7
Dusting off the dump and pick by Steve Apotheker 6 Resource Recycling rocessors target select loads of P drv commercial waste and constru&ion and demolition debris for material recovery. “It’s the wave of the future,” says John Pugliaresi, controller for San Francisco-based Waste Resource Technologies, Inc. He’s referring to the recovery of recyclables from targeted loads of dry commercial waste and construction and demolition (C&D) debris, an approach some call “select-load recovery.” Essentially,commercial recycling collectors and processors are tak- ing a page out of the residential recycling book, in which communities divide the waste stream into wet and dry fractions. On the wet side, a number of pilot programs are collecting food scraps and other organ- ics from businesses (see “Commercial food waste from restaurants and grocery stores” in the February 1993 issue and “Composting at insti- tutions” in the November 1993issue). The targeted collection of a dry, recyclable-rich commercial waste stream, however, is much more ad- vanced. With select-load recovery, it’s not a question of viability, but of de- gree. As with most recycling techniques, it originates in an earlier prac- tice, known as the “dump and pick.” This activity has been pursued by waste haulers for decades as a matter of economics. Dry loads of commercial waste would be dumped on a tipping floor for workers to pull out materials that had a market, before disposing of the remainder. Tim Flanagan, division president and general manager for Waste Management of Santa Cruz County, Califomia sees select-load recov- ery as part of the poker game to win a share of the commercial recy- cling marketplace. Flanagan says, “Select-load recovery is the ‘call’ to companies that have bid a service that features fully commingled collection of commercial recyclables.” He predicts select-load recov- ery will be attractive in communities that have already developed mixed waste processing facilities for residential waste or that have a transfer station to which waste sorting capacity can be added. One possible wild card in the game might be state regulation, which might make this recovery option less attractive if facilities that handle select loads of dry commercial waste are classified under the same sit- ing and permitting criteria as landfills or transfer stations. States do, Resource Recvcling December 1995 however, have to be concerned about operations that want to finesse a de facto dump site or transfer station under the less onerous guise of a recycling processing facility. Players Processing capacity for select-load commercial recovery is being pur- sued actively by waste haulers, recycling processors, paper companies and municipalities because it is another option to help them achieve goals of flexible service, enhanced economics and increased recovery. “Our goal is to become a full service recycler for our customers,” says Pugliaresi. His company provides collection for source- separated recyclables, but some customers do not want to make the ef- fort to source separate. Yet if a company can at least keep the wet frac- tion, such as food and yard waste, out of its roll-off garbage container, then Waste Resource Technologies can process these loads and divert more than half of the material from the landfill. Taonnina Industries is a large Califomia-based waste hauler that also felt a need to offer a greater range of service options to its cus- tomers. The company expanded its Anaheim recycling processing plant in mid-1994 to add mixed waste processing capacity for resi- dential and commercial waste. According to one estimate, the com- pany spent $10 million on the project, which includes finger screens and a long sorting line for the commercial feedstock. Select-load recovery also gives processors an option. Says Tim Drillette,vice president of D & D Recycling Inc. (Dallas-Fort Worth), “We have designed our commercial waste processing system so that we can survive even in markets with low prices.” When prices for old corrugated containers (OCC) pushed $200 per ton, the company was buying 1,000tons per month. When the scrap price retreated to under $70 per ton, buy-back traftic declined to a few hundred tons per month, leaving more OCC in the waste stream to be recovered in the sort line. For recovered paper processors and communities, the issue centers more around the need to increase recovered material volumes. Paper

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Page 1: Dusting off the dump and pick - P2 InfoHouseDusting off the dump and pick by Steve Apotheker 6 Resource Recycling P rocessors target select loads of drv commercial waste and constru&ion

Dusting off the dump and pick by Steve Apotheker 6 Resource Recycling

rocessors target select loads of P drv commercial waste and constru&ion and demolition debris for material recovery.

“It’s the wave of the future,” says John Pugliaresi, controller for San Francisco-based Waste Resource Technologies, Inc. He’s referring to the recovery of recyclables from targeted loads of dry commercial waste and construction and demolition (C&D) debris, an approach some call “select-load recovery.”

