The exhibit will feature more than 70 pieces of Cat equipment and attachments.
Caterpillar dealer Zeppelin, based in Germany, will display Cat construction equipment inside and outside Hall B6 at Bauma 2022, a construction and mining machinery trade fair held in Munich, Germany. Under the theme “Let’s Do The Work,” the overarching messages will expand beyond the equipment to highlight Caterpillar’s technology, services and sustainability solutions.
The exhibit will feature more than 70 pieces of Cat equipment and attachments from Caterpillar Construction Industries (CI). Separately, the Caterpillar Industrial Power Systems Division (IPSD) will display multiple Cat engines from its product range, from 0.5-liter to 30-liters, in Hall A4, stand 336.
Among the multiple technologies on display, the Cat Command Station enables operators to work remotely and safely, nearby the site or many kilometers away, seated in a virtual cab with familiar controls and display. Attendees will be able to sit in the Command Station and operate a machine remotely.
Accessed via laptops and mobile devices, Cat Productivity will be on display, demonstrating a cloud-based application that provides a complete overview of machine and job site production. It delivers consolidated and actionable site-level information to analyze performance and improve productivity, the company says.
Cat Grade with Assist for excavators uses machine position sensors and operator-defined depth and slope parameters to automate boom and stick movements for more accurate cuts with less effort to help increase operator efficiency.
The Cat PL161 has been designed for asset tracking and work tool recognition, according to Cat. It mounts to attachments and other items so their locations can be viewed across multiple sites. When installed on a Cat work tool operated by a next generation Cat excavator, the PL161 enables numerous additional features, such as work tool recognition and the tracking of hours worked.
Cat dealers can offer customers solutions like VisionLink to help increase uptime and maximize profitability, Cat says. Attendees will experience many services choices at Bauma. One key offering is Customer Value Agreements (CVA), which provide customers hassle-free ownership of their new and used equipment to help reduce owning and operating costs.
Bauma 2022 attendees also will learn about the hundreds of new Cat Reman and Rebuild product offerings as well as the range of repair options that lower equipment owning costs. Cat Rebuild services run 350 separate tests and recondition or replace up to 7,000 parts during a Cat Certified machine rebuild to return it to a like-new condition at a fraction of the cost of a new machine. Cat Reman salvages, re-engineers and remanufactures components to provide like-new performance and durability at a price that is on average 20 percent to 40 percent less than the equivalent new part, Cat says.
Caterpillar also will unveil to Bauma 2022 attendees several electric models currently under development.
The exhibit will include different model platforms to effectively meet a broad range of customer needs and applications.
Highlights of the Caterpillar Building Construction Products (BCP) division display include nine next-generation Cat mini hydraulic excavators, all delivering increased performance, higher breakout forces, longer service intervals and lower owner and operating costs compared to prior models, the company says. From the 1- to 10-metric ton models, these mini excavators offer common features and consistent controls layouts to simplify training and operator adaptation. The 3.5- to 10-metric ton next-generation models can now be equipped with Cat Grade technologies as an aftermarket option.
Among the exhibited compact wheel loaders, attendees will see the recently introduced Cat 906, 907 and 908 (in a high-lift configuration) models. They feature a re-engineered operator’s station that leverages Caterpillar technologies to improve operator experience and the new Cat 2.8 engine with an upgraded drive and powertrain for faster roading speeds and drivetrain performance.
The nearly 30 displayed Caterpillar Global Construction & Infrastructure (GCI) models are anchored by nine tracked and four wheeled next generation excavators ranging in capacity from 15 to 95 metric tons, a rail-road excavator and three material handlers. The 980 XE medium wheel loader features a continuously variable transmission (CVT) delivering increased fuel efficiencies up to 35 percent compared with the M series models. It also has an expanded technology platform to increase machine performance, Cat says.
To move large volumes of materials, the Hall B6 stand also includes articulated and off-highway trucks with capacities ranging from 30 to 70 metric tons and Cat 992 and 988K XE wheel loaders. Rounding out the CI exhibit, recent updates to the D4 dozer take the value up a level with improved sight lines, reduced operating costs and a broad choice of Caterpillar technology features. Complementing the range of Cat construction equipment, dozens of attachments will be on display. They include hammers, shears, grapples, couplers, buckers, Smart dozer blades, augers, demolition grapples and tiltrotator systems.
Team members from Cat Financial will be available to discuss the latest leasing and financing programs as well as extended protection packages to help secure customers’ investments.
Caterpillar IPSD will exhibit in Hall A4, stand 336 a range of current and future power solutions designed to support original equipment manufacturers in their energy transition goals. The display features a newly released Cat C3.6 industrial power unit, plus to C7.1, C9.3B, C13B and C18 engines—each meeting EU Stage V emissions standards and compatible with low-carbon fuels.
