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In post US holiday trading Comex copper prices have tumbled to a 1-yr low.

Prices crashed to a one-year low on Thursday morning in the United States with market sentiment in the red metal affected by tough talk on tariffs between the US and China, leaving tremendous uncertainty for future manufacturing sales.

Copper for September settlement dropped 6.40 cents or 2.2% to $2.8530 per lb, slightly off it’s lows for the day of 2.8370, the lowest level seen since July 2017. The red metal has suffered from weakening market sentiment dropping 10 % in the last few weeks.

Copper is considered by many to be a barometer for the health of the economy. The significant pressure on pricing could indicate a turn in economic conditions.

What is Single-Use Plastic? Single-use plastic is any plastic that can only be used once before being disposed of or recycled. Common examples surround us daily, including: grocery bags, water bottles, product packaging and straws. Recycling plastic rather than throwing it away is ideal, but recycling plastics is more improbable with China and other nations refusing to take North American waste products making recycling plastic more costly than recycling other scrap end of life materials. Single-use plastic comes in all polymer types, shapes , sizes and colours which all must be handled differently. In order to be recycled they first have to be separated and recycling technology simply has not kept pace with manufacturing and the consumer. Now that dumping our problems is no longer an issue, we are being told the truth – not all plastics can be recycled. We have heard recently that black dyed materials are non recyclable and straws are too light to be managed through equipment, two examples of many.

What Can I Do to make a difference ?

The obvious solution and the first in the 3 R’s we have been taught is to reduce the single-use plastic that you consume entirely. Here are a few helpful tips.

• Bottled water, pop and juices are very convenient. However, over time the plastic of the bottle will start leaking chemicals into the water. Try using a refillable metal or glass bottle instead. Both of these are 100 % recyclable, and better for your health.
• Packing lunch? – Use a reusable container, or paper wrapping products.
• Shoppers are very familiar with excess packaging. Big box stores and online retailers seem to plastic case everything.. request these sellers use minimal to no plastic packaging.
• Grocery Bags – Bring your own cloth reusable bags. Although convenient, the plastic versions are equally as harmful to our environment and non recyclable as they contain mixed materials. Paper bags are a great choice as well.
• Plastic Straws – These are hot news recently and some cities are making the decision to ban their use permanently. This is the future, you will see more and more products added to the banned list in the near future.

The copper market should have known 2017 would be an interesting and potentially beneficial year after seeing US President Donald Trump’s inauguration speech promising to rebuild the United States and a 44-day strike at Escondida mine in Chile.

And even with some price weakness at the start of December, copper is still up 19% in the year-to-date and is hovering around the highest level since August 2014. It is quite a turnaround considering prices in 2015 slowly eroded before hitting a nadir in January 2016.

At that time, copper was trading around $4,500 per tonne on the London Metal Exchange, a level not seen since the depths of the global recession in 2009.

Now following a year of positive Chinese data, an emerging global supply deficit and signs that future technologies such as electric vehicles and solar power will lead to a big demand increase, the red metal is well positioned over the next few years.

“The year has been driven by anticipation of better fundamentals: The run-up from November 2016 to February 2017 attracted a surge of scrap that led to second-quarter price weakness as extra supply needed to be absorbed (this despite the supply disruptions), we then saw some restocking and fund buying in the third quarter on back of realization of concerted global growth,” Metal Bulletin senior analyst William Adams said.

Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange closed at $6,793 per tonne on December 14, up a staggering 20.5% since the beginning of the year.

Tumultuous start Workers at the world’s largest copper mine, Escondida, began a 44-day strike on February 9 that eventually spread to Peru. From the beginning, the strikes were not expected to last more than a couple days, but the extended impasse flipped the entire market.

It also set the stage for an extended deficit through the end of the decade with the International Copper Study Group (ICSG) forecasting a 150,000 tonne deficit in 2017 and 105,000 tonnes in 2018.

The Lisbon, Portugal-based firm cited weak refined mining production primarily due to those aforementioned supply disruptions along with a lack of major new projects or expansions.

A new round of negotiations at the start of the New Year could expand the current deficit and mining companies have exhibited caution on expansions to existing mines or breaking ground on new projects. That discipline stems from the downturn of 2015 and the lingering survival instincts is keeping mining execs from increasing supply too much in the short-term.