Essentially, commercial recycling collectors and processors are tak- ing a page out of the residential recycling book, in which communities divide the waste stream into wet and dry fractions. On the wet side, a number of pilot programs are collecting food scraps and other organ- ics from businesses (see “Commercial food waste from restaurants and grocery stores” in the February 1993 issue and “Composting at insti- tutions” in the November 1993 issue). The targeted collection of a dry, recyclable-rich commercial waste stream, however, is much more ad- vanced.

With select-load recovery, it’s not a question of viability, but of de- gree. As with most recycling techniques, it originates in an earlier prac- tice, known as the “dump and pick.” This activity has been pursued by waste haulers for decades as a matter of economics. Dry loads of commercial waste would be dumped on a tipping floor for workers to pull out materials that had a market, before disposing of the remainder.

Tim Flanagan, division president and general manager for Waste Management of Santa Cruz County, Califomia sees select-load recov- ery as part of the poker game to win a share of the commercial recy- cling marketplace. Flanagan says, “Select-load recovery is the ‘call’ to companies that have bid a service that features fully commingled collection of commercial recyclables.” He predicts select-load recov- ery will be attractive in communities that have already developed mixed waste processing facilities for residential waste or that have a transfer station to which waste sorting capacity can be added.

One possible wild card in the game might be state regulation, which might make this recovery option less attractive if facilities that handle select loads of dry commercial waste are classified under the same sit- ing and permitting criteria as landfills or transfer stations. States do,

Resource Recvcling December 1995

however, have to be concerned about operations that want to finesse a de facto dump site or transfer station under the less onerous guise of a recycling processing facility.

Players Processing capacity for select-load commercial recovery is being pur- sued actively by waste haulers, recycling processors, paper companies and municipalities because it is another option to help them achieve goals of flexible service, enhanced economics and increased recovery.

“Our goal is to become a full service recycler for our customers,” says Pugliaresi. His company provides collection for source- separated recyclables, but some customers do not want to make the ef- fort to source separate. Yet if a company can at least keep the wet frac- tion, such as food and yard waste, out of its roll-off garbage container, then Waste Resource Technologies can process these loads and divert more than half of the material from the landfill.

Taonnina Industries is a large Califomia-based waste hauler that also felt a need to offer a greater range of service options to its cus- tomers. The company expanded its Anaheim recycling processing plant in mid-1994 to add mixed waste processing capacity for resi- dential and commercial waste. According to one estimate, the com- pany spent $10 million on the project, which includes finger screens and a long sorting line for the commercial feedstock.

Select-load recovery also gives processors an option. Says Tim Drillette, vice president of D & D Recycling Inc. (Dallas-Fort Worth), “We have designed our commercial waste processing system so that we can survive even in markets with low prices.” When prices for old corrugated containers (OCC) pushed $200 per ton, the company was buying 1,000 tons per month. When the scrap price retreated to under $70 per ton, buy-back traftic declined to a few hundred tons per month, leaving more OCC in the waste stream to be recovered in the sort line.

For recovered paper processors and communities, the issue centers more around the need to increase recovered material volumes. Paper

Page 2: Dusting off the dump and pick - P2 InfoHouseDusting off the dump and pick by Steve Apotheker 6 Resource Recycling P rocessors target select loads of drv commercial waste and constru&ion

D & D Recycling Inc. (Dallas-Ft. Worth) first processes‘materials through a star screen to give

sorters a cleaner waste stream to work with.

companies are explor- ing any method that will squeeze more us- able fiber, including wood, out of the com- mercial waste stream.

For example, Wey- erhaeuser Co. (Federal Way, Washington) is running a front loader on a route in Newark, California to capture paper from small com- mercial outlets. Smur- fit Recycling Co. (Clayton, Missouri) is opening a Seattle paper processing plant early next year that will fea- ture screening and sort- ing capacity to handle very dirty loads of mixed paper coming out of offices.

