Silver Dollar Gets Back to Shredding

Silver Dollar Recycling, North Las Vegas, Nev., has revved up production on its newly-installed 98/115 shredder built by the Harris Shredder Division.

The metals shredder, the second U.S. shredder plant made by Harris, Peachtree City, Ga., has been operating from seven to 10 hours per day to begin chewing through inventory collected throughout the summer. The motor on Silver Dollar’s previous shredder, a Newell Industries plant, gave out in June.

“The machine has been fantastic,” says Jim Brewer, operations manager of Silver Dollar Recycling. Brewer has been impressed with the quietness of the plant and the innovative design of the reject door, which allows unshreddables to be rejected quickly, before any damage is done and with almost no blocking of material flow through the plant.

The company is running a variety of material through the plant, with auto bodies making up about 50 percent of what is shredded, according to Brewer.

Shredder operator Cindy Jo Gorman says the controls have been easy to learn, and that the plant offers good monitoring capabilities in the control room. “The ferrous tonnage is measured on the outgoing belt. You can see the hourly output rate, as well as daily, weekly or monthly tonnage totals,” says Gorman.

Jim Stepanek, shredder manager for Harris, is confident Silver Dollar will get a long life span from the shredder, with key parts designed to resist critical failure. “I think heavy-duty is the key thought in the design of this plant,” says Stepanek. “We’ve used large castings to absorb the shock and for a longer life. The sideliners are made large to protect the end disk, the bolts are designed for longer wear life, and the bonnet is made of T1 material—it could last as long as the shredder itself.”