In The News

Last Updated (Wednesday, March 03, 2010)

Sonoco Expands Columbia Recycling Center

The global packaging company Sonoco has announced it is going to spend $2.5 million to expand its Columbia, South Carolina recycling center, reports postandcourier.com. The 15-year-old center, which is currently 42,000 square feet, will be expanded by 14,700 square feet and will be augmented by the addition of new sorting equipment and a high-speed baler. Jane Hiller, Sonoco’s education specialist, says the center is being expanded to accommodate new government and business customers.

Currently, the Columbia center services the city of Columbia, thirteen counties, seven school districts and hundreds of business clients. It accepts cardboard, paper, metals, plastics and glass. The collected cardboard is used to make industrial tubing used to form concrete columns or caulking materials. Other materials, for instance plastic soda bottles, are sold to companies for use in making polyester carpeting and other products. Sonoco reportedly processes approximately 3 million tons of materials at 31 locations worldwide each year.

ReConnect Recycling Program Expanded

Goodwill of Central Arizona and Dell Computers have expanded ReConnect, a program that allows residents to recycle any brand of unwanted computer or computer accessory at no cost, reports yumasun.com. Now, residents of Yuma, Arizona can simply drop off their unwanted electronics at either of two Goodwill locations for recycling. Revenues generated through the program will be used to support Goodwill job training programs as well as workforce development, placement services and community-based programs for job seekers.

Those who want to drop off their old electronics will first need to remove all stored personal data. They will receive a tax receipt regardless of the condition of the equipment. Donations that meet the ReConnect criterion will be resold. Other items will be repair, refurbished or recycled by Dell depending on their condition.

Jim Teter, President and CEO of Goodwill of Central Arizona, says the ReConnect partnership with Dell, “emphasizes the importance of extending the life cycle of… unwanted electronics through environmentally responsible computer disposal, while helping create thousands of jobs and revenue for job training opportunities.” The first ReConnect program began in Austin, Texas in 2004. Since it was established, the program has diverted more than 96 million pounds of e-waste from landfills and created approximately 250 jobs.

All Source USA Facilitates Industry First Green Shredding Service

In October of 2009, All Source Secure Container USA contributed to an exclusively green document destruction service. Initially, fourteen of the manufacturer’s DuraFlex green consoles were integrated into Eagle Secure Shredding’s mobile document shredding service.

All Source USA launched the DuraFlex green console in early 2009. All Source officials claim that this is the only console on the market which is formaldehyde free. The DuraFlex also contains 25% recycled content, is made in North American and is 100% recyclable.

Eagle Secure Shredding selected the DuraFlex green shredding cabinet as it complimented their environmental policy. The Atlanta, Georgia based shredding company has been a leader in the information security business for the past twenty-five years. Eagle is committed to providing green services utilizing green products. This helps to reduce negative operational effects on the environment and create a competitive advantage to help develop new business. It also enables Eagle’s clients to apply for various environmental accreditations, such as LEED (www.usgbc.org ), based on the application of their green policy.

Demand for Information Security Professionals Remains High in Tough Economy

Despite the sagging economy, demand for information security professionals remains high due to increased government regulations and cyber-crime, reports ecommercetimes.com. Information technology (IT) security has increasingly become a concern for consumers and businesses alike. According to studies conducted by Foote Partners (FP), an independent IT research and advisory firm, information security is a rare field in today’s job market – it’s one in which there are more job openings than people to fill them.

“This is an amazing opportunity for people who work in security,” says FP Chief Research Partner David Foote. “It’s unbelievable how well security has done during this recession.”

“There are more jobs than qualified people for information security jobs in both the commercial sector and the government sector,” adds Jeff Snyder, President of SecurityRecruiter.com. One of the challenges for information security and information technology IT professionals, Snyder adds, is that job titles, and duties, tend to be inconsistent from one company to another. One company’s “security administrator” is another company’s “information security analyst” and so forth.

“Titles are all over the place with IT jobs,” says Foote. “In IT, if you have a title, and you ask what people with that title are doing, you might get twenty different answers.” To address this problem, companies, recruiters and job sites have begun working to develop a set of consistent job titles and pay scales.

Several industry organizations and product vendors – for example, (ISC)2, Sans.org, EC-Council and Cisco – are also working on certification programs designed to increase job seekers’ marketability. “These (certifications) help candidates stand out,” Snyder explains. “Companies are expecting multiple skill sets in the people they hire. People are going to have to have expertise in multiple domains and get certified in multiple areas.”

It will also be important, Foote adds, for IT professionals to become more business-minded as the industry begins to play a larger role in business. “Because IT is taking a bigger role in business, companies need people that understand both the business and the technical side,” he says. “It’s made security a potential option for people who aren’t heavy tech people. It’s opening it up to a whole new area of skills.”

California’s Office of Information Security Receives Grant for Cyber-Security Projects

The California Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) recently awarded the state’s Office of Information Security (OIS) $4.7 million in U.S. Department of Homeland Security grants to enact cyber-security projects to deter online hackers and prevent database breaches, reports govtech.com. The CIO will use the grant money, in part, to fund a statewide cyber-security risk assessment. The agency’s ultimate goal? To streamline IT operations and create a standardized security framework.

A portion of the fund will be used to establish a secure domain name system project aimed at upgrading the state’s current infrastructure and protecting state websites from hackers.

Shotgun Capital Advisors to Conduct Third Annual Document Destruction Industry Benchmark Study

Shotgun Capital Advisors LLC will launch their third annual Document Destruction Industry Benchmark Study during the month of February. All owners of independent document destruction companies are encouraged to participate in the study by completing an online survey.

