Supply chain disruptions and staffing issues are among the factors contributing to the closure.

Columbia Steel Castings Co., Portland, Oregon, says it will close its plant and all its facilities in Portland, with closure-related employment separations expected to begin Oct. 22 or within two weeks thereafter.

Columbia Steel manufactures a variety of steel and iron parts for basic industry, including wear parts for metal and waste shredders. The company was founded in 1901, according to its website, and ultimately acquired by Hobart M. Bird, whose descendants continue to operate Columbia.

In a letter dated Aug. 22, 2022, that Marth B. Cox, president and CEO of Columbia Steel, sent to employees, she writes: “It is with deep sadness I need to inform you of the plan to close Columbia Steel by the end of this year. I understand the impact this will have on our hard-working employees and their families. The Bird family priorities have always been first to employees, then retirees, vendors, customers and our environmental responsibilities. Unfortunately, our efforts to secure a new owner or financing for Columbia Steel have not come to fruition.”

Cox writes that the effects of offshore competition that often is government subsidized, supply chain disruptions, COVID-related restrictions on sales travel, increased state and local environmental regulations and fees on energy-intensive industries and the inability to hire and retain sufficient employees to produce castings at a sustainable level, even after substantial pay increases, have contributed to the decision to close the 121-year-old company.  

She adds, “While Columbia Steel will continue to seek additional financing and to have discussions with various companies about purchasing its facilities and maintaining operations, there is no guarantee that this will happen.”

The company also sent a letter dated Aug. 22 to Rachel Soto, interim rapid response coordinator at the Oregon Dislocated Worker Unit Office of Workforce Investments at the Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission, about the closure and employee terminations as required by the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act of 1988.

According to the letter to Soto, the plant closure is expected to be permanent, and 225 employees will be laid off.

Recycling Today has reached out to Columbia for information on the company's ability to fulfill orders prior to the closure and will update this story once we have a response.

RMDO facestocks feature 30-percent-recycled content.

Avery Dennison Labels and Packaging Materials, Mentor, Ohio, has introduced two machine-direction orientation, or MDO, film products with postconsumer recycled, or PCR, content. The new rMDO white and rMDO clear filmic facestocks enable brands to improve packaging sustainability and stay ahead of changing regulations for a broad range of household, personal care, cosmetic and food products, the company says.

RMDO facestocks contain 30 percent postconsumer recycled content, creating “a slightly less uniform appearance that consumers identify with eco-friendly packaging,” Avery Dennison says.

The white and clear rMDO facestocks feature good print quality with digital and conventional inks; perform like other film facestocks during printing, dispatching and application; and are suitable for curved, contoured, conformable and squeezable packaging, according to the company. Plus, they are paired with AD CleanFlake technology to enable recycling of rigid plastic packaging. 

“These new products are ideal for brands seeking to increase the recycled content in their packaging and connect with consumers looking for more eco-friendly products,” says Anh Marella, marketing director – Films at Avery Dennison Labels and Packaging Materials. “They also meet the needs of converters by integrating recycled content into the label without compromising print and application performance.”

Avery Dennison Corp., headquartered in Glendale, California, is a global materials science and manufacturing company specializing in the design and manufacture of a wide variety of labeling and functional materials. The company’s products include pressure-sensitive materials for labels and graphic applications; tapes and other bonding solutions for industrial, medical and retail applications; tags, labels and embellishments for apparel; and radio-frequency identification (RFID) solutions serving retail apparel and other markets. 

ISRI chapter will play several roles at Paper & Plastics Recycling Conference, Oct. 19-20.

The Paper Stock Industries (PSI) chapter of the Washington-based Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) is preparing to play several roles at the 2022 Paper & Plastics Recycling Conference, which is taking place Oct. 19-20 at the Marriott Marquis Chicago.

PSI will host and moderate two sessions at the event: Moving Materials Revisited, Wednesday, Oct. 19; and OCC/Mixed Paper, Thursday, Oct. 20.

At the freight-focused Wednesday session, Nini Krever of New Jersey-based Wilmington Paper Corp. will moderate a panel that also includes Matt Schrap of Long Beach, California-based Harbor Trucking Association; Karyn Booth of the Washington office of law firm Thompson Hine LLP; and Krissy Van Niekerk from Denmark-based transoceanic container shipping line Maersk.

“Trucking and container shipping began presenting challenges during the pandemic that were exacerbated last year and continued into 2022,” PSI says of its intended focus during the session. The ISRI chapter says it will follow up on its conversation from the 2021 event on the same topic, “looking at what has changed and what remains the same in the areas of trucking and ocean shipping.”

Speakers will offer advice on how to manage transportation-related headaches and provide insights on when the situation might change, PSI says.

Shawn State of Georgia-based Pratt Industries will moderate the Thursday session focusing on old corrugated containers (OCC) and mixed paper. Speakers at the session include John Grinnell of Ohio-based Greif; Sean Davidson from pricing service provider Davis Index; and Jeff Ryalls of Massachusetts-based International Forest Products LLC.

