NWRA names CP Group Innovator of the Year

CP Group, headquartered in San Diego, has been named the Washington-based National Waste & Recycling Association’s (NWRA) 2022 Innovator of the Year for the patented OCC (old corrugated containers) Auger Screen.  

The award recognizes “recycling equipment designers and manufacturers that successfully challenge and advance recycling sector operations. It celebrates innovation in design and manufacturing that increases the effectiveness or efficiency of recycling equipment and operations.” 

The OCC Auger Screen is a nonround anti-wrapping, anti-jamming machine that does not require an upstream presort and creates a finished OCC product. Because the screen is cantilevered, all wrapping materials screw off the end, minimizing maintenance and cleaning. The screen fractionates out the smaller material stream, so sorters only see the larger stream which improves sorter safety by reducing exposure to sharps.  The patented nonround attribute of the auger flights creates the agitation needed to produce a clean OCC product.  

The machine prototype design was completed in 2017 and the first machine was manufactured in 2019. After months of testing, that prototype machine was installed in the Waste Connections Ecosort facility in Eugene, Oregon, which processes commercial material. It is still running today.  

Over the past several years, CP has invested in its production capabilities to keep pace with growing demand. With this specialized flight-forming machine and CP’s manufacturing capabilities, CP fulfills orders in-house. This includes the production of the patented nonround auger of the OCC Auger Screen that creates the material agitation needed to produce a clean OCC end product. 

The first residential material recovery facility (MRF) began using a nonround OCC Auger Screen for the direct and final screening of OCC material operation in late 2021. The Metro Waste Authority (MWA) MRF in Des Moines, Iowa, is the first high-volume single-stream MRF in North America to operate without a presort or post sort station of any kind. All removal of nonprogram material is performed at quality control stations or is the negative sort of the system—which is a 100 percent reduction in labor dedicated to nonprogram material. This is because of the innovation of the OCC Auger Screen paired with the CP Primary Auger Screen.  

“The screen, located at the front of the system, captures more material, decreases contamination, significantly reduces maintenance downtime, and eliminates the presort, making the process safer and much more effective," MWA Executive Director Michael McCoy says.

This is a landmark MRF that brings the entire industry a significant step closer to full automation, while also reducing labor and downtime caused by the challenges of traditional presorts.   

“The OCC Auger Screen is truly a first-of-its-kind innovation that lends itself to the next phase in MRF process evolution and automation,” CP Group Director of Sales and Marketing Ashley Davis says. “It is the catalyst to the MRF of the future by eliminating the presort and enabling more automation.”