“The document destruction industry has resisted recessionary influences” said Jim McGuire, President of Shotgun Capital. “Postponable services, such as on-time or file purge services have softened over the past year, which may have impacted industry volumes. Our 2010 Study intends to identify the industry-wide impact of these trends.”

Participation in the study is highly encouraged for business owners. All participants that complete the online survey will receive a free copy of our comprehensive industry report which includes a detailed analysis of the data. Individual company data will be maintained in strictest confidence and will be used only in pooled analysis to identify industry trends and benchmarks.

If you would like to participate in the study and do not currently receive the Shotgun Capital Document Destruction Industry Report, please contact Jim McGuire at (817) 421-5940 or email jim.mcguire@shotguncapital.

UN Investigates Indian Shipbreaking and E-Waste Operations

Business-standard.com reports that United Nations’ (UN) officials are investigating alleged environmentally harmful e-waste and shipbreaking operations in Gujarat, India. A team of UN investigators is examining the potential adverse effects of these operations – which involve the movement and dumping of hazardous waste – on humans and the environment. Their aim is to identify “unsound” management practices and their effects on human rights.

Shipbreaking is an important industry in India. In addition to being an important source of raw materials, the industry employs thousands of workers. But the UN’s lead investigator says these workers face “the worst employment and unhealthy living conditions.” According to some reports, there is no fixed work schedule at Gujarat’s shipbreaking yards. Workers toil day and night in extremely dangerous conditions, and their bodies and lungs are assaulted by black soot containing toxic materials.

UN officials says India must strengthen its labor laws and improve its regulatory and enforcement capacities to protect not only the health of its shipbreakers, but also the surrounding environment and residents who live near shipbreaking yards. They are calling on the Indian government to institute fair, reliable labor inspections and to allow workers to unionize.

These recommendations, UN officials add, also apply to India’s e-waste activities. E-waste has become not only a major industry in the country, but also a major risk to human and environmental health. Thousands of Indians depend on the recycling of obsolete electronics for their subsistence. India’s e-waste recycling industry is largely unregulated and there is little enforcement to curb unsafe recycling operations.

Access Information Management Acquires Florida Data Bank of Tallahassee

Access Information Management, provider of records management, storage and destruction services for hardcopy and electronic records recently announced the acquisition of Florida Data Bank of Tallahassee, Florida.

With this acquisition Access expands its Southeastern territory, extending market coverage that already includes Atlanta. Access also provides services in Hawaii, Northern and Southern California and Wisconsin. Access will continue to provide records and information management (RIM) services throughout the Tallahassee area, expanding the service offering to include vital records protection through a state-of-the-art vault environment, secure document destruction and shredding services for all products including paper, plastic, electronic media and computer hard drives; scanning and Web-based digital storage.

On-Campus Shred Day Collects Nearly Five Tons of Outdated Records

Almost five tons of outdated paper records were shredded recently during a shred day held on the campus of the University of Virginia (UV), reports virginia.edu. The collection, which was organized by UV’s Director of Records Management Caroline Walters, purged approximately 9,500 pounds of records from two on-campus administrative office buildings. Document Destruction of Virginia, a Ruckersville-based company, did the shredding.

Walters says the shred day helped UV save significant storage costs and safeguarded thousands of sensitive records. Under Virginia state law, public records must be retained for specific periods. Payroll records, for instance, must be held for at least four closed fiscal years. The shred day, Walters adds, allowed one UV department to purge payroll records from as far back as the 1970s. Walters works with UV’s many administrative departments to review their records and establish retention schedules. Once a department has held a record for the state-mandated period, it’s simply a matter of filling out a document destruction form and it’s off to the shredder.

“Many offices hold on to records because they don’t know how long to keep them or what to do with them,” says Walters. Purging outdated records, she adds, helps offices run more efficiently, especially in modern buildings, which generally don’t have much room for storage. In addition, purging records in old buildings frees up space for other applications and makes it easier to access retained records. “If you have trouble finding the needle, it helps to reduce the size of the haystack,” says Walters.

Walters says that since the successful shred day, several on-campus offices are now re-assessing their records situations and setting up retention schedules. The whopping tonnage purged during the shred day got UV’s attention, she adds, and raised awareness that old records actually can be shredded. “Some people don’t know they can get rid of their records,” says Walters.

Oregon Bans Disposal of Electronics in Landfills

Oregon recently became the twelfth U.S. state to ban the disposal of electronics in landfills, reports kmtr.com. Under the new law, it is illegal to throw away televisions, computers and monitors in the general waste stream. Violators will be faced with a $500 fine per offense. Oregon passed its first recycling law in 2007 to reduce the improper disposal of e-waste. Last year, the state began requiring electronics manufacturers to pay for a permanent statewide recycling program. In the first eight months of the program, the state collected more than 14.3 million pounds of e-waste.

Company Seeks State Funding to Build Paper Recycling Plant

Empire Tissue, Co. (ETC), a privately-owned and operated producer of paper products, is seeking state grants to build a $125 million paper-recycling plant in New York’s Onondaga County, reports syracuse.com. ETC says the proposed plant, which would reportedly be 168,000 square feet, will employ about 80 people. The company plans to build the massive plant on 67-acre brownfield that was formerly the home of a chemical plant. The site is currently owned by Honeywell International Inc. As part of the sale agreement to ETC, Honeywell will be responsible for cleanup of the site.

ETC has applied for state grants under the Upstate Regional Blueprint Fund (URBF) to help build the plant. The $120 million URBF was created for downtown redevelopment, infrastructure upgrades at development sites and new investments in buildings and equipment. The new plant would be used to recycle bulk rolls of tissue, paper towels and napkins, which would be converted into products for sale to janitorial services, schools, factories, office buildings and restaurants. It will reportedly have the capacity to produce 75,000 metric tons of paper products annually.