Equipment maker breaks ground on plant expansion at its headquarters site.
General Kinematics Corp. (GK), a Crystal Lake, Illinois-based recycling equipment and technology provider, has broken ground on a 42,000-square-foot plant expansion at its United States corporate headquarters in that city. GK says the manufacturing addition will be added to its existing 220,000-square-foot space “to facilitate increasing demand and more extensive equipment offerings for the mining, foundry and recycling industries.”
“The expansion of our North American manufacturing facility has been needed for a while," General Kinematics President Tom Musschoot says. "We can handle some of our larger products, such as STM-Series Two-Mass mining screens, Finger-Screen recycling screens and large rotary and vibratory drums for foundry applications. It will further expand our capabilities for our Tuffman and GK Systems brands.”
“With customer demand for larger, heavier and more complex units, we identified a significant need for more space and increased capabilities,” GK Vice President of North American Sales Jim Egan says. “To stay competitive, we must invest in the right technology to make us as efficient as possible.”
Egan continues, “We see multiple positive outcomes from this investment. Our customers know we are committed to solving their production challenges and our employees see the investment as a commitment to providing them with the best equipment to complete the job safely and efficiently.”
Plans for the addition include high bay ceilings, which will allow the installation of cranes with 80-ton lifting capacity. The new area also has been designed to provide space for further capital equipment purchases and increased material storage, the company says.
"The facility expansion validates the strategic investment in our people and process during the pandemic-impacted years of 2020 and 2021," GK Chief Financial Officer John Koufis says. "The addition to the manufacturing facility, and the resultant forthcoming new jobs, significantly increases our production capacity and improves the overall flow of our production processes. This will enable us to meet the rapidly growing demand for our products to serve our customers better worldwide.”
The company plans to hire 15 new employees as part of its expansion plans. Construction is expected to be completed in the first quarter of next year.
General Kinematics was incorporated in 1960 “to market, design, and custom fabricate innovative vibratory materials handling and processing equipment.” To date, more than 50,000 General Kinematics units have been installed “in virtually all of the world’s industrialized countries,” according to the firm.
Lynn Rubinstein received a Lifetime Achievement award, recognizing her 20 years heading the Northeast Recycling Council and 20 previous years of environmental work.
After four decades dedicated to resource conservation, Lynn Rubinstein will retire this year, leaving behind a legacy of work that will have a lasting impact.
For more than 20 years, she has served as executive director of the Northeast Recycling Council (NERC), a nonprofit focused on promoting waste reduction, recycling and composting. The organization also promotes environmentally preferable purchasing and decreasing the toxicity of solid waste, according to a news release from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which presented her with a Lifetime Achievement award at the EPA’s virtual Environmental Merit Awards ceremony Oct. 12.
The Brattleboro, Vermont-based organization has received many awards as Rubinstein has expanded its reach by attracting more players and establishing more than 100 projects. These projects have aimed to recycle electronics, manage unwanted medication, document the relationship of jobs to recycling and inspire initiatives for recycling newsprint.
Rubinstein has been a trusted voice for the private recycling industry and government, fostering an environment where industry and government can discuss common issues and find solutions. She co-founded many programs, including the State Electronics Challenge, Electronics Recycling Coordination Clearinghouse and Government Recycling Demand Champions. Her related presentations, reports and articles are available on the NERC’s website.
An example of her commitment to keeping the council dynamic in a changing economy and waste stream was when she formed a partnership in 2017 between the council and the Northeast Waste Management Officials’ Association, the EPA notes.
While Rubinstein is known for her leadership of the NERC, she also served as solid waste manager for Northampton, Massachusetts; conservation director for Holyoke, Massachusetts; mercury and electronics recycling program director at the University of Massachusetts; professor of land use management at Antioch New England in Keene, New Hampshire; and a resource planner and attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice.
Throughout her career, she has pioneered innovative programs, forged connections and raised the level of regional cooperation across the Northeast. Rubinstein’s work has had a substantial impact that will last well into the future, the EPA says.
The New Philadelphia, Ohio, truck maker has partnered with Engs Commercial Co. and others to make truck buying easier.
Battle Motors Inc., formerly Crane Carrier Company, a 70-plus-year-old manufacturer of Class 6-8 heavy-duty work trucks, and Itasca, Illinois-based Engs Commercial Finance Co. have partnered to launch a customer finance platform through Battle Motors Capital, powered by Engs Commercial Finance Co., Mitsubishi HC Capital America Inc., related companies and leaders in providing commercial finance solutions to equipment manufacturers and dealers.
Battle Motors Capital was created to support the sale of New Philadelphia, Ohio-based Battle Motors’ heavy-duty diesel, compressed natural gas (CNG) and electric vehicle (EV) work trucks into the refuse, construction, utility and general freight segments. Through its dealer network, Battle Motors Capital offers competitive pricing on loans, terminal rent adjustment clause leases, balloon terms up to 84 months and fair market value leases for low monthly payments for all its products.
Stan Mikalonis, chief revenue officer of Battle Motors, says, “Battle Motors Capital provides our customers with many options to finance or lease equipment. We are confident it will drive incremental sales, particularly of our electric vehicles.”
In addition to customer financing, Battle Motors Capital also offers floor plan financing to its dealers through Mitsubishi HC Capital America, Norwalk, Connecticut, a company related to Engs, and insurance to its customers through Engs Insurance Agency offices throughout the US and Canada.
Christopher M. Schatz, managing director of Battle Motors Capital comments, “Our mission is to make our zero-emission electric vehicles more affordable and available to a broader customer base.”
Engs is Battle Motors’ primary financing partner in supporting Battle Motors Capital, which will leverage Engs’ innovative financial technology tools to grow Battle Motors’ market share and enhance its dealers’ and customers’ finance experiences.
