Amp Robotics material characterization software.

Amp Robotics Corp., Denver, has introduced Amp Clarity, an artificial intelligence-powered material characterization software that enables the recognition and classification of recyclables. Features of Amp Clarity include:

• provides real-time material characterization and performance measurement throughout different stages of the sorting process
• powered by the AMP Neuron artificial intelligence platform to find, differentiate and capture high-value grades of recycled paper, packaging and containers
• can help diagnose gaps in processing efficiency
• available via an online web portal that can be accessed through desktop, laptop and mobile devices

Visit https://www.amprobotics.com for more information.

Leibherr LIKUFIX quick-change system.

Switzerland-based Liebherr is increasing the availability of its fully automatic LIKUFIX quick-change system for additional wheel loader models. Features of the LIKUFIX include:

• allows mechanical and hydraulic attachments to be quickly and safely changed from inside the cab
• hydraulic lines are connected automatically, which can help decrease downtime
• hydraulic coupling supported by springs, so the forces that act on the quick coupler are not transferred to the coupling system
• easily accessible moving parts for simpler maintenance

Visit https://www.liebherr.com for more information.

Doosan -7 Series wheel loaders.

Doosan Infracore North America LLC, Suwanee, Georgia, is launching its next-generation wheel loaders, the -7 Series, in the U.S. and Canada. Features of the new series include:

• a standard rearview camera that provides an additional view of the machine’s surroundings and appears on the 8-inch Doosan Smart Touch display
• redesigned heating and cooling system with new outlet locations to optimize air flow in the cab
• stronger, larger axles and a strengthened box frame
• new radiator with fin spacing that is 40 percent wider than previous generations

Visit https://na.doosanequipment.com/en for more information.

Stadler SDC cloud-based platform.

Stadler, Altshausen, Germany, has developed the SDC cloud-based platform, which captures operating and sensor data from sorting plant equipment. Features of the platform include:

• information is securely stored in the cloud and accessible on- or off-site through a web portal
• equally effective in all types of sorting plants and can be implemented at existing plants
• provides an overview of the operation of the sorting plant, with visibility on the individual machines
• analysis of historical data can help to optimize machine performance and reveal opportunities for improvements

Visit https://w-stadler.com for more information.

As the interest in organics waste diversion continues to gain traction across the United States, many businesses, municipalities and universities have led the pack in implementing large-scale food waste and composting infrastructure to tackle this critical waste stream.

Such trailblazing efforts can be seen at Marshall University, where the university’s sustainability department is preparing to open the first commercial composting facility in the state of West Virginia.

When fully operational, the facility will be the second-largest university compost facility in the eastern U.S. and will have the capacity to compost 8 tons of organic waste per day.

“I think [the opening of the facility] is an opportunity for [Marshall University] to be a leader in our state,” says Marshall University’s Sustainability Manager Amy Parsons-White, who oversaw the design of the compost facility. “We’re producing a valuable product for our community, and I think that’s an important part, too.”

“I think [the opening of the facility] is an opportunity for [Marshall University] to be a leader in our state. We’re producing a valuable product for our community, and I think that’s an important part, too.” –Marshall University’s Sustainability Manager Amy Parsons-White

Located just three miles from the university’s main campus in Huntington, West Virginia, the facility is housed in a 5,000-square-foot building that was already present on the property. According to Parsons-White, the existing site did not need to undergo any significant structural changes but did need more insulation and an additional garage door added for hauling finished compost out of the building.

“[The building] is only 50 feet by 100 feet, so it’s not a very big footprint at all,” she says. “Nothing would have necessarily had to have been done, but we just chose to make the building a little more comfortable for our operations.”

In addition to these minor renovations, the building is undergoing an upgrade to three-phase power, which Parsons-White says is a proactive step to prepare for any possible expansions with limited downtime.

PROCESSING THE ORGANICS

To process the university’s organic waste, which includes food waste, lawn waste, white office paper, cardboard and horse manure from a nearby equine rescue, the university’s sustainability department invested in an XACT Systems BioReactor composter.

