Next generation recycling plants

Through its nearly four decades of service to the North American recycling industry, Van Dyk Recycling Solutions continuously has been driven by its customers to set new standards in material recovery facility (MRF) performance.

With the current wave of plants being installed and those recently commissioned, Van Dyk has crossed the precipice into the next generation of recycling plants.

The plants have moved away from the traditional approach predicated on inclined screens and human pickers, instead relying upon the precision and consistency of properly deployed equipment. These highly automated facilities expertly combine sizing technology, heavy-duty non-wrapping screens, elliptical separators and the latest in optical sorting advancements.

There was a time when the ratio of tons processed to manual sorters at a MRF was 1:1. Van Dyk’s newly designed plants hit ratios of 5 tons processed to every 1 manual sorter. Van Dyk’s learned knowledge of how to achieve this level of automation is what makes their systems truly “next-generation.”

Not only does the automated nature of these designs reduce labor counts, it is fundamental to the MRF’s ability to respond to future market changes. The All American MRF operated by Murphy Road Recycling LLC separates fiber grades via automated sorting tasks. The tasks can be reprogrammed instantly if percentages in grades fluctuate. Different fiber recipes can be blended to meet the demands of diverse fiber end markets.

In the WM Westside MRF serving Houston, recovered fiber recently passed several tests for purity and lack of contamination.

“Optical sorters have really advanced and are extremely cost-effective when you consider their productivity—the amount of materials we’re able to process per minute—and the accuracy of what we’re able to capture,” says Mike Lunow, area recycling operations manager for WM.

“By investing in an aggressive optical package for the All American MRF, we are minimizing labor while maximizing recovery,” says Frank M. Antonacci, chief operating officer, Murphy Road Recycling. “The advanced opticals also allow us to capture materials like black PP [polypropylene]. This increases diversion while capturing those valuable materials.”

The WM Westside plant leverages 14 optical sorters, while the All American MRF has 11. Van Dyk designed these plants around its customers’ specifications and to deliver maximum recovery and material quality while minimizing labor expense.

The All American MRF operated by Murphy Road Recycling was named the 2023 Recycling Facility of the Year by the National Waste & Recycling Association. As with WM’s Westside MRF, the facility has tremendous flexibility to recover different materials based upon inbound material composition and markets for recyclables.

In a world characterized by challenging labor markets, continually fluctuating inbound material composition and rapidly changing end markets, the next-generation recycling plants Van Dyk is building for its customers offer a level of flexibility, productivity and recovery that is unique to the industry and tremendously valuable to plant operators.

Real-world performance

Real results in Van Dyk’s latest highly automated MRFs:

• Throughputs range from 30-55 tph
• 5 tons processed for every manual sorter
• Total number of optical sorters ranges from 11-15
• Fiber quality very close to specifications for ISRI grades Nos. 54 and 56
• Recovery and purity rates for plastics and metals exceed 98%

Opticals

Advanced sorting: AI and opticals

Over the years, quality and purity requirements for recovered materials have increased. At the same time, production requirements have grown. Van Dyk Recycling Solutions has met this dual challenge by supplying the right optical and artificial intelligence (AI) sorting solutions for its customers.

As an independent systems integrator, Van Dyk partners with the top two optical sorter brands in the world. They are both pioneers in integrating near-infrared (NIR) with deep-learning AI to advance materials sorting. By working closely with its customers to understand their needs, Van Dyk customizes the solution that will achieve their goals in the most cost-effective manner possible.

Performance through integration

“Optical sorters have become far more stable machines over the years,” says Alex Wolf, director of technology, Van Dyk Recycling Solutions. "This means that they are easier for our customers to operate and maintain. But it’s also part of the reason they have become the workhorse in a modern material recovery facility [MRF].”

“Optical sorters can process thousands of effective picks per minute,” says Florian Eenkema van Dijk, sales specialist at Van Dyk. “The integration of laser object detection and AI gives the units advanced capabilities to sort even the toughest materials, such as black polypropylene [PP].”