Chinese stability In the end, the overriding reason for the current copper rally is the economic stability in China. The world’s most populous country is also a global vacuum for the copper industry, with 50% of all demand being gobbled up as the country continued to build bridges, highways and dams.

In 2017, world refined copper production was expected to see an increase of only 1% on a yearly basis to 23.6 million tonnes, compared with a 2% increase forecast in 2016, the ICSG said.

The country is currently in the midst of an economic transition away from these metal-intensive infrastructure projects and towards a service-oriented economy where its burgeoning middle-class supports GDP growth through consumption.

That economic transition was alarming to an industry that has become overly-reliant on consistent Chinese demand. But those fears were alleviated throughout the year as President Xi Jinping and the Chinese government kept capital keep, triggering a property rally and building boom.

In 2018, refined copper production is expected to grow at an annual rate of 2.5% to 24.2 million tonnes in 2018. China’s consumption is forecast to grow by 3% next year, the ICSG said.

Manufacturing, service sector and overall GDP growth also exceeded expectations with the Chinese economy expanding at 6.8% in the third quarter.

Plus, China’s “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) project – an estimated $5 trillion infrastructure project that connects 60-plus countries throughout the Eurasian region – is being hailed as a once-in-a-century opportunity for the entire commodities industry.

In the end, no matter what transpired this year, the Chinese rebound and overall stability was the driving force behind copper’s current price.

Are you still tossing out machines rather than repairing them? Can you be forgiven for hanging onto the outdated notion that nonfunctioning machines and household appliances must be tossed and replaced?

The concept of throwaway culture belongs in the waste bin of history. No longer is it necessary to toss out every washer, A/C, vacuum, fridge, and other household appliance and electronic device. This guide is designed to help you decide whether to repair, discard, or replace those broken machines in your life, and which avenues to pursue when you make those choices.

Our Disposable Society

It is easy to blame the people of the last century for creating, pushing, and propagandizing throwaway culture. Before that time, repair shops abounded in all cities and people had the skills to repair small appliances. It didn’t hurt that machines were more basic and easier to fix in those simpler times.

The use-and-toss ethos reached its apex in 1955 with the Life magazine article “Throwaway Living,” which cheerfully promoted “disposable items that cut down household chores.”

After the ecological movement of the 1970s and the later awareness of climate change, consumers began to look askance at throwaway culture. But with the new millennium and its rise of cheap products from overseas, we have seen a resurgence in throwaway culture. Millennials are not especially keen on throwing everything away, but technology improves so rapidly that tossing and replacing can make more sense than fixing.

Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) or e-waste is a solid waste category that comprises a range of electronic items, from large household appliances such as refrigerators and air conditioners to more sophisticated devices like stereos and flat-screen TVs – all of which have been discarded by their users.

From 1999 to 2015, the rate of WEEE or e-waste recycling has increased from about 15 percent to 21 percent. While this number may sound encouraging, understand the overall context: the total amount of waste has increased disproportionately and astronomically. In 1999, the total amount of estimated e-waste produced was 1,056,000 tonnes; in 2015, the total amount was 3,562,000 tonnes.

By sending WEEE to landfills, we are polluting our environment. Television and computer monitors normally contain hazardous materials such as lead, mercury, and cadmium. Any item that has circuit boards contains nickel, beryllium, and zinc. If you think this applies only to computers, remember that more and more “dumb” appliances such as fridges and washers are becoming “smarter” with the addition of computer brains and Wi-Fi connections.

When to Fix it

The choice to repair an item has less to do with aptitude than with your inclination for repairing things. If you do not mind getting your hands dirty, you just might be able to repair that washer or A/C for pennies on the dollar.

The Internet is bursting with repair advice for small machines and appliances. Similarly, online sites sell repair parts, down to the tiniest $0.49 screw – a supply chain that consumers could not access before the Internet.

The rule of thumb is that if you can repair the machine for 50 percent or less than the cost of replacement, go ahead and do so. Repairing it yourself with parts you purchase online will increase that 50 percent buffer and make the repairs more cost-effective.