“I wanted something that would run very efficiently, would have a quick turnover and also reduce our landfill waste in a very quick, efficient way,” says Parsons-White on the qualities she was looking for in a potential composter. “When I was doing research, I saw the digestor we ended up buying, and it can take in 8 tons per day and breaks everything down within 5 days. That is more than what we would need for our campus, so that gives us room to expand.”

Prior to entering the digestor, organics will first go through a JWC Environmental, Santa Ana, California, shredder, which grinds the waste down to half-inch fractions. These fractions are then loaded into the digestor where they will be turned at 10 rotations per hour.

“The [BioReactor] keeps the [organics] slowly moving,” says Parsons-White. “So, once the composting begins and the temperature rises, it’s insulated to hold the temperature between 100- and 140-degrees Fahrenheit. As the materials break down, it moves forward in the tube. Once it’s completely broken down, then you can really sift out the other end a finished compost.”

The facility also includes a Worm Wigwam vermicomposting bin, which will process half of the resulting compost through earthworm digestion and aerobic decomposition. Manufactured by Cottage Grove, Oregon-based Sustainable Agricultural Technologies Inc., the 5- by 40-foot bin holds 50,000 red wiggler worms and can produce up to 60 pounds of vermicompost per week.

Finished compost will then be bagged by a sandbag-filling machine from the Sandbag Store LLC, Las Vegas. The compost will be branded as Herd Dirt, which will be available for sale to the public.

CAMPUS COLLECTION

Parsons-White says organics to be processed will be collected from university kitchens, as well as dormitories and other locations throughout campus.

“Because we have the digestor, we can actually compost everything,” she says. “We can break down bones, fat and those kinds of things, so we’ve trained [our kitchen staff] to pick out any plastics that might be found with the organic waste. The rest can go in the compost container, including the napkins.”

Any collected organic waste will be hauled to the compost facility by trucks overseen by the sustainability department. The trucks will be sent out twice daily to the kitchens and campus bins.

“[The trucks] go all over campus every day anyway to pick up our recycling and take it to our recycling compactor. So, while they’re doing that, they’ll pick up the composting from the kitchens and other locations throughout campus and run those up to our compost facility,” says Parsons-White.

As for the university’s yard waste, Marshall’s grounds department has their own trucks that will pick up leaves and tree branches to bring to the facility.

According to the university, the compost facility’s operations will help reduce Marshall’s carbon footprint by reducing waste hauled to landfills and will save the university thousands of dollars each year in waste hauling fees.

“For one, the organic waste won’t be hauled as far away,” says Parsons-White. “We’re only hauling it 3 miles away to the compost facility, and we’re using small pickup trucks—not large trucks. But also, the amount of methane produced will be reduced because [the waste is being processed through] aerobic digestion, so it doesn’t actually produce methane.”

OPENING DOORS

While the composting facility will be an integral part to expanding the university’s green waste infrastructure, Parsons-White says it will also play a significant role in a recently added program within Marshall’s College of Science.

Once completed, the facility will act as an educational laboratory for soil chemistry and soil science courses in the university’s specialty agricultural degree program. In addition to housing these courses, scientists within the College of Science will also be using the facility to conduct research on vermiculture.

The research will cover the different types of insects—which can include worms, red wigglers or black soldier flies—and look at how they can affect the rate of breakdown of the organic materials, as well as the quality of the end product produced.

“The facility will also allow us to do experiments with added microbes,” Parsons-White says. “We can add different microbes to the digester and then test the product that is produced to see which microbes work the best, or if we need to add or reduce microbes of different kinds.”

With operations set to commence at the beginning of June, Parsons-White says she believes the facility will set an example for others interested in following in the university’s footsteps.

“We’re going to be producing valuable compost, working with our community and [holding] workshops. When other communities and universities in our area see it, we really hope that they follow along,” she says. “We’ve already been contacted by others that are interested, and they’re keeping tabs on our success and how things are progressing.