Prins Recycling (Fort Lee, New Jersey) operates a number of materials recovery fa- cilities (MRFs) whose main activity is proc- essing residential recy- clables. Prins is order- ing more sorting belts with water falls and

trommel screens so that it can move into dirtier commercial grades at its MRFs. The company expects to capture at least 60 percent of these tar- geted loads of paper-rich commercial waste as usable paper.

The City of Oxnard, California was motivated to look at select-load recovery, not only because of the stale’s recycling requirement, but also because city workers are responsible for collecting commercial waste. A new transfer station under construction will include a MRF for source- separated residential recyclables and a processing line for selected loads of dry commercial waste. The $25 million facility is expected to open in August 1996.

Shuffling improves the results While select-load recovery sounds like a back-end processing option, success is built into the front end by emphasizing the “select” aspect.

“One way to accomplish this is by designing routes for maximum di- version, instead of just collection efficiency,” says Flanagan. In the past, collection efficiency dictated that two businesses located next door to each other would be picked up on the same route. Now, maximum di- version considerations dictate routes based on recovery potential. Restau- rants, bars, hotels and other generators of large amounts of wet waste would get scheduled for one route, while other routes would be designed for generators of dry paper-rich loads.

Proper routing can also increase the recovery potential within a given route, notes Flanagan. For example, the first half of a front loader route might be wet waste generators, with the second half targeting business- es with a large percentage of recoverable material. When the tnick re- turns to the processing facility and dumps the load, the fraction with a high percentage of recyclables can easily be split out.

With select-load recovery, waste haulers can now provide a recycling option for the small businesses that are served by front loader routes (see “Making the big jump in commercial recycling, one small business at a time” in the November 1995 issue).

Another technique of select-load recovery is to do waste audits of roll-

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Page 3: Dusting off the dump and pick - P2 InfoHouseDusting off the dump and pick by Steve Apotheker 6 Resource Recycling P rocessors target select loads of drv commercial waste and constru&ion

off and compactor boxes brought to a transfer station or processing fa- cility. Loads that have a high percentage of recyclables, usually at least 50 percent by weight, can be diverted to the sorting area. Generators can then be notified about the option to have their loads regularly processed and receive a reduced fee. In particular, C&D contractors are becoming more skilled at recognizing the savings of sending their debris boxes for recycling processing rather than disposal.

Select-load recovery can also be facilitated at transfer stations by increased training of workers. Loader operators can draw and quarter random loads of mixed commercial waste to separate out a sortable fraction, such as that from a paper-rich load from a strip mall.

Getting off the floor Making an investment in equipment, particularly screens and a sort- ing platform, can really improve recovery from select loads. D & D Recycling’s Drillette says, “Our commercial processing lines with the star screen are designed to give our sorters a mechanical ad- vantage in handling this waste stream.” (A star screen is a modified disk screen.)

But, Flanagan reminds us, “The heart of most plants remains the patented bi-podal, bi-optical sorting system that has been in place for many years.” His tongue-in-cheek reference acknowledges that the primary responsibility for separation still resides with the workers to identify and pull out the recyclables.

The goals of a processing system should be two-fold. First, it should remain simple to retain flexibility in handling changing waste streams. Second, it needs to massage the waste so it is spread out evenly over the conveyor, thereby maximizing the effectiveness of sorters (see “De- signing tomorrow’s paper processing system today” in the July 1995 issue).

Screens often play an important role in select-load processing. With a C&D stream, a screen might remove a stream of inert tines that can be used as a landfill cover or be disposed at a lower cost dry landfill. Another popular application is to use a screen to separate larger pieces of OCC from smaller, cut sheets of office paper. The cost of a screen will run from $20,000 to $200,000, depending on size and application.

Some of the screens typically used in commercial waste process- ing:

Trommel. This rotating angled cylinder with holes can have more than one stage during a length that ranges from 10 feet to 50 feet. A particular stage could have holes designed as small as one-half inch or as large as 10 inches.

Advantages of a trommel are high throughput and excellent sepa- ration of fines and inerts, especially from C&D debris. The trommel also fluffs up the material, which is particularly good for paper, ensur- ing removal of grit and good separation of certain grades.