1. Clothes Washer

Clothes washers are used more than almost any other appliance. And they work hard. A 4.2-cubic-foot washer contains about 3 cubic feet of water and wet clothing, a load approaching 200 pounds. These heavy loads eventually affect the washer’s ability to agitate the clothing.

• Repair Difficulty Rating: 2/5 (Easy)

• Solutions: When the agitator will not spin, the fix is often as easy as replacing the agitator, cogs, or drive belt.

2. Window A/C Unit

Air conditioners can seem intimidating, but they have far fewer moving parts than you might think.

• Repair Difficulty Rating: 1/5 to 2/5 (from Very Easy to Easy)

• Solutions: When the A/C is not blowing cold air, replacement of the capacitator, fan motor, or temperature control unit may do the trick. Again, the names of these parts are misleading; DIYers who have replaced them report that repairs are very easy and take less than thirty minutes to complete.

3. Dishwasher

Extreme heat and constant moisture take their toll on dishwashers.

• Repair Difficulty Rating: 2/5 to 3/5 (from Easy to Moderate)

• Solutions: Leakage, heating element not working, and water not spraying. Leaks around the door are easily fixed with new door gaskets. Heating elements are replaced rather than repaired. The problem of water not spraying can be cured by replacing spray arms or the pump motor.

When to Throw it Away

Nothing lasts forever. Even the hardiest and most faithful appliance that has delivered the best performance over the years must, eventually, be discarded. How do you know when?

Basic guidelines for disposal:

• Hardworking Appliances: Machines that operate with intense pressure and/or run constantly tend to die faster and be more difficult to repair. For example, trash compactors, which exert forces up to 2,300 pounds per square inch, tend to have shorter life spans. Clothes washers, too, move heavy, water-laden clothes at top speeds. While washers are repairable for a number of years, when they hit the end of their lifespans, repair becomes more costly and difficult.

• Older Appliances: One would think that durable, longer-lasting appliances that are still working would be candidates for a second home. Not so. By the time longer-working appliances such as gas ranges and refrigerators have died, their value as refurbishable items is almost nil. Technology has advanced, and few people are interested in a stove from a decade and a half ago.

• Electronics: The addition of more complicated electronics to our appliances has contributed to their demise, as well. DRM (digital rights management) software, Wi-Fi, motherboards, and circuit boards all contribute to appliances’ early deaths.

• Compressors: Refrigerators and freezers that need new compressors will be extremely expensive to repair. Compressor replacement often breaks that 50 percent rule mentioned earlier.

• Smoke and Fire: Dryers, ovens, fridges, and washers that emit smoke are not only difficult but unsafe to repair.

Appliance Life Spans, Shortest to Longest

• Trash Compactor: 6 years

• Dishwasher: 9 years

• Microwave: 9 years

• Clothes Washer: 10 years

• Ceiling Exhaust Fan: 10 years

• Freezer: 11 years

• Sink Disposal: 12 years

• Clothes Dryer: 13 years

• Refrigerator: 13 years

• Range, electric: 13 years

• Range/oven hood: 14 years

• Range, gas: 15 years

When and Where to Recycle

One person’s ceiling is another person’s floor, as the saying goes. Meaning: what does not work for you just may work for someone else. At Greengo Recycling we take all of these items and if you have enough in weight you may even get a pay out! If you live in the Barrie area we do pick up for FREE! Call us today to find out more information

705-722-8711

China’s recycling challenge

U.S. consumers, firms, agencies will need to step up

DEC 29, 2017

Today’s Opinion stories

Lane County residents have enthusiastically embraced recycling, making it the only county in Oregon to send more waste to be recycled than to the dump last year. The goal is to recycle almost two-thirds of all waste in the county by the middle of next decade.

This rosy picture, however, has had a bucket of cold water dumped on it by the Chinese government.

About one-third of the waste recycled in the United States is exported, with China being the dominant market. And the Chinese government has announced that it plans to ban the importation of 24 different kinds of solid waste, including unsorted waste paper and several types of plastic.

China said the foreign recyclables are too contaminated, to the extent that some are hazardous to workers’ health and the environment.