“It’s exciting to see [those discussions] start up. I think this really opens the door for Marshall to become a leader in composting and green infrastructure [in West Virginia].”

The author is the assistant editor of Waste Today and can be reached at hrischar@gie.net.

Gaeta Recycling in Paterson, New Jersey, is a licensed fifth-generation solid waste and recycling company that has been serving the needs of local customers since 1935. The family-run operation has grown steadily over time to include a customer base of more than 300,000 residents spanning four counties in addition to its more than 6,000 commercial accounts. Besides offering collection services for its residential and commercial customers, Gaeta owns and operates its own materials recovery facility (MRF) and transfer station.

As the company has expanded, so to has the need to ensure safe operations for its employee base. That’s where Michael Portannese first made his mark on the company when he joined the family business in 2013.

Portannese, who is now the president of Gaeta, got his start in the mechanic shop where he was charged with helping better understand and oversee the day-to-day operations of the business.

“I got the chance to run the shop for the first two years I worked at the company, which was good because I learned a lot about safety, I learned a lot about the fleet, and I learned where a company can really bleed from—the mechanic shop,” Portannese says. “Today, we have a fleet of 124 vehicles. … When you have a fleet of that many vehicles going out, there’re a lot of safety concerns on a daily basis.”

Seeing these concerns firsthand, Portannese soon decided to hire a designated safety officer whose job it was to manage employee training, ethics, safety meetings and related initiatives.

Portannese says that while there were people in the office who would occasionally hold safety meetings and toolbox talks before this appointment, the company never had anyone in charge of making sure safety was prioritized on a daily basis.

“I think if you’re in this industry and you don’t have that technology now, you’re losing value because of the fact that it’s just such an informative product to have in every single one of your vehicles—it’s your eyes and your ears.” –Gaeta Recycling President Michael Portannese

Although the safety officer was in charge of analyzing accidents and training drivers on improving behaviors, the company realized it was operating with insufficient intel as to on-road behaviors. That’s when Portannese says the company made the decision to install drive cameras in all the company’s collection vehicles. After trialing a couple different solutions, the company settled on San Francisco-based Samsara for its fleet technology needs.

“Previously, we didn’t have any cameras in any of the trucks. We ended up adding internal- and external-facing cameras, which were great,” Portannese says. “They were a great training tool. They helped us in a lot of litigation situations where they proved we were innocent and not at fault for various accidents. But they have also been great because they have all different sensors. So, if a truck sways side to side too quickly, or if a driver accelerates too quickly or has hard-braking events, the software shoots an email to the administrator on the account recording the time of the actual occurrence, which is really important for promoting accountability.”

According to Portannese, there was some initial pushback from the company’s drivers who were concerned about being monitored by “Big Brother” after the installation of cameras and sensors in the trucks. However, over time, he notes that the vast majority of incidents where this technology has been utilized come at the benefit of the employees.

Whether the cameras are used to corroborate that a resident forgot to put out their trash or provide an alibi for a driver accused of an accident or damaging property, these solutions can offer irrefutable proof that helps drivers avoid accusations of wrongdoing.

In the last year, Portannese says the company has also outfitted every truck with tablets, which are equipped with AMCS’ Tower software. These tablets allow drivers to take pictures of containers at the push of a button to record overloaded receptacles or those filled with dangerous or foreign materials that might preclude a driver from trying to tip that container. This helps the company avoid things like damaged windshields, spilled loads, and other issues that occur when drivers feel obligated to tip containers they shouldn’t. If customers then complain about missed pickups, Gaeta can email photo evidence of a blocked or incorrectly filled container to help avoid disputes.

Portannese says that outfitting every truck with sophisticated software comes with a cost, but it is a small price to pay for transparency and peace of mind.

“I think if you’re in this industry and you don’t have that technology now, you’re losing value because of the fact that it’s just such an informative product to have in every single one of your vehicles—it’s your eyes and your ears,” he says.

