Waste and recycling companies adapting to the coronavirus economy

Commercial volumes are down dramatically in many markets, employee hours are being cut and contract terms are tested. How service providers respond could have lasting implications.

 By Cole Rosengren, WasteDive

hat looked like it would be another boom year for waste and recycling companies has dramatically shifted within a matter of weeks to become the year of COVID-19. Business continues, as the industry’s services have been deemed essential during the pandemic, but no one can predict what it will look like on the other side.

Protecting employees from the coronavirus is said to remain the industry’s top priority, with significant attention focused in recent weeks on new procedures for frontline workers and shifting thousands of administrative personnel to remote arrangements. But with commerce largely shut down in many parts of the United States, some companies are faced with the existential issue of maintaining those jobs in the first place.

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Regardless of their size or financial reserves, all of the industry’s service providers are still navigating a host of largely unforeseen questions about how to do business. Waste Dive spoke with more than a dozen executives and analysts over the past week to learn more about how they are pivoting to life in the new coronavirus economy.

“Jackson Avenue at Federal Plaza, Stay Home City of Chicago Ad” by Raed Mansour is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Commercial crunch

Across the country, retail stores, bars, restaurants, gyms, schools, hotels, entertainment venues, sports arenas, airports, office towers, casinos and construction projects have largely gone dark. Their containers have emptied out in turn, leading to a dramatic reduction in bedrock commercial and industrial volumes.

“Commercial for us is at a complete halt,” said Gregory Lettieri, CEO of New York-based Recycle Track Systems (RTS), last Monday. While Lettieri noted demand continues from certain customers such as grocery stores, and interest in on-demand services has increased, he described activity at many sites across the company’s multi-city footprint as essentially frozen.

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Other companies working in New York, a market where the private sector has limited diversification in residential business unless it’s outside the five boroughs, have made major cuts to the number of routes they are running and are processing less material at their facilities.

Interstate Waste Services (IWS) has laid off staff at its MRF in the Bronx, partially due to operational factors around social distancing but also because commercial recycling volumes are down significantly. Ron Bergamini, executive vice president of government relations, said clean cardboard is still a priority, but the limited volume of material has meant IWS needs to temporarily dedicate its attention elsewhere.

“Recycling is an important part of our business and mission, but at this time let’s focus on priorities of the moment — social distancing and allocating resources,” he said. “We are making sure we can serve hospitals and new health facilities. If recycling suffers for a few weeks, so be it.”

In addition to healthcare facilities, demand is also steady across other essential sites in the Northeast including grocery stores, bodegas, convenience stores and food manufacturing facilities.

In one sign of this sudden shift, Vanguard Renewables — the largest anaerobic digester operator in the Northeast — has seen inbound organics volumes increase during recent weeks.

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Ford and GM are undertaking a warlike effort to produce ventilators. It may fall short, come too late

Inside the auto giants’ efforts to build prototypes and revamp factories to produce tens of thousands of ventilators in time for covid-19 patients.

By Reed Albergotti and Faiz Siddiqui  Washington Post April 4, 2020

With ventilators in short supply, a small business teams up with GM to fill the gapVentec Life Systems is working with General Motors to ramp up production of ventilators, which hospitals across the U.S. need amid the coronavirus pandemic. (Tim Matsui, Ashleigh Joplin/The Washington Post)

This week, union workers at a Ford manufacturing plant outside Detroit raced to set up new production lines. But instead of making hybrid car batteries, the usual output from the factory, they are preparing to churn out tens of thousands of ventilators, joining the sprint against the clock to fight the coronavirus.

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Scrambling to get production underway, the workers took apart a ventilator and 3-D scanned each of the roughly 300 parts, creating computer simulations of how the device could be assembled efficiently. Ford, which has partnered with a ventilator-maker and GE Healthcare, has been rushing to train workers and obtain the parts to have its first prototype ready early next week.

Ford and General Motors both announced in late March that they would build the medical machines after shutting down car production and sending workers home, a historic redeployment of their factories and workers.

But the relatively late start of both companies means the bulk of their production will come online in May, possibly missing the peak load of cases expected by most U.S. health officials in mid-April.

“Time is not on our side,” said an auto executive involved with the efforts, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly describe the progress of the effort. “Even though we are moving mountains … and we are moving as many as we can as fast as we can … these herculean efforts might not be enough.”

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Daniel Klein performs quality assurance tests on ventilators at Ventec Life Systems. (Stuart Isett for The Washington Post)
Daniel Klein performs quality assurance tests on ventilators at Ventec Life Systems. (Stuart Isett for The Washington Post)

More than a month after the global pandemic took root in the U.S., manufacturers across the country are overhauling their operations to produce the equipment needed for an anticipated spike in infections and hospitalizations, often under political pressure.

Ford said it aims to produce 1,500 ventilators by the end of the month. GM, which brought its first group of 100 project workers into training this week, said it will start producing 10,000 units per month by as early as mid-May.

But the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation estimates that 32,000 ventilators will be required by the peak in mid-April, and the government only has about 10,000 stockpiled, President Trump said Tuesday. Hundreds of thousands of novel coronavirus patients are expected to flood hospitals around the country in the coming weeks, overwhelming medical staff who don’t have enough equipment to keep all the patients alive. New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) has said his state needs 30,000 ventilators alone.