The announcement sent the U.S. recycling industry into a tizzy. The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries said the ban, which is scheduled to take effect in January, will have a “catastrophic” impact on the U.S., including tens of thousands of lost jobs, closure of many recycling businesses and reduced tax revenue.

Prices of many recyclables will plummet if China carries through with its plan, ISRI warned, and many of these materials will end up in dumps with environmental, as well as financial, costs.

There is some question as to whether the ban will go into effect on schedule. Chinese manufacturers are reportedly already complaining about shortages of raw materials such as recycled metal, paper and plastic.

But the handwriting is on the wall for U.S. consumers, government agencies and recycling businesses that export recyclables to China — often a cheaper alternative than dealing with the materials in the United States.

In some ways, China’s impending ban is a much-needed wake-up call for the United States, which has left the subject of how, or whether, to recycle to cities, counties and states, with the result that no coherent national policy has evolved.

Even in Eugene, which has fervently embraced recycling, there are some long-standing problems with how it is practiced. Some of this is laziness — does anyone really think a soiled diaper can be recycled? — but much of it is due to well-intentioned consumers who lack information and engage in what Lane County waste reduction specialist Sarah Grimm refers to as “wishful recycling.”

Wishful recyclers are concerned about the environment and want to recycle as much as possible — including plastic lettuce tubs, plastic bags and ice cream cartons, none of which are acceptable and some of which can mess up recycling equipment. Wishing these things were recyclable doesn’t make them so.

China’s announced ban is already prompting some changes in the United States, including sorting facilities that have slowed their conveyor belts so pickers can remove more contaminants or are sending materials through twice to meet China’s demand for cleaner recyclables. These changes have sent the fees charged to trash haulers skyrocketing by as much as 300 percent and reduced the amount of material that can be sorted every day. Some small trash haulers from rural areas are having trouble finding a sorting facility that will accept their loads.

In the short term, some trash haulers are trying to raise their rates to cover their increased costs. And some trash that might previously have gone to recycling likely will end up in dumps.

Longer term, businesses, consumers and communities will need to help support more domestic recycling and learn to do it more efficiently.

Businesses and governments will need to invest in better recycling equipment. Agencies such as Lane County’s Waste Management Division, with the help of organizations such as Eugene-based BRING Recycling, will need to ramp up education efforts. This includes helping consumers learn how to better recycle and reduce waste, starting at the time of purchase.

If consumers demand products that include recycled materials and don’t have excessive packaging, businesses will respond, Grimm said, “That is where our saving grace is — as long as consumers take their power and use it wisely,” she said.

Now that you’ve vowed to get to the gym more, take some time to help others, and cut back on some of your vices, we at Greengo Recycling would like to remind you to make recycling part of your New Year’s resolutions.

It’s never too late to begin taking steps to reduce your carbon footprint. In 2018, strive to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Here are just 7 simple tips for cutting down on waste in the New Year.

1. Go paperless. If you haven’t already, let the New Year motivate you to finally make the switch from mailed bills and bank statements to a greener, digital format. If you’ve been getting catalogs that you don’t need, take the steps to take your name off those mailing lists.

2. Start composting. Many cities are beginning to institute composting collection, so now is the best time to start a compost in your yard or even indoors. Food waste makes up a large part of what ends up in landfills, but when you compost, you convert that waste to energy.

3. Ban Styrofoam. If you need disposable plates, opt for something more recyclable. You could also try suggesting that your favorite takeout place switch to something more environmentally friendly.

4. Bagless is better. You’ve heard it before, but this year, take action. Plastic bags get caught in recycling machines, so bring a bag with you when you go shopping. Bags that collapse into small pouches can be easily thrown into a purse or jacket pocket.

5. Cut down on vampire energy. When you’re not using one of your many electronic devices, unplug them.

6. BYOC: Bring your own cup or container. Coffee shops are unlikely to object to filling your washable to-go cups, and while your waiter might look askance at the to-go container you’ve brought from home, you can rest easy knowing every little bit helps.