However, it does generate dust and usually requires a dust collec- tion system. It can also be used to separate OCC, but it is limited in other material applications. The rotation can also break glass bottles,

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Page 4: Dusting off the dump and pick - P2 InfoHouseDusting off the dump and pick by Steve Apotheker 6 Resource Recycling P rocessors target select loads of drv commercial waste and constru&ion

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making recovery difficult and contaminating other material in the load. Vibratory. This screen shakes back and forth in an oscillatory mo-

tion. Typical throughputs are 10 to 12 tons per hour in recovery ap- plications. Vibratory screens are usually equipped with a perforated plate deck or a finger deck.

They are usually dusty and require a collection system. Better house- keeping and more maintenance is required to a greater degree than for a trommel. The cost of a screen installation, which includes an ele- vated application with catwalks, support structure and dust collection system, can easily be double the price of the screen alone.

One advantage of a vibratory screen over a trommel or a disk screen is that waterfalls, which flip the material over and allow better separa- tion, can be included. Another is that workers can 5ort directly off a vibratory screen. Also, the perforated plate deck is excellent for re- moving a very uniform stream of fines and inerts from C&D or com- mercial streams.

The finger deck is a slightly more expensive design, consisting of a plate with overlapping combs of tapered metal fingers. Although there is less tendency for clogging than with the holes in a perforated plate deck, the stream of undersize material is less uniform because long slender items, such as slivers of wood, can pass through the fin- gers.

This deck is good at separating out paper, with OCC and old news- papers being separated out from smaller size grades of paper when openings between fingers are set at 8 to 12 inches.

Abar deck, with sets of horizontal bars, is another variation used in resource recovery applications.

Disk. This screen consists of a series of parallel shafts, with each shaft containing a number of rotating disks. Disk screens are not ef- fective for generating a good stream of tines and inerts, although that residue is removed, with the undersize material determined by the num- ber of shafts and the spacing of wheels.

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Circle 220 on RR service card

Resource Recycling December I995

Page 5: Dusting off the dump and pick - P2 InfoHouseDusting off the dump and pick by Steve Apotheker 6 Resource Recycling P rocessors target select loads of drv commercial waste and constru&ion

One variation of the disk screen is the star screen, in which the sol- id disks are replaced by wheels with a finger design. It is becoming popular for separating OCC from mixed office paper.

Although magnets can be a part of these recovery systems, a num- ber of processors have opted for workers to positively sort out metals R‘ to get a marketable fraction. This is especially true for processing C&D feedstocks.

One piece of equipment that Merle Irvine, president of Willamette Resources, Inc. (Wilsonville, Oregon), would like to see invented is an effective bag opener. He hasn’t seen one yet that can consistent- ly work in an environment of C&D debris processing without jam-

1 ~ ming. Irvine promises that whoever invents such a device “will make cra lot of money.”

Gaining the upper hand D & D Recycling is gaining lots of experience with select-load re- covery processing systems. The company installed its first sorting sys- tem in Apnl1994 in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Subsequently, it opened a second facility in Amarillo, Texas, with its largest facility scheduled to open in May 1996 in Houston.

It spent about $400,000 in sorting equipment for its first system, which handles about 100 tons per day in a 10-hour shift with 10 work- ers, including a loader. The processing area dedicated for this com- mercial waste material occupies about 30,000 square feet.

Loads from roll-off containers, compactor boxes or front loader trucks are dumped onto the plant floor where bulky items are removed before the waste is loaded into a pit. All new loads are audited to de- termine the percentage of recyclables.

An incline conveyor takes the material from the pit up to a pre- sorting platform where six workers sort metal, wood, plastic film and nonrecyclable materials. Workers also tear open any bags of material for sorting. The remaining paper-rich stream goes across a star screen that sorts the large pieces of OCC from the remaining fraction, which is predominantly smaller pieces of mixed paper, but also includes fines and small pieces of OCC. Two workers clean up the OCC fraction that comes across the screen before the paper falls off the conveyor ready for baling.