“We are very proud to partner with Battle Motors, a very respected manufacturer of work trucks,” Engs Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Jim Freund says. “Our tools are designed to help manufacturers and dealers build their businesses, and we are excited to work with Battle Motors and make it a premier lender in this industry.
In September, Battle Motors celebrated the opening of its upgraded facility, which should help increase the production of EVs and other vehicles.
In a letter to the EPA, 17 legislators make the case for implementing standardized labels developed by Recycle Across America.
Standardized road signs and nutrition labels are used across the United States. Why should there not be standardized labels for recycling bins?
“Much like standardized road signs allow all of us to be able to drive properly wherever we are, societywide, standardized labels have been referred to by the New York Times as one top environmental fixes taking root today,” Recycle Across America Executive Director Mitch Hedlund says in a YouTube video explaining the benefits of standardized recycling labels.
Recycle Across America introduced the standardized bin label concept in 2016.
A group of 17 legislators has sent a letter to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan requesting the implementation of standardized bin labeling.
“As of 2022, 49 percent of Americans believe that the recycling system does not work well, and 30 percent are not confident that what they put into recycling bins actually gets recycled,” the legislators write in the Sept. 23 letter to Regan. “This lack of faith stems from the culture of confusion surrounding recycling. In fact, 62 percent of Americans worry that a lack of knowledge causes them to recycle incorrectly.”
The Recycling Today Media Group has reached out to the EPA, which was not immediately able to respond to a request for comment.
In the letter to Regan, the legislators say standardized recycling labels Recycle Across America created as part of its “Leave No Trace” program have “led to a 100-percent increase in recycling levels in several national parks.
“The clear, photo-centric and nationally standardized methodology of design, colors, text and verbiage of the labels has proven to help end the public's confusion about how to recycle properly at each bin, which, in turn, eliminates the costly contamination which has been crippling the economics of recycling and causing the collapse of recycling at large,” Hedlund says.
The Clark County School District in Las Vegas, for example, has saved $6 million in trash hauling fees during its first two years of using standardized bin labels. The recycling rates doubled at Denali, Yosemite and Grand Teton national parks while reducing contamination after deploying standardized labels on bins.
“The societywide standardized labels for bins have already been vetted, tested and proven,” she says. “The standardized label designs and methodology was developed in 2008 by our nonprofit organization, Recycle Across America, and was evaluated by industry leaders and the general public. They are the first and only national standardized labels ever created in the U.S., and they are the No. 1 solution available today to systemically fix the U.S. recycling crisis.”
Hedlund says a wide variety of organizations have successfully adopted the labels, including hospitals, businesses, sports stadiums, restaurants and single- and multi-family housing units.
The state of Rhode Island has been using standardized recycling labels since 2016. Hedlund says the state is seeing more than a 20-percent reduction in contamination, which makes the entire recycling process faster and less expensive.
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In their letter to Regan, the representatives say contamination “wreaks havoc on recycling centers’ operations,” causing work stoppages and potentially endangering employees.
The EPA, in its National Recycling Strategy, calls for improved labeling of bins and “clarifying existing labels that are confusing to consumers.” The plan calls for “consistent” labels and messaging for consumer-facing communications.
Hedlund says standardized labeling is proven, but it needs to be more widespread.
“With more than 9 million societywide standardized labels currently displayed on recycling and compost bins across the country and more than a decade’s worth of compiled metrics and testimonials of efficacy, the society-wide standardized labels for bins have proven to be the most common-sense, effective, immediate, systemic and low-cost way to fix the recycling crisis in the U.S. and beyond.”
As part of the project, Washington-based non-profit Food Lifeline will partner with area organizations to expand AD capacity in South Park neighborhood.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has awarded Food Lifeline of Seattle—a non-profit organization providing food to more than 350 food banks across western Washington—approximately $200,000 to assist in the development of a community-owned anaerobic digester (AD) in the South Park neighborhood of Seattle.
Food Lifeline will partner with Duwamish Valley Sustainability Association, Black Star Farmers and Sustainable Seattle to develop new AD capacity for the South City Biodigester Collaboration project. The project is designed to demonstrate the potential for a larger-scale biofuel system and serve as an example of a closed-loop “circular economy.”
It is also intended to help provide Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC), as well as low-income communities, autonomy over their waste-to-energy cycle and the opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The demonstration project will measure specific AD deliverables, including pounds of waste diverted from landfills and large composting facilities, gallons of digestate used by Black Star Farmers in their local farms, the amount of community participation and youth involvement, and the number of education and engagement events held.
Activities to be conducted by project partners include:
The goal of the EPA grant is to help reduce food loss and waste and to divert food waste from landfills and incinerators by expanding anaerobic digester capacity. The grant is one of 11 projects selected for funding in 2022, which include feasibility studies, modeling efforts, demonstration projects, as well as technical assistance and training.
“Projects like this one underscore the benefits of a collaborative, community-centered approach,” says Casey Sixkiller, regional administrator of EPA’s Region 10 office in Seattle. “The EPA is excited to support this anaerobic digestion project and other efforts in the Duwamish Valley that bring people together to fight climate change, protect public health and empower communities.”
The South City Biodigester Collaboration project will be an initial exhibition of a new technology process for the South Park community, leveraging breakthrough technology that involves the AD process coupled with very low energy inputs making it more accessible for small-scale businesses and organizations.
The project will evaluate the cost-effectiveness of inputs and output potentials for scalability in small business and community use, leverage its findings and impact to assess the technical feasibility and cost-effectiveness of a larger-scale biofuel system in the South Park community, and develop a local, community-based, BIPOC led farm-to-table-back-to-farm lifecycle.