The mood of the recycling industry can be measured in many ways. ISRI2018, the annual convention hosted by the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), Washington, is one place where recycling professionals can assess the market, view new products and technologies, network and get a good indication of where the industry stands.

ISRI says the event is the world’s largest annual gathering of scrap recycling professionals. Scheduled for April 14-19 at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, this is ISRI’s seventh convention at this venue in the past 12 years, says Chuck Carr, ISRI vice president of convention, education and training.

“There is no better place to gauge the mood of the industry year over year than at an ISRI convention,” Carr says. “ISRI2018 is going to be our largest show in many years as business is stronger and world issues [are] ever-more important to local, regional and international trade.”

Getting a global perspective

With the changing import policy in China, international trade will be a hot topic at this year’s event. Carr says ISRI always intends to present information on the latest world issues, and this year will be no different, with the exception of who will be delivering the messages.

Other topics to be discussed are human resources compliance, business valuation and commodity markets.

Keynote speaker Carlos Gutierrez is well-versed in trade with China and the rest of the world, says Carr. Gutierrez, who will speak during the Opening General Session Tuesday, April 17, served as CEO and president of Kellogg Co. from 1999 to 2004 and as chairman from 2000 to 2004. He also served as Secretary of Commerce in the George W. Bush administration, where he showed he understands the world of business, ISRI says. As the nation’s top commercial advocate, Gutierrez helped open global markets for U.S. companies and was a champion of efforts to build new trade partnerships in Latin America. Today, he serves as co-chair of the Albright Stonebridge Group and sits on the board of Time Warner Inc.

Regarding Gutierrez, Carr says, “His speech will kick off workshop sessions that will discuss the nature of China’s new policies and give the absolute latest news available to attendees.”

He adds, “We also expect a substantial delegation from Chinese industry who will be on hand to give their perspective as well.”

Nearly 4,300 recycling professionals from more than 50 countries attended ISRI2017 in New Orleans, Carr says. For this year’s event, he anticipates the convention will continue to attract attendees from around the world, adding that the event has become the “primary, must-attend show in the business across the globe.”

He notes that simultaneous translation services will be made available for all general session programs and for a portion of other workshop programs. Additionally, language assistants will be on hand at the registration desks.

“Whether you operate a small facility that typically trades with local mills or an international conglomerate operating in many countries, our industry is global and is impacted by the global economy and events,” Carr says. “ISRI gives folks the opportunity to meet colleagues from around the world and gain knowledge that can help their businesses strive.”

He continues, “With the constantly changing state of trade and the economy, attendance in 2018 is as important as ever.”

Putting heads together

Meeting colleagues, networking and making business deals in person are standard practices at large events like ISRI2018. One place for attendees to meet is the exhibit hall, where nearly 300 exhibitors will be showcasing the latest equipment and technologies available to the recycling industry. Another such area is inside the meeting rooms where sessions are held.

Workshop sessions and spotlight programs are planned for specific commodities and materials, including metals, paper, plastics, electronics and tires and rubber. ISRI says workshops this year will focus on putting the business “odds in your favor” for a more successful future.

“The ISRI convention provides the best networking opportunities, the best recycling-related trade show and the most comprehensive education programs available to the industry worldwide,” Carr says.

In addition to these opportunities to talk with other industry professionals, ISRI hosts its governance meetings—board and committee meetings—prior to the convention’s start. Beginning Saturday, April 14, and running right before the opening reception April 16, Carr says all ISRI members interested in making ISRI policy or drafting ISRI specifications are welcome to attend these meetings.

He explains, “These meetings, which are held quarterly, are where ISRI members set policy and budgets for the association. All ISRI members are invited to participate.”

Adding more young people

While attendees can expect to see many familiar faces throughout the show, Carr says there will be a noticeable difference in 2018: more young professional participants. ISRI has been working on growing its young professionals network, Carr says, and that work will be evident at ISRI2018.

(The ISRI Northern Ohio Chapter held a first-of-its-kind Best Young and Brightest [BYAB] event in Cleveland, July 26-27, 2017, with 45 young professionals under the age of 40 from scrap recycling companies located across the U.S. and Canada gathering for a day and a half of networking, team building and learning. The BYAB Committee is working on details for the 2018 event.)

On the other end of the spectrum, ISRI2018 also is welcoming the association’s newest group, the Century Club, which is made up of anyone whose combined age and years in the recycling business equal 100 years or greater, Carr says.

