Taoglas Waste Technologies rebrands to Superfy – Waste Today Magazine
Superfy expands its platform to cover sustainability goals, performance management and waste and recycling management for enterprises and municipalities.
Taoglas Waste Technologies, Dublin, has rebranded to become Superfy, a company focused on empowering organizations using the Superfy digital platform to achieve sustainability goals.
According to Superfy, the new brand identity focuses on delivering a fully customizable software platform for organizations seeking to enhance their operational digital transformation. Over the past 12 months, the business has gone from strength to strength and has identified a series of further growth opportunities in connecting organizations from operational efficiency through to sustainability reporting.
“I am very excited about this new venture for Superfy,” says Ronan Quinlan, CEO of Superfy. “The operations-focused platform allows organizations to enhance and automate their sustainability reporting with accurate analytics. We also have the option of adding IoT [internet of things] sensors as a service that automatically reports into the platform. This real-time information makes operations much more efficient, creating huge savings in time and money,”
The company says the rebranding to Superfy reflects the its expanded focus on supporting environmental and impact goals of its customers. Superfy says more companies and organizations globally are moving to shared value business models, that are profitable and provide a positive impact on society and the natural world. Accurate reporting and oversight for environmental, social and governance and sustainability initiatives are required to support these shared value models.
Superfy says it provides businesses with off-the-shelf modules businesses can track these sustainability goals. It can also have a dedicated team that delivers fully customized end-to-end solutions to meet large organizations’ program and integration requirements.
“Over the past 12 years, we have connected tens of thousands of assets to our platform to help our customers to better understand and improve their waste management operations and, by extension reduce their environmental impact,” says Leon Hayes, chief operations officer of Superfy. “The smart waste management market is no longer limited to sensors and data, it’s about how we use this data, report on it, take actions on it and improve our impact on the planet.”
The company says it will leverage Biologic's assets to further its expansion into key areas and markets, including industrial waste processing.
Covanta, a provider of environmental services based in Morristown, New Jersey, has announced the acquisition of Biologic Environmental Services and Waste Solutions, a California-based environmental management firm offering comprehensive waste management services. This is Covanta’s latest in a series of acquisitions since its purchase by the EQT Infrastructure V fund, expanding the company’s geographical footprint further west into California markets and providing another significant proof point in its business transformation.
According to a news release from Covanta, the acquisition of Biologic provides numerous avenues for growth for Covanta in North America. Following completion of the deal, Covanta will integrate Biologic’s fully permitted Northern and Southern California facilities into its portfolio of zero carbon and zero-waste-to-landfill services. This integration will further diversify Covanta’s customer offerings and present significant growth potential from operating permits in areas including profiled waste and United States Department of Agriculture-regulated garbage and maritime waste.
“As Covanta continues our transformation into North America’s sustainable materials management leader, we are excited to welcome Biologic Environmental Services to our rapidly growing team,” says Azeez Mohammed, president and CEO at Covanta. “Biologic’s seasoned talent brings over three decades of successful service and management experience, and a roster of respected customers, highlighting their impressive reputation and market positioning.”
With a shared focus on sustainability, Covanta says it will also leverage Biologic’s assets to further its expansion into key areas and markets, including industrial waste processing and exporting state-regulated profiled waste to other jurisdictions. The acquisition also optimizes Covanta’s existing services, particularly those provided by its Long Beach Southeast Resource Recovery Facility. This is because it supports customers desiring sustainable management of their waste.
“At Biologic, we feel a responsibility to leave our planet to future generations in better shape than we were given it,” says Albert Chavez, president and co-founder of Biologic Environmental Services and Waste Solutions. “Covanta shares our commitment to sustainability and we are thrilled to join forces with them to bring world-class, cost-effective services to support all of our clients’ environmental materials management needs.”
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 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.”
With financing led by B Capital Ascent Fund, CurbWaste says it will increase its product, engineering and implementation teams to further grow its reach.
CurbWaste has announced the closing of $6 million in funding led by B Capital Ascent Fund, bringing the company’s total financing to $7.2 million. This new round of financing also comes from Mucker Capital, which has one of the most successful vertical software as a service (SaaS) portfolios in venture.
The New York City-based company provides a SaaS solution that is designed to help waste service companies manage and streamline their operations from haul to disposal.
Waste haulers deal with a host of complicated elements, ranging from where, how often and what is picked up to employee manifests divided by routes and partnerships with other companies to deal with collected waste on the back end, the company says. CurbWaste says it helps companies collect, understand and leverage their data so they can spend time on high-conviction, high-return activities.
CurbWaste founder and CEO Michael Marmo says, “CurbWaste’s mission is to provide waste haulers with the necessary tools to make their business successful and continue to service their communities safely and effectively.”
Since its initial preseed investment, CurbWaste says it has implemented a solution for customer and order management, real-time dispatch and automated billing with waste industry customers in the U.S. This new funding will allow the company to build industry-specific products that give haulers and their customers a new and more informed way of dealing with their waste.
“The waste industry provides a core utility that is necessary for our society,” says Howard Morgan, chair of B Capital, who is based in New York City. “We are excited about CurbWaste’s ability to change the waste landscape because they have the right team building the right tools that will help haulers and waste companies thrive in an increasingly digital, on-demand world.”
Will Hsu, co-founder and partner at Mucker Capital, Santa Monica, California, adds, “Running a waste company is much more than picking up trash and bringing it to a dump. The day-to-day operations can change minute to minute. Michael Marmo knows this firsthand. He started his career in waste working at a transfer station scale, weighing trucks in and out. We know the main objective is to make the customer successful and he works toward that goal relentlessly.”