Regarding the state of those sectors, PSI says, “OCC demand continues to rise after record consumption in 2021 and notable containerboard projects are in the works, resulting in historic pricing. This session looks at the dynamics shaping markets for two broadly generated recovered fiber grades—OCC and mixed paper.”

Another PSI member with a visible role at the 2022 Paper & Plastics Recycling Conference will be PSI Secretary/Treasurer Kathy DeLano of Dallas-based Texas Recycling, who will participate in the Commodity Focus: High Grades session, Thursday, Oct. 20.

On the networking side of event, PSI says it will host a reception Tuesday, Oct. 18, from 8:30-10:30 p.m. at event venue Marriott Marquis Chicago, before conference sessions begin the next day. “In addition to being an ideal networking forum, this special event will help raise funds for PSI’s 2023 scholarship program,” the chapter says.

More information about the conference, organized by the Recycling Today Media Group, and its schedule can be found here, while those seeking to register can go directly to this page. 

The site in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is the first U.S.-based Pregis facility to receive this certification.

Pregis LLC, a Deerfield, Illinois-based flexible packaging producer, has received the International Sustainability & Carbon Certification (ISCC) Plus for its Grand Rapids, Michigan, blown film manufacturing facility in support of the company’s Performance Flexibles packaging offering.

ISCC Plus is a globally recognized system for the sustainability certification of recycled and bio-based materials, enabling Pregis to produce packaging that is classified as circular, bio-circular and/or bio-based and includes the mass balance chain of custody option, providing traceability along the supply chain.

Pregis says it is able to engineer its Performance Flexibles Renew Series film solutions with these bio-certified materials, meeting what it says is growing demand for flexible packaging options “that align with customers’ sustainability and performance goals,” adding that it “applies responsible sourcing and advanced recycling to custom engineer films that are setting the sustainability standards within the industry.”

“This milestone is fundamental in our engineering of film solutions that meet the high sustainability requirements of ISCC Plus throughout the value chain,” says David Timm, president, Pregis Performance Flexibles. “We’re able to continue to drive innovation in blown films and expand our specialty films capabilities within the food and medical packaging areas along with other high-performance applications.”

The Grand Rapids facility is the first U.S.-based Pregis site to receive ISCC Plus certification, joining the company’s Heerlen, Netherlands, location. Pregis says it plans to seek certification at additional locations in the future but did not disclose which locations.

RELATED: Council of the Great Lakes Region releases 5-year plastics action plan

In September last year, Pregis invested $32 million into blown film extrusion technology at the Grand Rapids site, expanding the location by 55,000 square feet for manufacturing, warehousing and office space. The investment was in addition to a previous $37 million capital expenditure put into that location between 2016 and 2020, and included custom Windmoeller & Hoelscher dedicated multilayer polyethylene blown film extrusion lines, additional material handling for expanded resin storage as well as lab facility upgrades.

At the time of the investment, Pregis said continued focus on light-weighting and increasing recycled content in its film structures is in keeping with its companywide sustainability goals.

The partnership will drive behavioral changes in plastic recycling by offering Virgin Points to incentivize participation in Cyclyx’s 10 to 90 programs.

Portsmouth, New Hampshire-based Cyclyx International, a consortium-based postuse plastic company with a mission to increase the recyclability of plastic from 10 percent to 90 percent, has partnered with Virgin Red, the rewards club from the London-based Virgin Group.  

The partnership seeks to drive behavioral changes in plastic recycling by offering Virgin Points to incentivize participation in Cyclyx’s 10 to 90 programs, which will help address plastic pollution and the global transition towards net zero.  

“We couldn’t be happier to be working with Virgin Red,” says Joe Vaillancourt, CEO of Cyclyx. “If we’re going to increase the recyclability of plastic from 10 percent to 90 percent, we will need to create some real behavioral changes in the way that people recycle. By partnering with Virgin Red, we will be able to offer people exciting rewards that will help to incentivize those changes.”  

The 10 to 90 Challenge is a series of new takeback and engagement programs designed to divert more low-quality plastics away from landfill and into the Cyclyx system, where those waste plastics can be recycled with the goal to increase recycling rates of plastics from 10 percent to 90 percent.  

This includes a set of takeback programs, education, rewards and engagement tools, sponsored by Cyclyx, designed to incentivize small changes of behavior to increase the amount of plastics diverted from landfills and into the Cyclyx supply chain. Those postuse plastics can then be recycled into a range of products by its consortium of members.  

According to a news release from Virgin, Virgin Points will, in the future, be earned through a series of 10 to 90 programs and redeemed with Virgin Red for rewards. From sailings with Virgin Voyages, holiday breaks with Virgin Limited Edition, gifts and experiences with Virgin Experience Gifts or flights with Virgin Atlantic and its partner airlines. The partnership will be introduced as a pilot before expanding nationwide and then more globally. 

“I’m delighted Virgin Red is partnering with Cyclyx to support our commitment to helping solve the plastic crisis,” says Andrew Swaffield, CEO of Virgin Red. “It gives us the opportunity to engage with our US members and make it easy for them to play their part, by incentivizing them with earning Virgin Points to spend on a wide range of fantastic rewards.”