About 2,200 tons per month of commercial waste are brought into the facility, with 5 to 10 percent being landfilled. OCC makes up over half of the recovered volume, with the remainder being mixed paper, wood and metal. The company will be salvaging plastic film and ex- pects to get about two tons per day, which would go to a market that makes plastic bags.

D & D’s next system refinement will be to add another processing line for the mixed paper fraction to market a substantial volume as sort- ed office paper.

The economics are attractive for haulers to patronize D & D’s fa- cility. The average landfill tipping fee in Dallas-Fort Worth is about $5 per cubic yard. By comparison, D & D will charge about $82 to dump a 40-cubic yard box, or less than half of the landfill fee. About 10 percent of its customers are not charged to dump because of loads with very high percentages of recyclables.

D & D markets its OCC under a long-term contract with Weyer- haeuser, which provided major financial backing for the baler and oth- er sorting equipment in the Dallas-Fort Worth plant. Given soft market demand and lower scrap prices for OCC, Drillette is very happy to have the contract (see “Ask and you shall receive, but many communities don’t” in the September 1995 issue). Although some companies are having a hard time even moving their OCC, Drillette is having no trou- ble shipping scrap paper on a timely basis and getting top market price.

Opening a new deck The big roll-off boxes used to haul away debris from C&D sites are an attractive candidate for select-load recovery.

San Francisco-based Waste Resource Technologies has been espe- cially successful at diverting wood, which went to the wood fuel mar- ket until the installation of additional manual and mechanical sorting

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Page 6: Dusting off the dump and pick - P2 InfoHouseDusting off the dump and pick by Steve Apotheker 6 Resource Recycling P rocessors target select loads of drv commercial waste and constru&ion

3 cutting grooves rn

The Untha system’s patented four-shaft design provides max- imum output with low energy usage, low noise level and at low speed. Material is shredded twice - by four cutting shafts and by the outlet screen. Forty models available to fit your needs.

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steps allowed the company to provide a cleaner feedstock for a high- er value end use, the manufactured wood product market.

When the economics of Califomia’s wood fuel market changed, prices fell by two-thuds, to $15 per ton. Demand by the manufactured wood product industry remains strong, however, with loads commanding $50 per ton or more, according to one industry observer. Better mar- kets for wood and mixed paper, greater use of sorting platforms and better training of workers have helped Pugliaresi’s company increase recovery to almost 65 percent of select loads.

Willamette Resources’ new facility in Wilsonville has a sorting line that alternates between dry commercial waste and C&D debris. The 45,000-square-foot plant has been operating since October and is per- mitted to handle 35,000 tons per year.

The system salvages concrete, asphalt, two grades of wood (for wood fuel and paper manufacture), sheet rock reclaimed for agricul- tural gypsum end use, metals, OCC, mixed paper and fines. It is also experimenting with recovering film plastic that is marketed overseas.

The facility needs to recover at least 45 percent from incoming loads to meet the requirements of its permit. Irvine estimates that about 60 percent of deliveries will be C&D, with dry commercial waste mak- ing up the balance.

lncoming loads are inspected and dumped on the floor where bulky items, such as pallets and concrete, are removed. The load is then con- veyed to a shaker screen, which removes the fines. The waste then goes to a sorting platform where six to seven workers remove the tar- geted materials. The remainder is conveyed to a top loading trailer for hauling out.

The company charges $46 per ton for C&D, $60 per ton for select loads of dry commercial waste from front loader routes and $75 per ton for mixed commercial waste. The alternative to bine’s facility is transporting the waste 15 miles to a transfer station and paying a tip- ping fee of $74 per ton.

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Resource Recycling December 1995

Page 7: Dusting off the dump and pick - P2 InfoHouseDusting off the dump and pick by Steve Apotheker 6 Resource Recycling P rocessors target select loads of drv commercial waste and constru&ion

Playing the market card One factor that works against select-load recovery is high scrap prices.

Rick Findley, president of First Consulting Group (Toronto, On- tario), has seen a number of companies shift out of commercial waste sorting in the last year and move to more source-separated collection. Findley points to two reasons for this trend.

