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Compacting commingled containers saves collection costs
Recycling product news Volume 13 Number 3 April, 2005

Sustainable recycling programs are dependent on revenue from collected materials meeting or exceeding costs. Since little can be done to increase revenue, recyclers must focus on cost reduction.

To this end, a number of collection vehicle innovations have become standard equipment. Diesel engines, dual driving controls, swinging compartment doors, hydraulic dump boxes and moveable compartment walls are all mandatory for an effective recycling collection vehicle. Until now, one obvious innovation has been clearly missing – onboard container perforating and compacting equipment.

From the outset of collection programs, empty containers have been identified as one of the costliest materials to transport. In their empty but inflated state, containers, especially plastic containers, take up too much room in the recycling truck while contributing little to recycling tonnages and revenue.

For decades, garbage collection trucks have benefited from onboard compactors. These garbage compactors are not useful for recycling trucks because they are too large, heavy, costly and unable to fit inside recycling truck container compartments. Enter Doctor Crusher, a patented, perforating and compacting technology that answers all these issues.

Doctor Crusher perforates and crushes non-glass commingled containers as they are collected at the curb and loaded onto the truck. The crusher is attached to the roof of the container compartment and when side lift bins are emptied into the truck, containers fall into the crusher where they are quickly perforated and flattened individually. The compartment fills completely, because, as new containers are added, they push the previously crushed containers upwards, (much the way a popcorn machine functions). The crusher itself occupies less than 1 cubic yard in the compartment.

Perforating and flattening either on the truck or at a MRF improves transportation and bale density significantly. While especially effective on plastic containers it also performs very well with steel and aluminium cans. The mechanism can postpone, and for some municipalities eliminate, the need for recycling truck fleet expansion or overtime costs. MRF operators report the elimination of exploding PET bales as well.

In 1995, the first Ontario municipality installed the crusher on its trucks permanently. Each truck’s container capacity was increased by an estimated 40 to 50 per cent. The Municipality reported it had saved approximately $160,000 in capital fleet costs plus ongoing maintenance and labour costs by investing in four machines.

In Wellington County, Ontario, the crusher was installed so that it lined up only with the side loading bin that captures metal and plastic recyclables. An opening was left beside the crusher for flint and coloured glass to fall into the container compartment without going through the perforating mechanism. The glass is sorted from the plastic and metal containers at a MRF.

Wellington County had been dumping recyclables into 40 yd bins at its transfer stations and shipping about ten full bins per week to market. Cathy Wiebe, Wellington’s waste reduction coordinator says, “Our first goal is to see a reduction in the cost of our bulk shipping, but we also hope that by installing the crusher on the truck instead of compacting at the transfer station, we’ll be able to add services to our recycling program in a cost-efficient manner.” According to Wiebe, a number of the municipalities in the county have user-pay programs and some of them want to expand the list of recyclables that can be collected. By maximizing the capacity of the recycling collection truck, the county could respond to the requests to add new materials to the recycling list without adding to the fleet.

Following more than a year of extensive field testing, both the City of Raleigh, and Orange County North Carolina, made the decision to install crusher units on their entire fleet of 26 new Labrie recycling trucks. The Doctor Crusher units were built and tested at R. Baumung Industries in Cambridge, Ontario, and installed on the new fleet at the Labrie manufacturing facility in Quebec.

Doctor Crusher is currently testing depackaging units with Pepsi Cola and is negotiating a Russian demonstration project with a major European hydraulic equipment supplier and the World Bank.
Continuous improvement and hundreds of machine years in trucks and MRF installations have made the Doctor Crusher strong, simple, reliable and durable for container perforation and volume reduction applications, and units feature easy operation and maintenance.

Municipalities often object that they have no control over collection equipment because they subcontract collection out to private haulers. Doctor Crusher encourages municipalities to lease a unit and conduct performance tests which can be used when negotiating or tendering subsequent collection contracts usually resulting in cost savings. Specific collection and volume reduction equipment can always be specified in the tender when new contracts are bid.

The bottom line: If you want to reduce your ongoing recycling collection costs, stop paying to transport the air inside the containers.

(this article originally appeared in Solid Waste and Recycling magazine, November, 1998)

Plastic bottles of all shapes and sizes are prevalent in modern waste streams. Consumers enjoy their light weight and durability, which permit convenient transportation and storage. These same advantages complicates capturing them in municipal recycling programs. Some critics have called them "balloons of air’’ charging that in their empty but inflated state, plastic bottles take up too much room in the recycling truck while they contribute little to recycling tonnages.

