Monterey Regional Waste Management District starts up new MRF

The Monterey Regional Waste Management District (MRWMD) has started up its new material recovery facility (MRF), which features equipment supplied by Bulk Handling Systems (BHS), Eugene, Oregon. THE MRWMD serves an 853-square-mile area and nine member agencies in western coastal Monterey County.

The recovery system processes up to 80 tons per hour (tph) on two lines, BHS says. The multimaterial line processes 30 tph of commercial and residential single-stream recyclables or 40 tph of commercial mixed materials, while the construction and demolition line handles 40 tph. The $24 million project occupies 100,000 square feet of the district’s campus, which also includes the country’s first Smartferm anaerobic digestion (AD) system, which was installed in 2013, BHS says.

“This system is a key component supporting our mission of ‘Turning Waste into Resources,’” says District General Manager Tim Flanagan.

This first-of-its-kind system on California’s Central Coast will help the regional building industry comply with the CalGreen 65 percent diversion mandate for new construction, he continues. “It will also provide the incremental diversion necessary for our community to meet the state 75 percent recycling goal by 2020.”

Flanagan adds, “We’re very proud of what we’ve achieved and hope the community is equally excited to see firsthand the new world-class technology that makes ‘MRF 2.0’ special.”

The mixture of materials that enters recycling systems continues to increase in diversity while also becoming less predictable. To recover the maximum amount of materials, this system is built for flexible and effective processing, BHS says. The recycling line features BHS bag breaking and screen technology to present liberated and consistently sized fractions to Nihot single-drum separators, which remove contamination from the fiber and container streams. To ensure recovery of high-quality paper, an NRT FiberPure optical sorter positively sorts either plastic film or paper, depending on the material stream and the operator’s discretion. NRT’s patented In-Flight Sorting technology is employed to recover various types of plastics, production decisions that the operator can change based on marketability, the equipment supplier says.

All recyclables are baled with a Kadant PAAL Konti baler. PAAL balers are Europe’s market leader and were introduced to North America last year through an exclusive partnership with BHS.

“The MRWMD has been a longtime partner to BHS, and we are honored to have once again delivered a state-of-the-art solution,” says BHS CEO Steve Miller. “Processing 80 tons per hour is an achievement for any operator, but the district really stands out in its deep commitment to high levels of both recovery and product quality. Their leadership has committed to the technology necessary to achieve their desired results as they continue on their path to a zero waste future.”

Wholly owned subsidiaries of BHS include Nihot, NRT and Zero Waste Energy. BHS is also the home of Max-AI technology, a form of artificial intelligence that identifies materials, makes intelligent decisions and directs equipment such as robotic sorters, BHS says.