Beyond fleet software, Portannese says a strict tire maintenance program, in addition to investments in lug nut indicators and anti-flat tire sealants for the company’s trucks, has been instrumental in helping the company avoid costly and dangerous blowouts and stranded vehicle situations that previously burdened the company.

Gaeta has also increased the number of supervisors within the company in recent years to help bolster oversight and safe operations. For example, Portannese says that the head supervisor of municipalities for Gaeta now has five supervisors working under him who are in charge of remotely tracking trucks, conducting on-the-road route audits or otherwise checking in with employees. This infrastructure has helped eliminate the onus of safe operation from the shoulders of a single safety officer.

Portannese says rather than foster a sense of alienation within the company’s collection team, bringing additional supervisors on board has helped give a voice to drivers and helpers within the company.

“We’ve made that connection between supervisor and employee where you open up the communication level between your employees,” Portannese says. “Sometimes companies have this dynamic where the drivers don’t want to communicate issues to supervisors because of the fear of being written up or the fear of being told to stay home for a few days. In our industry, the margins are very tight and many are quick to just lay a person off or send someone home unpaid for a week rather than work through the issues and rectify the problems to help build up to a better employee.”

Between fewer accidents, less money allocated to insurance costs and lawsuits, and greater support of the company’s employees, Gaeta’s commitment to safety has helped the New Jersey-based company evolve over the years.

“I think every day we get smarter and we get better,” Portannese says. “I think it’s because of our technology, and I think it’s because where we decide to invest funds and invest in people. I think at our size, we’re not that small mom-and-pop from years ago. We’ve grown astronomically and been able to make a name for ourselves. To do that, you have to invest in certain things, and we chose safety. I think if we didn’t, we wouldn’t be where we are today.”

The author is the editor of Waste Today and can be reached at aredling@gie.net.

Since first beginning operations in early 2018, Pompano Beach, Florida-based Coastal Waste and Recycling has been making significant investments in its mixed waste processing infrastructure.

With three newly constructed mixed waste material recovery facilities (MRFs) located in Broward County, Palm Beach County and Martin County, the company has positioned itself to capitalize on favorable conditions in the southeastern Florida market.

“We look for markets, in general, where there are a lot of large companies, high amounts of population growth or just existing large populations. [This is] because there’s always construction, reconstruction and demolition, and in areas like southeast Florida … there’s nowhere for [the resulting waste] to go,” says Brendon Pantano, CEO of Coastal Waste and Recycling.

“Rebuilding is a major part of the economy down here, and Florida is one of the few states that has overall construction waste percentages that are [roughly] 35 to 40 percent, and it has been like that for decades,” he adds.

According to Pantano, these factors—as well as limited landfill capacity in the area—made southeast Florida an obvious location to construct and operate its mixed waste processing facilities.

FINDING THE RIGHT FIT

The start of Coastal’s mixed waste operations began with the opening of its first facility in Pompano Beach, known as “Coastal Four.” The company obtained a permit and developed construction plans to build the Class III MRF in August 2018 with the intention of processing construction and demolition (C&D) debris and mixed commercial recycling.

Given the company’s varying waste streams, large volumes and high growth ambitions, Pantano says the facility needed a dynamic system to successfully process both lightweight and heavyweight material.

“A lot of times that [shift in material] can pose a challenge to typical C&D processing systems because they’re not designed to flow lightweight cardboards, as well as construction materials and commercial recycling byproducts. So, it was a challenge to find [the right] screen,” he says.

In addition to handling Coastal Four’s diverse waste stream, the company needed screening technology capable of separating a heavy flow of aggregates.

“Being in Florida, the amount of fines and concrete in our material versus say a facility up North is [substantially larger] because everything down here is built with concrete block [rather than wood]. So, you end up with a lot of dirt and broken-down concrete,” Pantano says.

To aid in his search for a uniquely robust screening system, Pantano reached out to Ian Levasseur, the vice president of Quebec-based Sherbrooke OEM, for guidance. Levasseur ultimately recommended a General Kinematics (GK) Finger-Screen 2.0 primary screen to meet Coastal’s requirements.

