CRTs

Com2 Recycling Solutions says a new production line has been installed at its expanded Carol Stream, Illinois headquarters to use both panel and funnel CRT glass as a flux and lead oxide to make ceramic tiles.

"With glass-to-glass and smelting options shrinking, we knew we had to figure out a way to economically recover the glass ourselves," Com2's CEO Saheem Baloch said in a release earlier this month.

After a multimillion dollar lawsuit was dismissed late last week, the founder of a troubled East Coast e-scrap firm has gone on the offensive. In a 10-paragraph statement issued to E-Scrap News, Jon Yob, the founder and former CEO and president of Creative Recycling Systems (CRS), lays the blame for the recent collapse of his former firm at the feet of Intersection One LLC, the investor group that purchased CRS from Yob in 2012. "Things didn't work as they promise

The federal EPA has clarified its regulatory stance on whether leaded glass destined for tile manufacturing or landfill cover should be considered recycling.

In separate letters dated Sept. 10 and uploaded onto the agency's website, Barnes Johnson, the director of the Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery, addresses the use of CRT glass as alternative daily cover (ADC) and as a flux and lead oxide in making ceramic tiles.

Collection numbers for Washington's e-scrap program could provide a glimmer of hope that CRT device tonnages have plateaued. E-Cycle Washington, the free, statewide e-scrap recycling program funded by original equipment manufacturers, has hauled in 25.51 million pounds of electronics thus far in 2014, according to the latest monthly report released by the state.

A Wyoming e-scrap operation with CRT glass on its hands has abruptly closed. Located off of I-80 in Burns, Wyoming Tatooine Electronic Systems closed its doors in the beginning of July without any announcement or forewarning. The closure appears to have coincided with the arrest of company owner and CEO Jeffrey Stumpf, who has been charged with six counts of sexual assault and five counts of sexual offense. Stumpf is currently being held on $50,000 bail at the Laramie County jail.

In a sign of the increasingly tight CRT market, regulators in California have moved to increase the payments issued to firms that collect and/or process lower value electronics to help them fully cover recycling costs.

Jeff Hunts, branch manager of the e-waste program at California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle), issued a Request for Approval last week to boost the collection payment for materials in the covered electronic waste (CEW) category from 16 cents per pound to 18 cents per pound.

As firms continue to search high and low for affordable and legitimate options for final disposition of CRT glass, several states with e-scrap programs are taking a stance on using the material as alternative daily cover (ADC).

The issue for officials in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois and Vermont comes down to whether or not firms can meet original equipment manufacturer (OEM) recycling goals by sending CRT glass for use as ADC. And that debate is often tied into a second question: Are there other viable disposal options out there?

Industry certification bodies R2 Solutions and Basel Action Network (BAN) released formal clarifications this week on the way certified firms may handle CRT glass.

Issuing a formal rule clarification on March 26, R2 announced board members unanimously moved to ban the use of CRT glass as alternative daily cover (ADC) under the new iterati

Last week E-Scrap News reported on several warehouses in Arizona and Colorado where large amounts of CRTs were left behind when the plants closed. Two firms — Dow Management and Luminous Recycling — shut their doors, leaving as much as 10,000 tons of CRTs and CRT glass. Now E-Scrap News has learned of an abandoned warehouse in Baltimore containing approximately 3,000 Gaylord containers filled with CRTs.

As part of an investigation into CRT glass recycling markets, E-Scrap News has learned that recycling processors in several states have abandoned operations after charging CRT suppliers and filling up a handful of warehouses with more than 10,000 tons of CRTs and CRT glass. State officials are now struggling with how to manage these problems. Possibly the most serious of the abandonments is the closure of Luminous Recycling in Denver. Two environmental experts who have toured the site say that the situation inside the warehouse is very serious due to extremely dusty conditions.