7. Recycle! If you’re reading this blog, you likely recycle already, but this year, see if there’s something you can improve upon. Do you toss shredded paper in the trash? Throw away containers holding liquid just because you don’t want to pour it out? Take the steps necessary to be the best recycler you can be

8. Recycle or Sell it! Do you have old electronics laying around the house you don’t use anymore? Christmas lights that you just can’t seem to get to work? Why not bring it to one of our two locations in Barrie and make some extra cash to help with your holiday spending

481 Welham Road Unit 14 Barrie or 168 John Street Unit # 2

Christmas morning, and presents have just been opened. Your home is now littered with mounds of colourful wrapping paper. But what on earth to do with it?

It brands itself as paper – so can it be recycled? The short answer? Not always.

And that’s because gift wrap often contains much more than simply paper.

“It’s a nightmare for paper mills this time of year,” confesses Simon Ellin, the chief executive of the Recycling Association – a trade body that represents around 90 different paper merchants, waste management companies and other businesses involved in recycling paper.

That’s because while they’re presented with mountains of wrapping paper, they cannot work with all of it.

can be tricky to know what to do with leftover paper.

“Not all wrapping paper is paper,” Simon points out. Some is plastic-based.

Then there’s the issue of gift wrap that’s covered in “metres of Sellotape”, not to mention gift tags or paper that contains foil or glitter, none of which can be recycled.

But you can recycle a good deal of what you’ve wrapped your presents in, just as long as it’s pure paper.

How do you check? Try to scrunch up the paper into a ball. If it scrunches, and stays scrunched, it can probably be recycled.

And if you’ve bought recycled wrapping paper in the first place, it can probably be recycled again.

Simon Ellin wishes more gift wrap was manufactured with a thought for the recyclers. “It’s a crusade we’ve been on all year – do you really need to design a non-paper wrapping paper? Make paper with recycling in mind!”

Image copyrightAFP

Image captionIf your paper is itself recycled, or if you can scrunch it, then you should be able to recycle it

So you’ve got recyclable wrapping paper – what do you do with it?

Even if your paper is recyclable – not all councils will take it.

Some will let you put it into the recycling collection. Others insist you bring it along to a recycling centre.

“Disposable cups make up 22 per cent of large litter items in Vancouver and are one of the most commonly littered items in the city. Unlike Toronto, single-use cups for hot and cold beverages can be recycled in Vancouver, but as containers rather than paper owing to their inked coatings”..

The City of Vancouver is taking aim at the scores of disposable cups, takeout containers and shopping bags tossed in the trash each week, filling up half the space in public waste bins and costing millions a year to collect.

Vancouver’s efforts to limit such single-use items come alongside similar actions from individual businesses, other cities and even entire countries to reduce their environmental footprints. Montreal approved a bylaw, effective Jan. 1, 2018, that prohibits retailers from offering customers single-use plastic shopping bags. Last year, France passed a law banning all disposable cups, plates and utensils countrywide starting in 2020.

Project spokeswoman Monica Kosmak said these single-use items are a significant issue for Vancouver, which has set a goal to become zero waste by 2040.

“We’ve got 2.6 million cups and another two million shopping bags going to garbage every week in Vancouver,” Ms. Kosmak said. “About half of the litter cans are full of disposed cups and takeout containers and it costs the city about $2.5-million a year to manage.”

The city is inviting public input from now through Dec. 7. Consultation results and a draft single-use item reduction strategy will be presented to council in early 2018.

Both regulatory and non-regulatory options are being considered, Ms. Kosmak said. Regulatory options include an outright ban on businesses distributing single-use items, requiring businesses to ask customers before offering such an item or requiring businesses to provide on-site recycling programs.

Non-regulatory options include education programs, working with businesses to develop voluntary fees on single-use items and exploring cup-exchange or container-exchange programs across businesses. For example: Portland, Ore., home to hundreds of food trucks, has a program called GO Box that has participating vendors serve takeout in reusable containers that customers can later drop off at designated sites.

Mark von Schellwitz, vice-president of Restaurants Canada, a restaurant and food-service industry advocacy group, said many businesses have shown leadership in voluntarily taking steps to become more environmentally friendly in recent years. He noted many members are already paying Recycle BC packaging stewardship fees to recycle packaging on their behalf.

“What is needed is more comprehensive consumer education on what they can do increase single-use packaging recycling,” Mr. von Schellwitz said. “What our members do not support are additional packaging fees or bans isolated to one municipality robbing consumers of the convenience they want, from picking up their morning to-go coffee to ordering takeout lunches and dinners.”