Reservations in the ISRI room block at Mandalay Bay, The Delano Las Vegas and Luxor are open. The ISRI rate for these hotels is available only through the association’s convention website, www.isri2018.org/schedule, as are additional details on registration and the event schedule.

The author is associate editor of Recycling Today and can be contacted at mworkman@gie.net.

Balers, traditionally found in material recovery facilities (MRFs) that process a variety of recyclables, create compact cubes of material to help maximize truck loads. In MRFs, the materials that typically are baled include paper, metals and plastics. Because these materials also can be found in construction and demolition (C&D) recycling facilities, why aren’t balers commonly installed in these facilities?

“Installing a baler certainly requires more labor, but when you manage the dollar value you get on it, it grossly outweighs the costs of labor by a long shot,” Kevin Herb, managing partner of Broad Run Construction Waste Recycling in Manassas, Virginia, says. “Why people aren’t baling in C&D—I don’t get it.”

Herb says baled material can be cleaner and, therefore, garner a higher value than loose recyclables.

Balers also densify material, increasing the volume of material that can be loaded into the trailers used to haul the material. This reduces the number of trips required to haul the same amount of material, reducing transportation costs.

“Any business person is in business to make money, and the return on investment (ROI) is something every decision-maker looks at and makes a decision on,” Herb says. “In this case, the return on investment is excellent.”

GETTING WHAT YOU PAID FOR

Broad Run accepts dirt, old corrugated containers (OCC), clean white dimensional lumber, aggregates and 5-gallon high-density polyethylene (HDPE) paint buckets for recycling. Of the more traditional commodities recovered from C&D material, the processed dirt serves as medium-grade topsoil and fill material, while the aggregates are sent to local concrete crushing plants. The baled OCC is shipped to WestRock’s West Point paper mill outside of Richmond.

Broad Run has baled OCC since it opened in 2008 using a Model CE-504842-830 manual-tie, closed-end horizontal baler from Marathon Equipment, based in Vernon, Alabama. Since the baler’s installation, Broad Run has been producing seven OCC bales per day.

It wasn’t until February 2014 that Herb and his crew began recycling plastic paint buckets, installing a second manual-tie, closed-end horizontal baler: a Gemini Extreme model that also was manufactured by Marathon.

“We were just throwing them away,” Herb says of the buckets. He adds that the existing pickers were asked to start targeting these items as well, so no extra labor was needed to pull the buckets out from the waste stream.

Because the company already had an experienced operator for the baler on its paper line, there was no need to add and train an employee to operate the new baler.

Broad Run produces two bales of plastic buckets per day. Over the course of a month, the company’s pickers pull approximately 23 tons of buckets from the incoming material stream, Herb says, which when baled are enough for one tractor-trailer load.

It takes the baler operator roughly 13 minutes to remove an OCC bale from the baler, tie it and put it in the storage area. For the plastic buckets, the process takes 35 minutes.

“There’s more time involved because of the paint,” Herb says. Much of that extra time is spent cleaning up the paint that is released during the baling process, he adds.

Herb says he decided to place the balers beneath the picking stations in his systems for efficiency. Employees pick items off the belt and drop them down a chute and into a baler.

Herb says the approach is less expensive than using a conveyor to transport the material into the hopper of the baler. “The cheapest way is letting gravity do the work.”

Installing the baler for the plastic line took around one day, Herb say.

The temporary expenses associated with the installation of the balers soon paid off, he says. It took Broad Run three months to see a return on its investment in the OCC baler it installed in 2008. Broad Run considered the decreased trucking expenses when evaluating its ROI.

“If it isn’t baled, it’s loose. And if you’re transporting it loose, it’s going to be 10- times the amount of hauling,” Herb says.

“These bales are 1,600-to-1,800-pound cardboard bales—almost a ton a piece—so you can only imagine if that was loose in some kind of container or compactor.”

The bucket bales weigh in at 800 pounds each. The state of Virginia’s truck weight limit is 25 tons, so baling allows Broad Run to get the maximum weight on each truckload.

“You can get that maximum weight with baled material because it’s highly compressed,” Herb says.

CUTTING its LOSSES

Recovery1 in Tacoma, Washington, used four balers at its Carpet Processing & Recycling LLC (CP&R) plant—a 100-horsepower Harris two-ram horizontal baler with an auto-tie system that it bought in 2007; a 15-horsepower Lummus horizontal closed-end manual-tie fiber baler; a 15-horsepower Walters vertical manual-tie fiber baler; and a 15-horsepower Max-Pak manual-tie vertical foam baler.

