot plant has the capacity to divert more than 200,000 tons of commercially generated waste from landfill annually.

To produce its Enviro-Fuelcubes, NuCycle employs a variety of size-reduction equipment to process the incoming material as well as cubers, or densifiers, that the company engineered in-house and built in partnership with a trusted fabrication shop.

Mark Barasch, CEO of NuCycle Energy, says his company addresses two societal problems: the use and proliferation of landfills and the use of coal in energy-intensive industrial processes. Its Enviro-Fuelcubes, which are made using nonhazardous industrial and commercial materials that otherwise would be considered waste, can be used in suspension burning combustion boilers, such as those used in lime and cement manufacturing and power generation.

“It’s only waste if you waste it,” he says of the material the company uses to produce its product. “If you take it to the landfill, it’s waste. If you take it to me, it’s source material to make alternative fuel.”

NuCycle is taking the paper, cardboard, wood and plastic that its commercial generators supply and combining it in such a way that it can produce a product with at least 85 percent biomass content that has a consistent Btu value of 9,500 to 10,500 per pound that allows Enviro-Fuelcubes to replace coal pound for pound. Barasch says most biomass and alternative fuels don’t have the inherent Btu value that is needed for lime and cement production.

Additionally, burning Enviro-Fuelcubes results in 1/60 the mercury, 1/60 the sulfur, 1/113 the lead and 1/174 the arsenic of coal, he says. “We are a much greener fuel than coal,” Barasch says. “It’s not just about the carbon.”

“Regarding our process, we are fortunate because the source material is very clean,” says Brandon Hagerman, NuCycle director of engineering and technology. “We control what we bring in with our sourcing model, so every material gets qualified for both chemical characteristics and physical characteristics for the process.”

This incoming material is blended before being loaded via pit conveyor into the first of two shredders to begin the production of Enviro-Fuelcubes.

The primary reducer, a Pri-Max PR4400 manufactured by SSI, Wilsonville, Oregon, combines ripping and shearing technologies “to shred, tear, pierce, chop, split, flatten, crush, break and reduce materials,” according to the manufacturer. The cutter profiles and open cutting table design help to achieve high-capacity reduction of a variety of materials. The primary reducer produces nominal 6- to 12-inch particle size.

Vecoplan LLC, Archdale, North Carolina, recently installed upgrades at the NuCycle plant to increase uptime and throughput and to reduce the presence of metals that could damage the secondary shredder and cubers. This involved the installation of new conveyors and metal removal equipment between the SSI preshredder and Vecoplan reshredder and from the Vecoplan reshredder to the cubers.

“With the new configuration, we discharge out of the SSI Primax to a robust belt-over-chain conveyor, and that conveyor discharges onto a sort line that provides the opportunity to remove nonconforming/nonferrous materials prior to the metal separation process,” Hagerman says.

The sort line discharges onto another transfer conveyor that features a 4-foot-by-8-foot over-belt electromagnet manufactured by Steinert, a German company with U.S. offices in Walton, Kentucky. Hagerman says the magnet captures 70 percent to 90 percent of the ferrous metals in the material stream.

“Just downstream of that, the Vecoplan transfer conveyor has a magnetic head pulley,” he says, which allows the company to capture ferrous material that is closer to the belt’s surface before the material is fed to a single-shaft Vecoplan VEZ 2500TT, which further reduces the material to a uniform 4-inch minus size.

Following the VEZ 2500TT shredder, the material goes to another magnetic removal process that uses a second Steinert electromagnet and another magnetic head pulley, Hagerman says. “We’re seeing much greater than 90 percent efficiency of the magnets that are upstream,” he says. “The downstream magnets are capturing smaller ferrous metals, such as staples and banding. We are seeing great metal removal efficiency.”

Hagerman says NuCycle has targeted 30-ton-per-hour flow rate with its system and has already seen a significant increase in throughput.

A third shredder, a Vecoplan VAZ 1300 XL, is used to process wood and rigid plastics, including purge, in an auxiliary process, Hagerman says. “It's an important part of the process.”

He continues, “The configuration that we ended up with is due to the variety of materials that we handle. The characteristics are so different that there's no one answer to it.”

NuCycle also receives a significant amount of roll stock, which it currently must preprocess with a guillotine shear. While films and heavy roll stock are not considered unshreddable, Hagerman says they would be difficult for the Pri-Max to handle if not preprocessed.