More than 100 cities in the United States – including Portland, Seattle and San Francisco – have banned restaurants and other food vendors from using polystyrene foam containers, according to a Vancouver report. Many jurisdictions – including Seattle, Los Angeles and Austin, Tex. – have implemented plastic-bag bans, fees on plastic bags or a combination of both.

We need a new approach to how we consume clothes if we want to prevent obscene volumes of waste, widespread exhaustion of critical resources and the toxic pollution of the environment, according to a new report from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

“The textiles industry is a huge industry employing more than 300 million people globally,” says Rob Opsomer, co-author of the report. “It’s also very polluting. We found that the equivalent of one garbage truck full of textiles gets landfilled or burned every single second of every day of the year.”

Then there’s the issue of what we’re making those textiles from. As much as 60 percent of our clothing is made from plastic, according to the report. The problem is, every time we wash our clothes, tiny plastic microfibers get released into the washing machine before escaping into the oceans, where they are eaten by fish. It turns out we’re eatingand drinking these microplastics too.

At the end of a long weekend of Black Friday and Cyber Monday mega-discounts from the likes of H&M and Gap, it’s hard to imagine a world where we’re not just lapping up cheap, disposable fast fashion.

But that’s exactly what the Ellen MacArthur Foundation is doing.

Launched in collaboration with sustainable fashion icon Stella McCartney, the report sets out four main ways to create “the new textiles economy”: phase out hazardous materials (including those that contribute to the micro-plastics problem); make better quality clothes and keep them in the system longer through rental models; improve recycling processes; and use renewable resources in manufacturing.

Key to this is realizing that it’s not just about reducing the textiles industry’s negative impact but creating a positive alternative, says Lewis Perkins, president of the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute.

“If you’re driving a car 100 miles an hour in the wrong direction and you slow down to 40, you’re still going in the wrong direction,” he says. Put another way, we’re only going to get so far by convincing shoppers to consume less.

From Rent the Runway to The RealReal, we’re seeing great examples of the new textiles economy emerging in countries such as the U.S., says Opsomer, adding: “People don’t want just three shirts or pairs of pants, so we need to find ways to provide them with access to well-made stuff without necessarily owning it.”

And this isn’t just an evolution in the U.S., as demonstrated by projects such as China’s subscription-based clothes sharing platform YCloset. In a recent funding round, YCloset raised $50 million.

For all the talk of Netflix-inspired models, however, a big question remains: Is this vision accessible for those in lower income brackets for whom monthly subscriptions and luxury rentals might not be feasible?

For Opsomer, the point is to mainstream the circular fashion model so it becomes not just widely accessible but also widely desirable.

“There’s a stigma attached to second-hand fashion,” he says. “But, as projects like Rent the Runway show, even those renting at the luxury end of things are open to the idea of second-hand. Ultimately this model provides a vision for access to ethical and affordable clothing.”

More broadly, this model ― where sustainable resources are not just used but re-used ― is taking hold, says Antonia Gawel, head of the World Economic Forum’s Circular Economy initiative. The challenge, she believes, is to ramp up the public and private sectors’ progress.

With companies such as Nike and H&M Group publicly endorsing the new Ellen MacArthur Foundation report, there are at least signs that some of the giants of the fashion industry are listening.

The fourth industrial revolution may well be back on.

Materialise promises to show how it’s enabling customers to take 3D printing to the next level at formnext powered by tct. The Belgian 3D printing leader will announce new software automation tools and showcase its latest developments in manufacturing and digital supply chains at the Frankfurt event on 14-17th November.

Building on the trend for metal 3D printing, Materialise is set to showcase its commitment to the entire value chain of metal production with the launch of a new, unique metal software which it describes as “the next innovation in metal 3D printing”.

Digital Metal recently entered commercial production of its industrial DM P2500 metal 3D printer. With binder jetting technology, Digital Metal’s technology is capable of creating intricate details equivalent to the point of a ballpoint pen (and smaller). This skill is showcased at formnext by a number of geometrically complex miniatures, including a micro chess set, and a group of employees faithfully recreated in stainless steel.