Recovery1 rented its first baler in 2000 to bale nylon-6 (N-6) face fiber carpet, which it sold to Evergreen Nylon Recycling in Augusta, Georgia.

However, Evergreen shut down in September 2001 because, according to Recovery1 General Manager Terry Gillis, the facility could only process N-6 carpet. However, over the years, that material decreased in popularity in favor of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) fiber, which is manufactured from recycled bottles.

In 2003, Shaw Industries Group in Dalton, Georgia, purchased the Evergreen facility and reopened it. Recovery1 then began supplying the plant with baled N-6.

In 2007, Gillis says, Recovery1 began baling mixed plastic film and mixed rigid plastic for Asian markets and OCC for a local paper mill to recycle into linerboard.

The Harris baler was purchased used from a nearby nonferrous recycling facility, where it processed aluminum. But, with the Recovery1 crew’s “technical expertise,” Gillis says, it was reconditioned to meet the company’s carpet processing needs.

“Employees at Recovery1 have built most of the equipment we use to process C&D, and much of what we have purchased from equipment manufacturers has been modified by Recovery1 personnel to meet our specific needs,” Gillis says. “Having employees with the skills to fabricate equipment enables us to recondition equipment as well. The crew fabricates, maintains, repairs and rebuilds our equipment as needed,” he adds.

Though the baler was “much larger” than needed, Gillis says, it was a good opportunity to expand Recovery1’s capabilities. The machine baled N-6 carpet, Nylon-6.6 pad, OCC, mixed plastic film, mixed rigid plastic, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipe and PVC fencing and siding, he says

In 2011, Recovery1 bought the Walters baler to experiment with baling nylon fiber extracted from whole carpet.

In 2016, the company opened CP&R in Tacoma to focus on recycling carpeting and purchased the Lummus baler to capture face fiber extracted from whole carpet through two processes developed in-house. The company then shifted the Walters baler to processing mixed fiber.

Later in 2016, the CP&R plant rented the Max-Pak baler to bale carpet pad.

Recovery1 shut down the CP&R plant in the summer of 2017, Gillis says, because the value of postconsumer nylon had dropped significantly, along with the value of postconsumer PET. Regarding the closure, he says Recovery1 decided to simply “cut the losses and move on.”

The company is selling its Lummus and Walters balers and returned the Max-Pak baler to the rental firm.

While Broad Run Recycling has found success operating balers in its C&D recycling facility, Gillis is less optimistic about this application.

“Baling in a C&D plant gives the operator an opportunity to divert a portion of the materials coming in with commingled C&D debris into commodities that may have value in the marketplace. However, most of what is baled is plastic, and the plastic markets for materials extracted from mixed C&D range from poor to nonexistent,” Gillis says.

The author is the Recycling Today Media Group’s assistant editor and can be reached at hcrisan@gie.net. A version of this article appeared in the September/October 2017 issue of Construction & Demolition Recycling.

For years, workers at Evergreen Recyclers in Jackson, Tennessee, managed tasks during their 10-to-12-hour shifts mostly by hand. They would move piles of paper, physically scooping and loading them into dump hoppers and balers. Piles of scrap plastics were dumped onto sorting tables and separated by hand into grades.

Though the company automated some of its paper and plastic handling, some loads of scrap plastics still are dumped onto sorting tables and separated by grades as workers are well-informed of the various types.

While they were working to the best of their abilities, Evergreen Recyclers CEO Kevin Nolen says it was not an efficient way to go about business.

“We were doing it the best we could … [but], it was not a money-making deal at all,” Nolen says.

Considering his options, Nolen realized it was time to invest in equipment. His decision to purchase a new baler was twofold: to make operations more efficient and to grow the company.

Buy bigger and better

Nolen started Evergreen Recyclers in 2005. He had been working for a plastics recycling company for years and, after parting ways with that owner, he decided to open his own plastics recycling business.

Evergreen handles most grades of scrap plastics, though it concentrates primarily on polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE). The company collects postindustrial materials, including plastic drums, pallets and totes; plastic from the automotive industry; as well as plastics from injection molding and bottle manufacturing companies, from factories in the Southeast U.S. It separates, sorts and grinds this scrap, which is sold to reprocessors. Evergreen blends plastics to reach certain specifications and can repelletize plastics for customers, sending them back to the company. “Then they can build some of the reprocessed material back into their operations to keep waste numbers down and say that they’re recycling their product by reusing it,” Nolen says.

