The transaction combines two metal recycling solutions providers.

Mill Rock Capital Management LP, a private investment firm based in New York City, has announced that its affiliates have made a strategic investment in Dallas-based Venture Metals LLC and SI Metallics LLC in partnership with management. Mill Rock reports that Venture has acquired Versatile Processing Group Inc. (VPG), which is based in Indianapolis. 

The transaction combines two U.S. metal recycling solutions providers of comparable size to create a platform with annual revenues of about $700 million, according to a news release from Mill Rock Capital Management. Further terms of the deal were not disclosed. 

Venture is owned and operated by CEO Mike Uhrick and President Mark Chazanow. The company provides high-touch recycling solutions to the industrials, manufacturing, energy and metals sectors and supplies high-quality refined nonferrous and ferrous metals to domestic and international markets. 

Versatile Processing Group serves as an industrial processor of nonferrous metals, servicing the copper manufacturing, electric utility and general industries. The company specializes in recycling nonferrous materials, including copper, brass, aluminum, zinc, tin, silicon and nickel products sourced from a diverse base of suppliers, with a particular expertise in difficult-to-process units. Services provided include wire and cable chopping, de-tinning and de-oiling, laboratory analysis and logistics. 

The combined company will operate six processing facilities. Two of those facilities will be in Dallas and one facility will be in Des Plaines, Illinois; Houston; Nabb, Indiana; and Wills Point, Texas. The facilities are located in close proximity to customers as well as port and rail access points, Mill Rock reports in a news release announcing the acquisition. The combined organization will be led by Uhrick and Chazanow and the integrated executive teams of both organizations, supported by more than 200 associates. Through the transaction, senior management of both companies invested in partnership with Mill Rock. 

“The Venture team and I are excited to join forces with VPG,” Uhrick says. “VPG is a well-respected company with committed associates, a high-quality management team, specialized processing capabilities and robust infrastructure. We are excited about the growth opportunities of the combined platform and the enhanced capabilities it will provide to all our loyal customers."

“Access to Venture's processing capabilities and global consumer reach represents a significant opportunity for VPG's customers. The transaction will allow us to serve them across a fuller range of metals, while allowing them access to our distribution channels worldwide,” Chazanow adds.

Sharma Rao, a senior principal at Mill Rock, will be joining the company in the role of executive vice president of business development. Rao has managed global metal supply chains at GE Aviation and Rolls-Royce, and was most recently the head of Metals and Strategy at Arconic Inc. In addition, Wayne Hale, Charles Heskett, Adi Pekmezovic, William Plummer and Christopher Whalen of Mill Rock have joined Venture’s board of directors in connection with the transaction. 

Houlihan Lokey, Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, Octant Partners and Milbank LLP advised Mill Rock on the transaction. Deloitte Corporate Finance LLC and Locke Lord LLP advised Venture. KeyBanc Capital Markets and Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP advised VPG.

The airport aims to reduce plastic waste, become first zero waste airport by 2021.

The San Francisco International Airport (SFO) is planning to ban the sale of single-use plastic water bottles. The ban will take effect on Aug. 20, according to a report in the Associated Press (AP). 

The new rule will apply to airport restaurants, cafes and vending machines. Travelers will need to buy refillable aluminum or glass bottles if they do not bring their own, AP reports. 

The airport is following an ordinance approved in 2014 banning the sale of plastic water bottles on city-owned property, according to AP. SFO retailers already are required to provide only compostable single-use to-go containers, condiment packets, straws and utensils. 

The airport also published a Zero Waste Plan last year. SFO reports that it hopes to become the “world’s first zero waste airport by 2021.” The airport’s Zero Waste Plan outlines measures the SFO needs to take to achieve zero waste by 2021 and work toward becoming a Closed-Loop Circular Campus in the years that follow to control material inputs to maximize recycling and recovery and minimize waste materials generated onsite. 

Airline expects to recycle more than 55 tons of aluminum, glass and plastic by 2020.

From August to December, LATAM Airlines will recycle more than 20 tons of aluminum, glass and plastic through a new onboard recycling program, Recycle Your Journey.

The program will recycle packaging and other items from Mercado LATAM, the carrier's onboard food service provider, and will roll out through domestic flights in Chile and LATAM's Latin America operations. The goal is to eventually recycle all packaging on all flights.

Aluminum, glass and plastic are currently being collected from passengers by the cabin crew and sorted. On arrival, the recyclables are picked up by LSG "sky chefs" and transported to local recycling centers.

Recycle Your Journey was in development for more than a year prior to its launch and underwent four trial programs. By 2020, LATAM says it expects to recycle more than 55 tons of onboard recyclables that were previously sent to landfill.

"As one of the three most sustainable airline groups in the world, we are committed to bringing about change and leading by example," President of LATAM Airlines Group Ignacio Cueto says in a news release. "Today’s launch of our ‘Recycle your Journey’ program on domestic flights in Chile represents just the first step towards the introduction of onboard recycling across our network.”