He says NuCycle is open to exploring direct grinding or shredding equipment to process that roll stock without the help of the guillotine shear.

Following the size reduction steps, the material is delivered to NuCycle’s cubers, which use proprietary technology. They were engineered in-house and built in partnership with a trusted fabrication shop. Hagerman says, “In general, it's a rotary press … almost like a pellet mill but not quite.”

He adds, “Ultimately, it takes a 4-inch minus material and extrudes it to an inch-and-a-half or inch-and-a-quarter die opening channel.” The company's current off-take customer's application requires no postprocessing of Enviro-Fuelcubes to be ready for use.

NuCycle’s system is designed to operate with three 10-ton-per-hour cubers.

Achieving a consistent bulk density for the Enviro-Fuelcubes is as important as achieving a consistent heat value. The final particle size of its raw materials plays a critical role in that.

“When we design this plant, we started from the back end,” Hagerman says. “We are a manufacturer that makes a product, so we started with that, and we designed the plant with our finished fuel characteristics in mind.

“In order to achieve that bulk density, we had to have certain parameters, and finished shred size was one of them,” he says. “The other benefit is more efficient material handling in general. When you handle a lot of rolled labels and films and things like that, this approach is needed to make commercially significant quantities of fuel."

Depending on a fuel buyer's needs, the company’s cubers can be fitted with different tapered dies to achieve different densities, he adds. “If we wanted to increase density, we can do so without changing infeed material size. There's a lot of flexibility in what our end product can be.”

The company will design and supply waste-to-energy technology to help a power producer in Asia reduce its reliance on coal and decrease its landfilled waste.

Akron, Ohio-based Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) has announced its B&W Renewable business segment has been awarded a contract for approximately $22 million to design and supply advanced waste-to-energy technology to help a power producer in Asia reduce its reliance on coal and decrease the amount of waste sent to landfills.

B&W Renewable will design and supply a 440-ton-per-day waste-to-energy boiler, DynaGrate combustion grate and other combustion equipment, including burners and soot blowers. The plant will generate cleaner electricity for the community while processing approximately 160,000 tons of industrial waste annually.

“Decarbonization efforts are gaining momentum worldwide, especially in Asia, while the need to responsibly and sustainably manage industrial and municipal waste continues to grow,” says B&W Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Jimmy Morgan. “Waste-to-energy technologies are an ideal solution to produce renewable, baseload power while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reliance on landfills.”

“Our business in the Asia-Pacific region continues to grow, with significant opportunities for B&W’s renewable, environmental and thermal technologies,” says Nick Carter, managing director of B&W's Asia-Pacific region. “We look forward to continuing to provide solutions to help our customers throughout the region with their clean energy transition.”

B&W has more than 150 years of experience in designing, supplying and servicing efficient energy systems. B&W Renewable’s capabilities, including the state-of-the-art Vølund technology, has been used in more than 500 applications worldwide.

The action has been met with backlash from union groups who believe the city will lose experienced workers.

New York City has fired more than 1,400 government workers—including 40 sanitation employees—who failed to comply with the city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, the office of Mayor Eric Adams revealed in a Feb. 14 notice.

The 1,430 workers who lost their jobs represent less than 1 percent of the 370,000-person city workforce and are far fewer terminations than expected before the Feb. 11 deadline to get the shots.

As reported by the Associated Press, the city sent notices in late January to up to 4,000 workers, saying they had to show proof they got at least two doses of the vaccine or else they’d lose their jobs. Three-quarters of those workers already had been on leave without pay for months, having missed an earlier Nov. 1, 2021, deadline for getting vaccinated in order to stay on the job.

The mandate, which was put in place by Mayor Adam’s predecessor Bill de Blasio, has proven so far to be effective in getting city employees vaccinated. According to the New York Times, about 95 percent of the city’s 370,000 workers have received at least one dose of the vaccine, an increase from 84 percent when the mandate was first announced in October 2021.

Mayor Adams’ office says hundreds of workers produced proof of their vaccines or got the shots after being notified they would be fired.

“City workers served on the front lines during the pandemic, and by getting vaccinated, they are, once again, showing how they are willing to do the right thing to protect themselves and all New Yorkers,” Adams says in a statement. “Our goal was always to vaccinate, not terminate, and city workers stepped up and met the goal placed before them.”

The firings have prompted backlash from some union leaders, however, who believe a single worker getting fired over a vaccine mandate is one too many.

