The Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner
It’s an old saying, but in this age of resource management and monetisation never has it had such resonance. Even in the graphics sector. The scrap metal business has come a long way since crusty old geezers drove horse drawn carts through the streets calling for scrap. Today’s printing and publishing businesses can benefit not only from the value of scrap metals, but from the scope for an industrialised business that facilitates the processing of scrap metal. The scale of it goes way beyond what the bloke and his horse would recognise.
But they would understand that not having a centralised hub for processing scrap metal, lack of quality control and a plague of intermediaries all combine to undermine the business’s profitability. This lack of order in the market has created space for start-up companies like MetaLoop. This ISO 9001 certified company is based in Austria, where it is in the top three of the country’s fastest growing companies. The Financial Times has also named MetaLoop as one of the European Union’s (EU) fastest growing EU companies three times in a row.
MetaLoop has benefited from the EU’s Horizon research and innovation programme. The company is now able to work closely with recyclers and smelters around the world. MetaLoop manages the whole process of buying and selling scrap metal using an online portal to serve over 400 customers. The MetaLoop Portal allows the seller to add details of the commodity they want to sell. They then get an offer for the scrap based on the nature of the request and the market for the material, guided by the MetaLoop Scrap Metal Price Index. If the seller accepts the offer, MetaLoop organises getting the scrap from the seller to the buyer and payment from the buyer to the seller. Very simple and painless. According to Metaloop, its portal helps printers manage their scrap metal and sell it for as high a price as possible. At the time of writing the Scrap Metal Price Index had aluminium priced at €1730 per tonne. Not bad, but it takes quite a few printing plates to make a tonne.
The printing and publishing industries are probably not much of a target sector for MetaLoop, given that used printing plates are already recycled by the likes of Agfa, Fujfilm and Kodak. However MetaLoop’s accelerated process for matching supply and demand could create a new and alternative revenue source for printers who want to access dfferent routes for monetising scrap metal waste, maybe as collectives. The MetaLoop Portal could well help printing companies with additional income and help them to cut their carbon footprints at the same time. More information is available here: https://www.metaloop.com/
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This article was produced by the Verdigris Project, an industry initiative intended to raise awareness of print’s positive environmental impact. This weekly commentary helps printing companies keep up to date with environmental standards, and how environmentally friendly business management can help improve their bottom lines. Verdigris is supported by the following companies: Agfa Graphics, EFI, Fespa, Fujifilm, HP, Kodak, Miraclon, RicohSplash PR, Unity Publishing and Xeikon.
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