The exhibit will also include Caterpillar’s latest telematics service offering that supports customers’ connectivity requirements.
For a recycling loop to fully close, collection is an obvious and necessary link.
Encouraging progress toward increasing the recycling rate of coffee cups seems to have been made in the past several years, with many stakeholders in that chain demonstrating a willingness to get involved.
Most recently, paperboard and packaging producer Sonoco announced it is among the paper mill operators that have made arrangements to use collected cups (or unused cup stock or inventory) as part of its recovered fiber mix.
Paper recycling industry veteran Jonathan Gold also is encouraged by recent developments, but he says he maintains concern that widespread progress in collecting used, discarded cups might not be receiving the support it needs.
Gold is not alone in this viewpoint, with Joel Litman of Dallas-based Texas Recycling and Leonard Zeid of St. Louis-based Midland-Davis both questioning, in a May Recycling Today article, whether viable, widespread collection efforts have been established in the United States.
Gold, who spent decades connecting recovered fiber with mill destinations, is more than just a disinterested observer. He currently is playing a supporting role with California-based Smart Planet Technologies. That company offers a mineralized barrier material for paper cups known as EarthCoating that makes cups 100 percent recyclable, Gold says.
In that role, Gold says what he has observed is that while cup producers, material recovery facility (MRF) operators, some mills and traders have offered support to boosting cup recycling, that same level of support from retailers can be harder to nail down.
One barrier to a fully closed loop involves the polymer coatings commonly used to make cups versus the alternative barrier material that is offered by Smart Planet but not yet widely adopted in America.
Current polymer coatings present a ceiling for paper mill use of cups, Gold says. “What would happen if a full truck load of baled polycup or baled polyboard arrived at a mill?” he asks Recycling Today. “Would it be accepted? I would wager to say most could not use a full truckload.”
To borrow a phrase sometimes applied to unwanted substances placed in a larger body of water (and not always applauded), “The solution to pollution is dilution” seems to be the mindset.
Gold continues, “Most of these mills are stating they will accept cups in their mixed paper, and the reason is very simple: In your average bale of residential mixed paper (RMP), or in an office paper mix, there has typically been 1 percent or less of cup material in their bales. The specification for mixed paper states the bale can contain up to 3 percent out-throws and 2 percent prohibitive materials in a bale. Therefore, the material would be acceptable if the mill is purchasing grade No. 54 grade mixed paper.”
The cups thus make it to the mill, but Gold is skeptical as to what happens after that. “At most paperboard mills, the polycoated material ends up in the detrashing or rejection system and is not pulped. That material ends up in landfill. A key question to ask is whether it is actually being recycled.”
Gold adds, “We all know that it’s difficult to recycle polycoated paper cups, and polycoated cups do not pass industry-standard recyclability tests. However, calling polycoated cups recyclable relaxes the pressure on retailers to use paper cups that pass industry-standard recyclability tests, and recyclers will continue to receive cups that create challenges in recycling. We should be improving the quality of bales rather than excusing contaminating materials.”
Gold, who acknowledges he has a dog in the hunt in favor of nonpoly coatings, says directly, “Retailers truly interested in a closed loop should be embracing fully recyclable barrier material. Sustainability starts with design.” Clearly, he wonders whether many retailers would just as soon not bother.
His fear is that retailers who can tout the appearance of making progress in coffee cup recycling prefer that road versus making investments that do not present an instantly foreseeable return.
“Many of the large coffee store or restaurant chains want the public to believe their companies are both sustainable and strong environmental champions for recycling,” Gold says. “However, the commercial waste stream from these chains has high amounts of polycoated materials, far above the minimal amount of polycoated material being tolerated within the residential mixed bale. In order to make these materials more acceptable to recyclers, beyond using recyclable packaging, there will be a need to act on recovering and recycling this material at their stores.”
Gold adds, “For them, this could become a ‘hassle,’ and they don’t want to be bothered with it. If not the reason, then why are they not using a recyclable cup? None of this makes sense, unless they want the public to believe they are sustainable but don’t want the burden to act on this.”
In addition to resolving the coating issue, another potential objection of retailers is that recycling collection is not a core competency for them. As well, the ability of used cups with sweetener and milk residues to attract pests raises an objection long-held (perhaps understandably) by retailers that also have traditionally opposed mandatory participation in soda and beer container deposit-return systems.
Recycling more coffee cups each year can be seen as something to be celebrated. However, progress toward collecting and recycling a high double-digit percentage of the cups could require additional thought.
Gold says he is more than just an advocate for Smart Planet when he raises the issue of coffee cup recycling’s uncertain genuine progress. His 40-plus-year career supplying recovered fiber to paperboard producers has him convinced that “packaging materials should be designed to be recovered as a material that is useful as possible.”
