Equipment Report

Nortech Waste, Machinex Partner on MRF

Northern California’s Placer County has been on a growth track, according to U.S. Census data, with its population growing by more than 30 percent between 2000 and 2008. That kind of growth also adds up to more municipal, residential and commercial waste.

Eric Oddo, senior civil engineer with the Western Placer Waste Management Authority (WPWMA), a regional agency providing waste disposal and recycling services for the county and several cities, says the MRF (materials recovery facility) owned by the WPWMA must be configured to meet California’s state-mandated recycling goals.

That means everything that comes to the site is processed, with recyclable materials—metal, plastic, many types of paper, glass, wood and yard and land clearing debris—diverted for processing and resale and non-recyclable items sent to the landfill for disposal.

The WPWMA facility began operating in 1995 as a "dirty MRF," with Nortech Waste LLC of Roseville, Calif., receiving a contract for its design, construction and subsequent operation.

By 2001, with the region growing rapidly and California’s enactment of Assembly Bill 939 mandating diversion of at least 50 percent of disposed material from landfills, a major expansion was deemed necessary. The project’s goals were to increase diversion by approximately 20 percent and to expand processing capacity from 1,000 tons of material per day to more than 2,000 tons.

The total price of the project was $26 million, which included engineering, building modifications, retrofitting of existing equipment and purchase of new equipment. The WPWMA was able to fund this amount without having to raise rates or issue bonds.

Nortech once again won the RFP and turned to Machinex, an established provider of MRF technology, to handle design and construction of the project’s municipal solid waste recycling facility. Based in Plessisville, Quebec, Canada, Machinex offers the integration of mechanical and optical sorting technologies.

What set this project apart from the rest was its advanced level of sophistication, says Paul Szura, Nortech’s general manager. He says it was a collaborative effort from the get-go, with Machinex staff using input from Nortech and the WPWMA to design a system that employed new screening technology. Machinex was able to produce a highly flexible design that incorporated features previously found most often only in clean MRFs, according to Oddo. "We all learned a lot," says Oddo, while Szura remarks that Machinex professionals "went above and beyond" to take the concept from drawing board to reality.

This is one of the first times that this combination of technologies has been used in the "dirty MRF" type of installation, says Oddo. "It definitely changed how we process waste," he says, adding, "and after viewing our system, other communities are beginning to reconsider their methods for sorting waste and achieving diversion."

The new MRF processing area and recyclables warehouse opened its doors in 2007 after a year of construction and six to eight months of equipment installation and testing.

Mid-Atlantic to Distribute Builtrite Line

Northshore Manufacturing, maker of Builtrite-brand, stationary electric material handlers, truck-mounted material handlers and attachments, has added Mid-Atlantic Waste Systems (MAWS) to its distributor network.

MAWS will cover Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Eastern Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey, handling Builtrite’s full line of products for the solid waste, scrap, utility and construction markets. MAWS has three sales and service centers in Maryland, two in Virginia and one in Pennsylvania.

"Due to the increased popularity of our equipment on the East Coast, it became imperative that we partnered with a distributor capable of furthering our sales efforts and providing a service center for our customers," says Wes Jones, national sales manager for Northshore. "We are very pleased to be partnering with a prestigious company like Mid-Atlantic Waste Systems."

Rich Hood, president and founder of MAWS, says, "The Builtrite brand is well known and well respected within the solid waste community. We feel this partnership will be not only a benefit to both companies, but also to our customer base. In addition, their extensive line of products for the scrap, utility and general construction sectors helps us diversify our business. We look forward to working with the Builtrite team."

More information on Builtrite products and Northshore Manufacturing, which is based in Two Harbors, Minn., can be found at www.builtritehandlers.com. Additional information on Mid-Atlantic Waste Systems can be found at www.mawaste.com.