To better serve its customers, Evergreen also collects paper, mostly old corrugated containers (OCC), and bales it for recycling. It is this side of the business where Nolen says he sees growth opportunities for Evergreen.

“I had to make a decision,” he says. “It was to the point of where we’re going to have to stop on the paper where we are or grow that business. We decided we’ve got to take a step up and get the right kind of equipment for what we’re trying to accomplish.”

Nolen says Evergreen workers’ experience in handling paper helped in his decision to add a Maren ProPAK 2R210 two-ram baler from Maren Engineering, South Holland, Illinois, in November 2017. The company had been using smaller balers for years to prepare its OCC and scrap plastics for recycling. However, these balers required much manual labor and time. An advantage of the ProPAK is that it can switch from baling paper to plastics at the touch of a button, something Nolen says he does often.

“What I wanted to do is get the bigger baler and go after accounts that are big in cardboard and different types of paper and service them also,” Nolen says. “All these customers I have been doing paper for already, but I want to grow it and go after not only plastic customers but also paper.”

He says since the two-ram baler’s installation in November, moving paper through the facility has been much more productive and easier. “The paper coming through is being processed much quicker, so it’s freeing up trailers that we haul material on,” Nolen says.

Prior to the baler’s installation, Evergreen Recyclers took actions to help the company to prepare for new business.

Go with what you know

When Nolen began his search for a new baler seven months prior to its delivery in the fall, he asked around for recommendations. “Maren was a suggestion from a couple of them,” Nolen says.

Word of mouth worked. The day after Nolen reached out to Maren, Buddy Lane, a 19-year sales and service manager for HWI Equipment Inc., had driven from the company’s St. Louis headquarters to Evergreen’s Jackson facility. HWI Equipment is a woman-owned recycling equipment supplier and a Maren distributor.

Nolen says, “Buddy came down the next day to see my facility to see what requirements I would need. That meant a lot to me that he was there. He seemed to know what we were looking for and what he was doing.”

Once the two realized the ProPAK 2R210 two-ram baler would work best for Evergreen, Lane says he visited the plant again to determine where the baler would fit best in the facility’s footprint. He drew chalk lines on the floor to represent the baler. Nolen says Lane helped to figure out where on the floor the baler would be most efficient, requiring a reorganization of the setup.

“We had to move some things,” Nolen says. “Buddy helped me with that; he would suggest where to put the baler in the orientation of the baler and conveyor.”

While Lane says HWI typically takes care of much of the installation process—forming a pit, pouring additional concrete and ordering a crane if requested, among other options—Nolen took charge of those duties. Inside the warehouse, contracted workers cut the concrete out and poured a thicker floor that could withstand the new, larger baler. Outside, Evergreen had a concrete pad poured near loading docks. When it came time for the installation, Nolen paid for a crane service to unload the new equipment. Using the crane, workers set the baler in the doorway and rolled it into place, “making it a lot faster and easier for all,” Nolen says.

“Buddy would’ve done it, but we know the people here and felt like it would be better for us to take care of it on our own,” he says.

HWI handled transporting the baler and conveyor, using two trucks.

Lane says, “Everyone is different. Some say, ‘Do it all.’ And they pay for it in the price of the machine. It’s up to them.”

For Nolen, he says the decision to take on much of the prep work was simple: He knew professionals in his small town who could do the work.

“It worked out well for us with the fact that we know people in our area enough that if you didn’t know anyone and were completely at the [equipment supplier’s] mercy, then maybe not,” Nolen explains.

Word of mouth

Now that moving materials through Evergreen’s facility is easier and more productive, Nolen is looking ahead. The CEO says he is seeking new business and purposefully bought a baler bigger than the company currently needs.

“Now we need more paper recycling business because of the equipment I bought from Buddy,” he says. “It can handle more than what we’re doing now, but I’m in a position now where I can take on other customers where I couldn’t do that before.”

While word of mouth worked when it came to choosing the best machine for the job, time will tell if word of mouth can bring new business to the Jackson facility. Nolen is confident it will, saying, “We’ve been in the business quite a while, so word of mouth is big, and we provide a great service. We can compete with everyone now.”

The author is associate editor of Recycling Today and can be contacted via email at mworkman@gie.net.

The construction industry uses a significant amount of the metal produced or imported each year in the United States, whether in the form of steel beams and plates, aluminum extrusions, copper wiring or red metal plumbing pipes and fixtures.

Likewise, when buildings are demolished, the metal within them serves as a significant source of scrap that creates business relationships between demolition contractors and scrap recyclers so they each can profit from the harvested material.