He says EarthCoating works, with Smart Planet’s coating having been used in “over 1.5 billion cups to date—qualified in premium paper bales, rather than mixed paper—with some being made into gift wrap for Hallmark or copy paper by Australian Paper.” That figure has been reached in Europe and Australia, Gold says, with little American involvement.
Mills in the U.S. need the material, he adds, and ultimately would benefit by having access to cups that are fully welcome in a recycled-content pulping process.
Breakwater has expanded its Big Spring Recycling System in two Texas counties with additional multiyear produced water offtake and recycling agreements.
Breakwater Energy Partners LLC, a Houston-based provider of sustainable water supply chain solutions, has announced the further development of its commercial and noncommercial recycling network across the Midland Basin to meet rising customer demand for sustainable water solutions.
Breakwater expanded its Big Spring Recycling System (BSRS) in Howard and Martin counties in Texas with two additional multiyear produced water offtake and recycling agreements. Breakwater says BSRS is one of the largest recycling networks in the Permian Basin, currently recycling more than 4 million barrels of produced water per month with an aggregation, distribution and recycling capacity of up to 300,000 barrels per day.
The BSRS facility connects seven separate operator-owned produced water disposal networks into a central hub-and-spoke model to aggregate produced water and distribute recycled water through large diameter pipelines. Breakwater says it paired this physical network with advanced cloud-based data-management and geographic information system (GIS) tools vital for water balancing and optimization across the multioperator network. BSRS physically serves two seismically sensitive areas of the Midland Basin near the cities of Stanton, Texas, and Knott, Texas, with sustainable water management solutions.
Breakwater also has begun commercial operation at its Morita Commercial Recycling System, which serves southern Howard and northern Glasscock counties in Texas. Morita is Breakwater's second Texas Railroad Commission Division 6 H-11 commercially permitted facility built for the receipt, storage, handling, treatment and transportation of produced and recycled water.
Breakwater says it also is developing two additional commercial recycling facilities in the Midland Basin to serve central Midland, Glasscock and northern Upton counties in Texas. Breakwater owns or operates 14 recycling facilities and recycles about 500,000 barrels of produced water per day in the Midland Basin.
"Operators are looking for more sustainable alternatives to high-pressure wastewater injection within seismically sensitive areas," says Jason Jennaro, CEO of Breakwater. "Breakwater's hub-and-spoke water model concurrently provides operators access to high volumes of recycled water within SRAs and disposal outlets outside of them, whichever is more efficient."
The report provides more details on what the can industry is doing in the near term to make progress toward its recycling targets.
The Can Manufacturers Institute (CMI), Washington, has published the “Aluminum Beverage Can Recycling Primer and Roadmap,” which explains how the aluminum beverage can recycling rate targets that CMI members announced in November 2021 will be achieved. Those target recycling rates are 70 percent by 2030, 80 percent by 2040 and 90 percent by 2050.
The aluminum beverage can is the most recycled beverage container in the United States with a 45 percent recycling rate in 2020, the CMI says. The U.S. aluminum beverage can industry knows improving upon that leading position by achieving these targets will not be easy but would have a significant impact. The CMI says that if the aluminum beverage can recycling rate was 70 percent in 2020, 25.6 billion more cans would have been recycled, generating more than $400 million in revenue for the U.S. recycling system and resulting in energy savings that could power more than 1 million U.S. homes for a year.
“This new report makes clear the opportunity to make progress on our ambitious U.S. aluminum beverage can recycling rate targets, and the steps CMI members are taking in each pillar of action right now to make progress within those pillars,” says CMI Vice President of Sustainability Scott Breen. “We encourage stakeholders to read the report, understand how the targets and their associated economic and environmental benefits can be achieved and join the industry in a collaborative, concerted effort to have more aluminum beverage cans complete their circular journey, which the vast majority of the time is into a new can.”
The CMI has outlined four pillars of action to increase the used beverage can (UBC) recycling rate, and the report provides additional details on how these targets will be achieved:
The report also provides new data on the potential impact of certain pillars, the CMI says. For example, if the U.S. had a national deposit system with recycling rates similar to a state such as Michigan, where there is a 10-cent deposit, an additional 50 billion UBCs would be redeemed through the deposit system and ultimately recycled. This pillar would have the greatest potential impact and would allow the industry to quickly reach its goals, the CMI says, which is why CMI is aggressively pushing for new, well-designed deposit systems.