"Collaboration and cooperation are key aspects of the program," he adds. “Without the support and willingness of our passengers and the commitment of our cabin crew, onboard recycling is not possible."

The company also received a five-year operating permit for its Brooke County Landfill.

J.P. Mascaro & Sons, headquartered in Audubon, Pennsylvania, received more than $7.5 million in competitively bid long-term municipal waste collection and recycling contracts. Several Pennsylvania municipalities awarded the company contracts, including Muhlenberg, Hamburg, Catasauqua and Newton. 

“Our company really appreciates the new long-term waste collection and recycling contracts recently awarded to us by the municipalities of Muhlenberg, Hamburg, Catasauqua and Newton, and we look forward to serving these communities and their residents,” says Sam Augustine, director of sales at J.P. Mascaro & Sons.

The company also received a five-year operating permit from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection to operate the Brooke County Landfill in Colliers, West Virginia. 

According to a news release from J.P. Mascaro & Sons, the Brooke County Landfill is one of two Mascaro-related landfills in West Virginia, the other being the Wetzel County Landfill in New Martinsville, West Virginia. Those two landfills serve as primary disposal facilities for waste collected by the operating divisions of Solid Waste Services of West Virginia Inc., a J.P. Mascaro-related collection company that serves municipal, commercial and industrial customers in the panhandle region of West Virginia and in eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania.

“The Brooke County Landfill is an important component of the operational infrastructure of the Mascaro-related waste service businesses in West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania,” says Ryan K. Inch, company director of engineering at J.P. Mascaro. “These businesses not only serve our municipal, commercial and industrial customers, but also are important to the thriving Marcellus and Utica Shale gas development activities occurring in that three-state regional area.”

J.P. Mascaro & Sons has announced that it has awarded $1 million for student scholarships and supplemental education programs for the 2019-2020 school year. According to a news release from J.P. Mascaro & Sons, the awards have been distributed to more than 90 schools, including the St. Catherine of Sienna School in Reading, the John Paul II Center for Special Learning in Shillington, the City School in Philadelphia, the Regina Angelorum Academy in Plymouth Meeting, the St. Cornelius School in Chadds Ford, the AIM Academy in Conshohocken, the MMI Preparatory School in Freeland, the Upland Country Day School in Kennett Square and others.

“During the last seven years, the Mascaro company has awarded approximately $9 million for student scholarships and supplemental educational programming,” says Lindsay Mascaro Ptaszenski, company director of education. “My grandfather and company founder, Joseph P. Mascaro Sr., was a man with a limited formal education, but he was a huge proponent of education in general and of young students having the best educational opportunities possible, regardless of their financial standing, and as a company, J.P. Mascaro & Sons feels the same.”

J.P. Mascaro & Sons company President, Pat Mascaro, says, “When a company commits to funding student scholarships and educational initiatives, it is also committing to the betterment of the local community as a whole. J.P. Mascaro & Sons is proud to have participated substantially in such funding in the past, and it looks forward to doing so for many years to come.”

EPW has introduced a 5-year, $287 billion surface transportation bill.

The National Waste & Recycling Association (NWRA), Arlington, Virginia, applauds Senate Environment & Public Works (EPW) Committee Chairman John Barrasso, R-Wyoming; Ranking Member Tom Carper, D-Delaware; Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee Chairman Shelley Moore-Capito, R-West Virginia; and Subcommittee Ranking Member Ben Cardin, D-Maryland, for their introduction of America’s Transportation Infrastructure Act (ATIA). This 5-year, $287 billion bipartisan surface transportation bill reauthorizes EPW’s portion of the FAST Act, which is set to expire in September 2020. Committee markup is scheduled for July 30.

“Apart from the waste and recycling industry and the U.S. Postal Service, one would be hard-pressed to name another industry that travels every road in America at least once a week, every week,” says Darrell Smith, NWRA president and CEO.

“Nearly 200,000 miles of major highways require repairs and more than 47,000 bridges are deemed ‘structurally deficient,’ all of which impacts our industry’s ability to deliver its services that are essential to maintaining the quality of American life efficiently and in a timely manner,” Smith says. “Introduction of this legislation is an important first step in addressing our nation’s transportation infrastructure needs.”

The bill also will authorize new programs to incentivize key priorities, including safety, resiliency and emission reductions. ATIA increases funding to the existing Highway Safety Improvement Program and supports state-led initiatives to lower driver and pedestrian fatalities.

“NWRA will advocate for safety provisions in the bill to support state ‘move over’ laws covering the waste and recycling industry,” says Jim Riley, NWRA vice president for federal affairs. “Members of Congress are increasingly aware of the danger our industry’s roadside workers face every day from careless and distracted drivers. This is a prime opportunity for Congress to make a statement and do something significant to help protect these hardworking men and women.”