“Workers should not get fired. There are a lot of people who don’t believe in putting this stuff in their bodies,” Harry Nespoli, president of the Uniformed Sanitationmen’s Association and head of the Municipal Labor Council, told the New York Post. 

The company reported full-year adjusted EBITDA of $3.38 billion.

Republic Services Inc., Phoenix, has released its financials for the fourth quarter and full year of 2021. 

The company reported net income of $313.1 million, or 98 cents per diluted share, in the fourth quarter compared with $235.5 million, or 74 cents per diluted share, in 2020. Excluding certain benefits and expenses, on an adjusted basis, net income for the fourth quarter was $325.5 million, or $1.02 per diluted share, compared with $320.4 million, or $1 per diluted share, in 2020. 

For the full year, net income was $1,290.4 million, or $4.04 per diluted share, compared with $967.2 million, or $3.02 per diluted share, in 2020. On an adjusted basis, net income for 2021 was $1,330.6 million, or $4.17 per diluted share, versus $1,137.8 million, or $3.56 per diluted share, for 2020. 

"We finished the year strong, capping off our best year of financial performance in company history,” said Jon Vander Ark, president and chief executive officer of Republic during a Feb. 10 conference call. “We consistently exceeded expectations and delivered double-digit growth in revenue, EBITDA (earnings before income, taxes, depreciation and amortization), earnings and free cash flow during the year. Additionally, we invested over $1 billion in value-creating acquisitions and returned over $800 million to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases." 

Full-year earnings per share, or EPS, were $4.04, and adjusted EPS were $4.17 per share, an increase of 17 percent over the prior year. Adjusted EPS exceeded the company's upwardly revised full-year guidance. 

Full-year cash provided by operating activities was $2.79 billion, an increase of 13 percent compared with the prior year. Adjusted free cash flow, a non-generally accepted accounting principles measure, totaled $1.52 billion, a 23 percent increase compared with 2020. Adjusted free cash flow exceeded the company's upwardly revised full-year guidance, according to the financial report. 

Full-year adjusted EBITDA totaled $3.38 billion. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 30 percent of revenue, representing a 60 basis point increase over the prior year. 

Republic invested $1.06 billion in acquisitions, or $1.02 billion net of divestitures, which is the highest level of acquisition investment in over a decade, Vander Ark said. Recently, the company announced the acquisition of U.S. Ecology, an environmental solutions provider based in Boise, Idaho. Vander Ark said he expects the deal to close at the end of the second quarter. 

Vander Ark said the company continues to make progress on the rollout of the next phase of the RISE platform, its dispatch operations technology. The company says it has implemented tablets in about 90 percent of its container fleet. 

“With these new capabilities, we generated operational efficiencies and delivered over 1 million automated proactive notifications to customers last year,” Vander Ark said. “We will begin to point tablets to the residential fleet early this year and expect to be complete by mid-2023.”

Looking forward, the company expects adjusted diluted earnings per share to be in the range of $4.58 to $4.65 and adjusted free cash flow to be about $1,625 million to $1,675 million. Republic also expects adjusted EBITDA margin to expand over full-year 2021 performance by 30 to 40 basis points. 

Republic said it plans to invest at least $500 million in acquisitions and $175 million in solar energy investments that qualify for tax credits. 

"We expect to deliver another strong year of earnings and free cash flow in 2022 through outsized revenue growth, margin expansion and free cash flow conversion improvement," Vander Ark said. "This financial outlook is a direct result of leveraging our broad capabilities, delivering comprehensive products and services, and developing innovative solutions to drive profitable growth and create a more sustainable world."

Tina Beck, co-owner of Beck’s Refuse Service, pleaded guilty to underreporting nearly $1 million in receipts from her business.

The co-owner of Beck’s Refuse Service in Washington County, Pennsylvania, has pleaded guilty to filing a false income tax return in connection with underreporting nearly $1 million in receipts from her business over four years.

As reported by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Tina Beck—who runs Beck’s Refuse Service with her husband—entered the plea before U.S. District Judge Marilyn Horan. Beck had been indicted last September on multiple counts of filing false returns from 2015 through 2018.

The grand jury found that in 2016, she reported receipts of $285,867 for the 2015 tax year, but the real receipts were much higher. Beck also did the same for other years.

In total, she acknowledged underreporting receipts in excess of $986,000. The tax loss to the IRS was more than $232,000.

Judge Horan set sentencing for June 21, according to the Post-Gazette.