The CMI worked with Reloop and the U.S. Public Interest Group on a list of principles for such a system. They include using a single entity to manage the system that must meet performance targets, applying appropriate deposit values to avoid market distortion and catalyze high recycling rates, using unredeemed deposits to enhance the recycling system, including all beverage types and containers with only minimal exemptions allowed, providing easy and convenient redemption, ensuring fees vary by material type based on environmental impacts and market values and using technology and clear labeling to reduce fraud and unfairness.
The CMI says in its report that the aluminum can industry will advocate in key states where a relatively substantial number of cans are lost to landfill and the politics are favorable for instituting a deposit return system, citing Illinois, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virgina.
CMI modeling also finds that 23 billion additional aluminum beverage cans could be captured from U.S. households if they all had automatic, cart-based curbside recycling service with robust education. This number was calculated using data from The Recycling Partnership. (CMI was a founding member of what ultimately became The Recycling Partnership and continues general support of the organization.)
To improve away-from-home recycling, in the report, the CMI says it will pilot educating people at event venues on the importance of can recycling. Examples of tactics to be used in the pilot include using see-through iron cages that spell out a word or form a design as they fill up and using receptacles to vote on a topic by putting a can in a certain place. CMI says it will prioritize funding this pilot at a venue that is no longer selling beverages in single-use plastic bottles, adding that the tactics are inspired by Every Can Counts, an initiative that started in Europe and recently spread to Brazil.
If sorting was improved at material recovery facilities (MRFs), an estimated 3.5 billion additional aluminum beverage cans could be collected for recycling, CMI says. The organization issued a report in 2020 finding that up to 1 in 4 UBCs are missorted at MRFs. Last year, with the financial support of Ardagh Metal Packaging and Crown Holdings and in conjunction with The Recycling Partnership, grants were awarded to five MRFs for can capture equipment that will enable the capture of 71 million aluminum beverage cans per year. Ardagh and Crown are continuing to fund activities through CMI to catalyze additional can capture equipment in MRFs, including testing at MRFs of exactly how many cans are being missorted and developing a return on investment (ROI) calculator that was published online for any MRF to use at no cost to determine the ROI of investing in can capture equipment in its facility.
CMI members supporting the targets and financing the activities detailed in the roadmap are aluminum beverage can manufacturers Ardagh Metal Packaging, Canpack, Crown Holdings and Envases; and aluminum can sheet suppliers Constellium, Kaiser Aluminum, Novelis and Tri-Arrows Aluminum.
The Japan-based research team says such distributed recycling systems offer an efficient, cost-effective alternative at the local level.
Researchers from Japan have developed a distributed recycling system that uses microwave-based heating to recycle alkaline batteries, offering what they say is an efficient and cost-effective alternative to recycle e-scrap locally.
Traditionally, material is collected locally and processed at large-scale recycling facilities in a centralized location. While this enables handling a large volume of material at once, it is associated with high transportation costs and energy consumption, the researchers from Ritsumeikan University say.
They add that distributed recycling systems consisting of small recycling facilities offer a sustainable alternative to these conventional recycling systems, greatly reducing the energy requirements for transportation and potentially increasing recycling rates.
In a recent study, researchers from Ritsumeikan University have proposed a small, distributed recycling system for used batteries. “The feasibility to decentralize the recycling of e-waste needs to be analyzed, considering the different characteristics of each municipality,” says Prof. Shoki Kosai, a member of the research team and the first author of the study. “In this study, our focus is on obsolete alkaline batteries as waste product to be treated in a distributed recycling system.”
The system employed microwave irradiation, which offers selective, rapid heating and reduced energy consumption compared with furnace-based heating, the researchers say. The team’s findings were published in Resources, Environment and Sustainability, made available online June 20 and published in volume 9 Aug. 31.
First, the researchers conducted an empirical study to explore the usability of this microwave-based technique in recycling spent alkaline batteries. Then, they conducted an analytical case study to examine the effectiveness of distributed recycling systems in Japan. A total of 1,710 municipalities in Japan were considered in the study, which used energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions as metrics for testing the effectiveness of the proposed recycling system.
The results of the empirical study showed that microwave-based heating achieved a recovery rate of 97 percent of manganese oxide and zinc from the alkaline batteries. This recovery rate is 1.5 times more than that of conventional electric furnace-based heating, the researchers say, while taking only half the time. The analytical study also revealed highly optimistic results, as the team noted that a balance between centralized and distributed recycling systems can reduce annual energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions across Japan by 26,500 gigajoules and 1.54 gigagrams, or nearly 1,698 short tons, of CO2 equivalent, respectively.
The researchers say their findings provide a good starting point to explore distributed recycling systems using microwave irradiation for metal recovery.
“Through the adoption of this system, areas where natural resources are not available will gain the opportunity to become suppliers of secondary resources,” Kosai says. “This system could also remedy the problem of metal recycling in developing countries.”