And while the ventilator Ford is building is simpler and could allow it to go faster than GM, it is designed to be used on patients who are being transported to hospitals in ambulances or helicopters and doesn’t have some advanced features that doctors, intensive care specialists and ventilator experts told The Washington Post they’ve come to rely on when treating coronavirus patients afflicted with acute respiratory distress syndrome.

President Trump ordered the automakers to build ventilators “NOW!!!!!!” in a tweet last week, invoking the Defense Production Act to order General Motors to get on the case.

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New York state bans expanded polystyrene foam products

E.A. Crunden@eacrunden reports for WasteDive

The New York legislature has passed a ban on most expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam products as part of its FY21 budget package. State lawmakers reached a deal on the budget during overtime negotiations earlier this week, with final passage early Friday morning. 

The budget language targets EPS foodware containers and loose fill packaging. Food trucks, restaurants, delis, caterers and both grocery and retail stores are included, while uncooked eggs, meat, and fish are exempted, as is pre-packaged food sealed prior to delivery. 

New York will join Maine, Vermont, and Maryland, which all have their own forms of EPS bans in place. The statewide EPS ban will take effect by January 2022, with fines for violations beginning at $250, and rising in increments before hitting $2,000 for a fourth violation. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has touted the ban as a key pillar of his broader environmental agenda.

Some states are pausing or rejecting limitations on plastics due to concerns over COVID-19, making New York’s ban stand out. The new coronavirus has disrupted state legislative efforts during what had been a record season in many areas for bills targeting plastics. Those pieces of legislation had been gaining momentum in several states, with focuses ranging from single-use plastic bags and straws to EPS containers and recycled content requirements. 

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Now, New York’s EPS restrictions mark a rare step forward for legislation targeting plastics at a time when other efforts have largely come to a halt. New York City already has an EPS ban in place — following a lengthy legal battle — and the new legislation allows that ban to remain in place.

In addition to New York, Washington state has also opted to go forward with its crackdown on plastics. During a shortened session, the state legislature saw an uptick in legislation focused on plastics, with significant support from environmental groups. Gov. Jay Inslee signed SB 5323 — banning single-use plastic bags — on March 25, with the law set to take effect in 2021. Another bill focused on recycled content minimums, HB 2722, has meanwhile passed both legislative bodies and is waiting for Inslee’s signature. 

Those moves run counter to a growing near-term trend in other states. As the coronavirus pandemic has worsened, state governments have grown concerned about contamination risks. Early-stage research on the virus indicates it can live up to three days on plastics in certain conditions, while little is known about its relationship with textiles. But officials have acted swiftly, with a particular emphasis on plastic bags.

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Medical researchers may have created a vaccine to protect humans from coronavirus

Discovery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center holds promise for a vaccine for the Coronavirus

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School think they have the answer to COVID-19. It’s a vaccine that can be injected through a small patch on the skin. Unlike some other vaccines, it does not require refrigeration during shipping. The discover still requires federal approval for human testing trials but that could come within weeks. The testing will take additional months. Nick Matoney of Pittsburgh Action News 4 reports the promising news here

Related news stories
Positive step on road to a coronavirus vaccine (EnviroPolitics Blog)
Potential COVID-19 Vaccine Shows Promise in Mouse Study (NY Times)
When will a coronavirus vaccine be ready? (The Guardian)

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Positive step on road to a coronavirus vaccine

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine report initial success in animal trials for a vaccine to neutralize the virus that causes COVID-19.

University of Pittsburgh

By Eric Poole, The (Sharon) Herald
11:55 AM April 2, 2020

During tests in mice, the vaccine was shown to produce antibodies specific to SARS-CoV-2, known as the novel coronavirus. University researchers said the mice responded with antibodies sufficient to neutralize the virus.

The researchers released their findings today in a paper published in EBioMedicine, published by The Lancet, a leading British medical journal.

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The authors said they are now in the process of seeking investigatory new drug approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration with expectation of beginning human clinical trial within the next few months.

Dr. Andrea Gambotto, co-senior author of the paper, said the university researchers were able to move so quickly because they were already working on vaccines for similar viruses.

“We had previous experience on SARS-CoV in 2003 and MERS-CoV in 2014,” Gambotto said. “These two viruses, which are closely related to SARS-CoV-2, teach us that a particular protein, called a spike protein, is important for inducing immunity against the virus. We knew exactly where to fight this new virus.”

The researchers are calling the vaccine PittCoVacc, short for Pittsburgh Coronavirus Vaccine. The process uses laboratory-made pieces of viral protein to build immunity, similar to the process of annual vaccinations for the flu.

This differs from the experimental vaccines, which focus on RNA development, that have recently entered clinical trials.

For delivery, the vaccine uses a microneedle array, a fingertip-sized patch of 400 tiny needles that deliver the spike protein into the skin. The patch, similar to an adhesive bandage, is affixed to the patient and the needles, which are made of sugar, dissolve into the skin.

“Our ability to rapidly develop this vaccine was a result of scientists with expertise in diverse areas of research working together with a common goal,” said co-senior author Dr. Louis Falo, a professor and chairman of dermatology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Additional authors on the study are Eun Kim, Geza Erdos, Shohua Huang, Thomas Kenniston, Stephen Balmert, Cara Donahue Carey, Michael Epperly, William Klimstra and Emrullah Korkmaz of Pitt and Bart Haagmans of Erasmus Medical Center.

Funding for the study came from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases and National Cancer Institute.

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