“We needed a screen that had a longer stroke capable of flipping and turning waste as it travels down the screen to ensure that smaller fractions of material didn’t surf their way into the larger fraction sorting lines,” says Pantano. “There aren’t many screen options when it comes to that throughput and material diversity, so the 2.0 was an obvious fit for us.”

After some initial discussions with the Crystal Lake, Illinois-based equipment manufacturer, Coastal also decided to invest in a GK Rod Deck as the secondary screen and a GK Single Knife De-Stoner Air Classifier.

THE SCREENING PROCESS

At Coastal Four, Pantano says its processing operations begin with the Finger-Screen 2.0, where the machine separates the raw mixed waste into two lines.

“[With] the Finger-Screen 2.0, the whole objective there is to create a size separation. So, anything larger than 8 inches in size goes up to the A line for manual picking, and anything smaller than 8 inches goes over to the B line, which is a little more automated with some other machines to work through smaller material,” says Bob Huffer, team east regional sales manager for GK.

“By splitting the material flow, typically you see a 60-40 split on average, meaning 60 percent of the material stays with the A line and 40 percent, more or less, goes to the B line,” Huffer says.

According to Huffer, this allows the facility to utilize different technology to do a more thorough sorting process on the individual lines.

On the A line, Pantano says between eight to 12 sorters will pick through concrete, wood, cardboard, plastic, ferrous and nonferrous metal, and yard waste. Meanwhile on the B line, the 8-inch-minus material will first run through a magnet to remove ferrous metals then head to the secondary Rod Deck screen.

From there, the secondary fines screen will remove any material smaller than three-quarters of an inch to one inch. “[This material] is primarily a lot of the dirt and fines that’s just taken out and removed [from] the system to be used for landfill cover. Then what you’re left with is a fraction that is minus eight plus one, and that is then sent to the de-stoner, [which] separates the rock and the heavies,” Huffer says.

Utilizing air separation to separate the materials based on density, the de-stoner will blow away the light fraction, leaving behind the aggregates, crushed concrete, broken concrete, asphalt and clay tiles.

“The de-stoner is a workhorse in there, and [Coastal’s] process really separates a lot of that aggregate material out,” says Huffer. “The remaining lighter materials, the minus eight plus one, just goes off the end of the de-stoner and goes to landfill, [whereas] with the aggregate fraction, Coastal now has a commodity that they can use and sell.”

MEETING EXPECTATIONS

Having worked in the waste industry his entire life, Pantano says the Finger-Screen 2.0 system is the only screening technology he’s witnessed capable of processing Coastal Four’s throughput and material composition.

“The amount of material agitation [with the 2.0] just leads to a good presentation of whatever is on the respective line. So, when you get the material on the A line, because it has that long stroke and that big active movement, you don’t end up with a piece of plywood covered in dirt that kind of skated down he line,” he says. “With some of the other screens that I’ve used, you get that effect where there’s a piece of cardboard and it’s a single-deck screen, so it doesn’t have the ability to flip it over or turn it. So, you end up having materials right on top of other materials because there’s not enough movement to get it to shake off.”

On average, Pantano says the current system is processing roughly 100 tons per hour, but that it can vary from anywhere between 90 to 105 tons per hour.

“[The system] is physically capable of, I suppose with the right conditions, up to 125 tons per hour. But, I’m sure we have hours where we do 200 tons per hour and we have an hour where we do 75 tons per hour; it’s just so dependent upon the material you put through,” he says. “The 2.0 is a monster. I mean, it is just a massive, massive piece of equipment. So, having a site that does that kind of volume is not typical. But I would say for any site that we’re going to have in that 800 to 1,000 tons per day, per shift range, the 2.0 would be our choice.”

This article originally appeared in the May/June issue of Construction & Demolition Recycling magazine. The author is the assistant editor of Construction & Demolition Recycling and Waste Today magazines and can be reached at hrischar@gie.net.