When a demo project is large enough, those involved may need to consider bringing a baler onto the job site. In many other cases, scrap facility managers who know demo projects represent a major source of material will equip their yards properly to handle steel beams and other material stemming from the demolition process.

Portable prospects

Bringing a portable baler to a demolition site involves several expenses, so the decision to do so ordinarily is made only after determining the return on investment will be worthwhile, according to equipment suppliers.

Factors influencing the decision include the size and construction style of the building and how near or far it is from the yard of the intended scrap buyer. “The size and type of the building will determine the amount of recyclable material available, and the contractor must make the call on the impact of loose material freight versus baling or shearing on-site,” says Bob Pfeffer, a product manager with global equipment supplier Metso.

Therefore, large industrial buildings or complexes in remote locations can be candidates. “Examples are factories, mills, large building complexes and energy plants,” says Steve Weinberg, national sales and marketing director for Lefort America, Sunrise, Florida.

Referring to a large power plant demo job in Florida, Weinberg comments, “Due to the size and type of the job, a tremendous amount of steel scrap was generated, thus justifying the shearing and baling of material for larger returns and greater recovery revenue for every load sent.”

A portable machine that can be moved around the job site also offers benefits, says Weinberg, in that “you can bring the shear/baler unit to the material instead of moving the material to the machine, which many times cannot happen on difficult terrain.”

Another aspect of the decision is whether to purchase a piece of processing equipment, look for a way to lease or rent it or search for a specialty subcontracting firm that focuses on on-site scrap processing.

Curt Spry of Ottumwa, Iowa-based C&C Machining says fewer such specialty on-site baling companies are in the market now compared with a decade ago, but using one can sometimes be the right approach. “Commercial balers come in with an experienced operator and can usually complete the job very quickly.”

If a demo contracting firm determines its ongoing flow of work makes it worthwhile to purchase a baler or shear/baler, Pfeffer recommends such a firm start by talking to “a reputable equipment manufacturer that can provide capital costs as well as operating costs.” He adds, “A scrap processor also can assist in explaining any premiums [paid] for prepared scrap as compared to unprepared scrap.”

Cutting things down to size

Often with demo scrap, if the processing machinery won’t come to the job site, the contractor must determine which nearby scrap facility is the right one to ship and sell its scrap to during the project.

When a large industrial or commercial building is the target, a recycler equipped with stationary equipment that can chew through steel beams may be the right one.

Jeff Ham, who is based in Nashville, Tennessee, for Georgia-based Harris, says “a guillotine shear in the 1,000-ton range is a vital piece of equipment in a scrap yard” and is particularly well-suited for steel beams that comprise part of the plate and structural grade of ferrous scrap.

“This machine will process scrap at a much lower cost per ton than processing it through a shredder,” he says.

Ham says stationary shears provide advantages to operators compared with shredders. “The quality and condition of the knife blades, as well as the adjustment of them to maintain the proper knife gap, is the primary maintenance concern on a shear. Wear liners and normal hydraulics maintenance also are considerations.”

Not all shearing must take place off-site. Weinberg says “the portable type of attachable shears are available” for rent.

Pfeffer says, “If large steel beams and structures are included, the contractor may have to size this material with a mobile shear mounted on a material handler to be able to ship it.”

Equipped and ready

The importance of the link between demolition projects and the scrap industry has been long-lasting and continues to gain the attention of equipment suppliers. Metso says its new N-Series of transportable shear/baler/loggers and shears are designed for metal recycling companies that “operate on many sites or offer scrap processing as a service.”

In addition to Metso, Harris, Lefort and C&C, numerous other manufacturers are developing or upgrading their processing machinery to address this sector.

Sierra International Machinery, Bakersfield, California, has enjoyed significant market share in the sector for several decades. The company’s RB5000 portable baler/logger can process up to 22 tons per hour of “logged” scrap material. The company indicates its SLK shear/baler/logger line has been designed to offer “large shear production at a small price.”

Demo contractors considering investing in scrap processing equipment can receive advice by talking openly with their allies in the scrap recycling sector, Spry says. “I would suggest going to see a baler in operation at either an existing demo site or a nearby scrap yard that is processing material similar to what you would have at the demo site.”

To whatever extent they choose to cooperate on a given project, demo contractors and scrap processors each are likely to benefit as manufacturers compete to serve this critical sector.

The author is an editor with the Recycling Today Media Group and can be contacted at btaylor@gie.net.