The not-for-profit industry organization CSR: Corporations Supporting Recycling has conducted a number of recycling efficiency pilot projects; one focuses on how to make the collection, transportation, and processing of plastic bottles more economical through compaction.

Last fall, CSR worked with the a municipality northeast of Toronto to test a new piece of equipment called "Dr. Crusher." A second study has been initiated in Wellington County (in southwestern Ontario) this year. Invented by Ralph Baumung of R. Baumung Industries Ltd. in Cambridge, Ontario, the mechanism perforates and crushes non-glass comingled containers as they are collected at the curb and loaded onto the truck. The crusher is attached to the roof of the truck to line up with the hydraulic lift bins directly over the container compartment. When the bins are emptied into the body of the truck, the plastic and metal containers fall into the crusher where they are perforated and flattened. The compartment fills completely, because, as new containers are added, they push the previously crushed containers to the top (much the way a popcorn machine functions).

Perforating and flattening either on board the truck or at a MRF improves bale density. So far, the pilot projects show that the mechanism can increase the density of material in the container compartment by a ratio of two and a half to one. While it diminishes the plastic "balloons of air," it also performs well with steel and aluminum cans. The mechanism can postpone, and for some municipalities eliminate, the need for recycling truck fleet expansion.

The waste management recycling coordinator supervising the first test, says the municipality saved approximately $160,000 in capital fleet costs plus ongoing maintenance and labour costs by investing about $40,000 in four machines. In 1995, the first test units were installed permanently. Each truck’s container capacity has been increased by an estimated 40 to 50 per cent.

Wellington County had been dumping recyclables into 40-yard bins at its transfer stations and then shipping the bins (about ten per week) to market when full, Cathy Wiebe, Wellington’s waste reduction coordinator says, "Our first goal is to see a reduction in the cost of our bulk shipping, but we also hope that by installing the crusher on the truck instead of compacting at the transfer station, we’ll he able to add services to our recycling program in a cost-efficient manner."

According to Wiebe, a number of the municipalities in the county have user-pay programs and some of them want to expand the list of recyclables that can be collected. By maximizing the capacity of the recycling collection truck, the county could respond to the requests to add new materials to the recycling list without adding to the fleet.

Kingston, Mono Township, the Region of Haldiinand-Norfolk, Guelph, and Wellington County.

Geoff Rathbone is vice president of technical and market development at CSR: Corporations Supporting Recycling in Toronto.

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On Nov. 22/92 a production prototype of a container crushing machine was tested for maximum capacity and design flaws at the Materials Recycling Centre, Regional Municipality of Waterloo. The results of the test, as provided by regional staff, follow:

The machine was operated at approximately 66% of design power and 30% of design speed.

The machine was loaded at a rate of approximately four hundred percent (400%) design capacity and stopped at regular intervals for observation.

Oversize cans and plastic containers were fed through the unit in addition to regular blue box materials consisting of an actual blue box mixture of aluminum and steel cans, 1 and 2 ltr. plastic soft drink bottles and up to 1 gallon HDPE laundry soap type bottles. A number of glass containers were also fed through at irregular intervals to observe the effect on the unit.

-no components failed.
-no observable wear on any components
-no drive train wear
-no chain wear
-relatively quiet low speed operation est. <80db. under load
-crush plate floated as per design specification
-antiwrap bars operated to design specification
-crammer feeder significantly stronger than anticipated
-feed of material extremely good, exceeding design specification
-material reduced in volume by 40% to 60%
-Unit fed at est. 400% design capacity during full test using shovels.
-glass containers have no effect on unit
-oversize cans up to 5 litres process easily
-unit was deliberately stalled several times to observe results,
-no damage resulted from stalled condition
-unit was operated in reverse to clear blockages.
-end test

The machine performed above design spec. in every measurable way even though it was tested below design speed and power. The unit is small, fast and quiet and produces a consistent product within requirements for sorting, subsequent material handling and compaction.

Reliability and durability should be excellent as all drive components are substantially oversized. Side plate thickness is large which contributes to weight but substantially increases durability.

Oversize 1 gallon heavy walled paint cans were processed without any damage or problems. (This would not be a normal operating condition as paint cans are not normally collected)

Serviceability in the field should be excellent as only 2 sizes of wrench are required to dismantle the entire unit. The unit could also be mounted on a swing arm which would permit removal and reinstallation of a replacement in the field. Two men can easily lift the unit.