News Briefs 1144

WASTE AGE STAFF

ACQUISITIONS * Frank W. Murphy Manufacturing, Tulsa, Okla., has acquired Williams Telemetry, Tulsa, from Williams Communications, Tulsa. The business will be a subsidiary of Murphy Manufacturing under the name Internet Telemetry Corp.

* Gas Recovery Systems, Pleasanton, Calif., has completed its acquisition of all outstanding stock of Browning-Ferris Gas Services Inc. (BFGSI), Houston, a wholly owned subsidiary of Browning-Ferris Industries Inc., Houston, which was purchased last July by Allied Waste, Scottsdale, Ariz.

* Superior Special Services Inc., Fond du Lac, Wis., has acquired the assets of Global Recycling Technologies Inc., Stroughton, Mass.

AGREEMENT * Averitt Express, Cookeville, Tenn., has agreed to purchase 750 Volvo 660s and 750 Volvo VNM daycabs from Volvo Trucks North America Inc., Greensboro, N.C.

ANNOUNCEMENTS * Morgan Corp., Morgantown, Pa., announces a seven-day delivery on custom orders of premium platform stake bodies.

* Breaker Technology Inc. (BTI), Solon, Ohio, announces the publication of its brochure describing the company's complete line of attachments to handle construction and demolition (C&D) waste.

* Nelson International, Willmar, Minn., announces it has corrected 16 state environmental law violations and paid a $4,925 penalty. The alleged violations were reported following a Minnesota Pollution Control Agency inspection in August 1999.

* The Recycling Group Inc., Indianapolis, Ind., has formed a new division, Guaranteed Book Destruction, that specializes in the collection, destruction and recycling of books.

* Cummins Engine Co. Inc., Columbus, Ind., has announced its participation in the Clinton Administration's "Twenty-First Century Truck Initiative."

AWARDS * W.R. Grace & Co., Chicago, has received a Return on Environment (ROE) Partnership Award for conservation of raw materials through an improved wastewater treatment program, from BetzDearborn, Trevose, Pa.

* J&J Truck Equipment, Somerset, Pa., has been named the top distributor of Auto Crane service bodies, cranes and compressors by the Auto Crane Co., Tulsa, Okla.

* Lapham-Hickey Steel, Neenah, Wis., has been named 1999 Supplier of the Year by Leach Co., Oshkosh, Wis.

* ChemicalDesk, Houston, has been named to dbusiness.com's "50 to Watch" list of emerging companies in Houston for the second quarter of 2000.

* Delaware Solid Waste Authority, Dover, has received the Annual Distinguished Recyclers Award for Government Activities for its oil filter recycling efforts from the Steel Manufacturers Association, Washington, D.C.

* EPG Companies Inc., Maple Grove, Minn., has selected ISCO Industries LLC, Louisville, Ky., as an independent sales representative to cover landfill products in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia and other Southeastern states.

* Tidewater Fibre Corp., Chesapeake, Va., has been awarded a curbside recycling contract in Virginia that will serve more than 205,000 households. Tidewater Fibre also hired Bruce Mooney Associates Inc., Allison Park, Pa., to design a materials recovery facility.

CONTRACTS * The Sustainable Jobs Fund, Durham, N.C., has completed its third and final closing, adding First Union Corp., Charlotte, N.C., to its list of limited partners, and bringing the total funds under management to $17 million.

FISCAL * Star Services Group Inc., a solid waste management company in South Florida, has announced it started 1999 as a private company with $3.6 million in sales in 1998, and ended 1999 as a public company with sales of approximately $13 million.

* Trex Co. Inc., Winchester, Va., has announced a net income of $7.1 million for the first quarter of 2000, which ended March 31. Revenues for the quarter increased 70 percent to $38.1 million, compared to $22.4 million in the first quarter of 1999.

* USA Biomass Corp., Bell Gardens, Calif., has announced that its revenues for the year ending December 31, 1999, increased 111 percent to $7,644,907, up from $3,624,000 for the year ending December 31, 1998.

INTERNET * Aluminum.com Inc., New York, announces it has exceeded $100 million in postings for a single day, May 3, 2000.

* ARA Services Corp., Fairfax, Va., a subsidiary of the Auto-motive Recyclers Association, Fairfax, and CarStation.com, San Francisco, have entered into an alliance to develop and market a system to allow auto recyclers and others to buy and sell recycled auto parts on the Internet. Website: www.arapol.com

NEW LOCATIONS * The KIC Group, Vancouver, Wash., the international sales company for Bulk Handling Systems Inc., Eugene, Ore., has opened a Southeastern office in Simpsonville, S.C. Phone toll-free: (888) 702-1207.

* Clayton Group Services, Novi, Mich., has opened an office in Raleigh, N.C.

* Berryman and Henigar, a municipal professional services firm in San Diego, Calif., has opened an office in the Republic of Palau. The new office is strategically located between Guam, the Philippines and Papua, New Guinea.

SALES * Frontier Industrial Corp., Woodburn, Ore., has purchased the BDS 2000 product line from Harris Waste Management Group Inc., Peachtree City, Ga.

* Plastic Omnium Zarn, Reidsville, N.C., announces the purchase of 18,000 solid waste and recycling carts by the city of Madera, Calif.

Drink to Recycling STRATFORD, WIS. - One evening eight years ago, Sean Penrith and his wife, Mara, were clearing the dinner dishes in their home in Johannesburg, South Africa. Mara, an industrial designer, noticed the unusual shape of a wine bottle and remarked it was a shame to throw it away or just drop into a recycling bin. The two thought it would make a nice vase or glass.

So Sean Penrith decided to make wine and beer bottles into glassware. He spent eight months creating a prototype and took the finished product to a patent attorney.

The attorney "thought it was marvelous," Penrith says. The attorney then loaned Penrith and his partner, Philip Tetley, the money to start Green Glass, a company that creates functional drinking glasses from discarded empty glass bottles.

Green Glass USA, Stratford, Wis., plans to open in August 2000 with 28 employees and specialized, patented equipment.

In South Africa, 52 employees have processed 5 million to 6 million bottles since the plant opened in 1992, Penrith says. The glasses then are exported to 11 countries.

The manufacturing process will be the same in the United States plant, according to Penrith. Glass bottles will be shipped into the plant from recyclers, then washed and sterilized in machines. Finally, the bases will be cut from the bottles, polished flat and reattached to the bottlenecks.

Not only is the resulting stemware usable and unique, but it keeps glass out of the waste stream, Penrith says. "There's a serious problem of glass going into the landfill - there's too much of that stuff," he continues. "This is the most visible form of effective reuse that exists in the glass arena."

The Wisconsin Green Glass plant will sell the glass wholesale to stores for consumers, as well as to corporations for gifts and promotions. Penrith says several businesses, including a beer company, a vodka company and a pharmaceutical company, are interested in ordering glasses.

"The abundance of beverage companies in this country spend an inordinate amount of time designing what they think are fabulous bottles," Penrith says. "For us to create glasses based on their designs is really good for them."

Penrith plans to open another 10 facilities around the world, including one in the United Kingdom.