First, the growing development of new markets has increased the recyclable fraction in the commercial stream to where it makes sense to provide a dedicated container for these commingled recyclables. Second, higher scrap prices have changed recycling from a cost to a revenue for many generators. It is more common to see a collector offer a business a contract that specifies a payment level for recy- clables.

Wastech Services Ltd. (Coquitlam, British Columbia) is one ex- ample of a company that has moved from select-load recovery to com- mingled recyclables collection. The company operates three transfer stations, a landfill and a wood processing facility. In 1984, it set up its first picking line and trommel to recover OCC from the commercial retail stream. The company would receive several hundred tons per day of loads that contained 60 to 90 percent OCC.

But, as the value of OCC increased, generators adopted source sep aration programs that kept OCC out of the waste stream. Last year, Wastech finally removed its OCC picking line and trommel. The com- pany, however, had already developed an altemative game plan. Back in 1990, it had started working with haulers to put together a program where generators commingle all recyclables in one container, with garbage being kept separate. In th~s approach, OCC is put loose into the bin, with other recyclables, such as paper and containers, put into separate bags.

Initially, Wastech had allowed the garbage to be bagged and col- lected in the same bin. But Craig Foster, manager of recycling and spe- cial projects for Wastech, says two problems led them to discontinue the practice. First, the volume of waste could be half the weight, lead- ing to a lot of sorting. Second, it was hard to find a plastic bag that could stand up to compaction without splitting and spewing its con- tents over the recyclables.

A local grocery chain was one of Wastech’s first customers to em- brace this new collection concept. Overweightea Foods is the largest grocery chain in British Columbia. The grocery chain is now splitting its waste stream into three fractions: recyclables, food and waste.

Wastech is also doing a pilot project with a large hauler that collects from smaller generators, such as strip malls and small office buildings, with a front-end loader. OCC, sorted office pack, mixed office paper, film plastic, and aluminum and PET containers are being collected. Glass containers are not included because they represent a small vol- ume of the waste and are a problem with the compaction trucks. Pal- lets are also shied away from because they tend to rip bags.

Wastech’s Foster credits the increased market demand for mixed paper grades with making recycling collection accessible to small gen- erators. This has allowed the company and hauler to provide a simple program that is easy to implement. Several years ago, trying to edu- cate these small businesses about the different grades of white and col- ored ledger, for starters, was a daunting task.

One of the problems that Wastech is still confronting is finding a bag that is both functional and economic. Initially, the company went with a reusable, drawstring polypropylene bag that sits on a rack. The bags can hold about 100 pounds of paper; when full, they are moved into a roll-off container. The problem was how to get empty bags back to the customers. It was not unusual for recycling containers to be picked up before the business was open or for several businesses with several bags to deposit them in a common container sitting in an alley.

A second, smaller problem has come from illegal waste being dumped into recycling-only containers. Even though locked contain- ers were available to businesses, they were not always locked. Illegal dumping in a waste container represents an additional disposal cost, but illegal dumping in a recycling-only container causes contamina- tion, if not loss, of an entire load. RR

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Hustler Conveyor designs and manufactures complete turnkey systems that turn solid waste into profits and that meet your volume requirements and budget

Just give us your specifications and we’ll provide you with a complete resource recovery system totally inte- grated for superior operating efficiency, long service life, and profitability We’ll also provide individual sys- tem components to meet your replacement or expan- sion needs

4985 Fyler Avenue St LOUIS, MO 63139 Phone 31 4/352-6000 F a 314/352-0355

Circle 91 on RR service card

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Hustler Conveyor offers you its detailed product literature absolutely FREE Products include custom and turnkey solid waste or scrap recovery systems or individual sys- tem components steel belt conveyors, chain driven rub- ber belt conveyors, flat belt sliders, oscillators, magnets, trommels, bale breakers, vibratory screens, turntables, stackers, A-frames, and more

Hustler Conveyor guarantees you an economical, cost saving system that will provide years and years of effi- cient, reliable operation

4985 Fyler Avenue St LOUIS, MO 63139 Phone 314/352-6000 Fax 314/352-0355

Circle 92 on RR service card

Resource Recvcling December 1995