The truth about AI, however, is that it takes time to learn. No matter how good the technology is, it needs to understand what it is sorting. “AI needs to be taught what the various materials and packaging are,” Wolf says. “So, this is why you only want to apply AI where it offers a real advantage.”

By tailoring the integration of optical sorters into its plant designs, Van Dyk optimizes material recovery and purity while ensuring maximum productivity in the plant.

“As an early adopter of optical sorters in plant design, Van Dyk has long understood the benefits they provide. Today’s enhanced units provide the data to validate that while also being far easier for our customers to operate,” Eenkema van Dijk says.

“Leveraging the full capabilities of an optical sorter, like any sorting technology, requires that the unit has materials presented to it in the best manner possible. Our designs do that. It’s not just a matter of throwing in another optical, it’s about integrating the unit to ensure it meets the customer’s requirements,” Wolf says.

The power of learning

“AI offers real advantages,” Wolf continues. “We are applying it in an increased number of applications.”

Because AI takes time to learn, however, Van Dyk offers a way to jump-start that process by pretesting material at its Norwalk, Connecticut, test facility.

By supplying samples of materials that will be processed by a given machine, the Van Dyk team can preprocess that material and give the AI a head start in learning the variations that exist within a company’s specific stream. This does not mean no learning will be required after installation, but it can reduce the learning curve.

“Because we have more opticals going into the average MRF and because they are being applied in other recycling plants, such as plastics recovery facilities [PRFs] and even C&D plants, we take great pains to ensure we are using the right unit with the proper programming for our customer. We do not believe that one machine does it all, that’s where our independence as a systems integrator working with multiple partners helps us ensure the best application for our customers,” Wolf says.

As plant operators work to reduce the need for manual sorting and strive to increase their throughput and material purity, optical sorters and AI will play important roles. Through decades of experience, Van Dyk Recycling Solutions has learned how to leverage these technologies for the benefit of the company’s customers.

Smicon

Diverting organics

Across the country, government agencies, waste management companies and a range of private enterprises are exploring the best methodologies to divert organic waste from landfills.

As a proven supplier of recycling and waste material processing solutions, the team at Van Dyk Recycling Solutions increasingly has been faced with the question of how to effectively divert these streams. Through its global network of machinery and technology providers, Van Dyk has developed solutions that deliver superior results with the lowest possible operating costs.

When beginning to process organics, one of the initial considerations operators must evaluate is the type and source of material. Generally, there are two: residential or commercial. Residential typically consists of green waste mixed with food waste, while commercial streams tend to consist of material that requires depackaging, such as frozen foods, canned goods, milk, eggs, bakery items and more.

Van Dyk has developed effective approaches for both streams. Below, perhaps the more challenging stream—commercial—is the focus.

First steps

To meet the challenge of diverting commercial streams of organic food waste, the vital first step is liberating the material from its packaging.

“We have learned that there are many operational challenges in processing source-separated food waste,” says Wilfred Poiesz, vice president, Western Region at Van Dyk. “Collection programs are diverse, and materials are received from commercial accounts in various types of bins, gaylords, pallets, roll-offs or garbage trucks.”

A standard depacker and above-ground elevated feed hopper typically are not good matches for these material streams. The smaller feed hoppers, which need to be fed by loaders, are not ideal for gaylord box tipping and other bulk feeding.

To overcome these challenges and allow for smooth and consistent feeding to achieve maximum throughput, the bulk feed hopper design on the Smicon solution allows seamless push-in feeding that promotes some preprocess mixing, thawing of frozen materials and the ability to hold bulk storage prior to high-throughput production through the depacker.

“The system easily handles materials with high and low solids. The unique shaftless screw conveyors, which are integral to the system, blend these streams in Smicon’s bulk feed hopper system,” says Maarten Eenkema van Dijk, operations manager at Van Dyk. “The proprietary screw design is highly effective at moving solids and liquids together, ensuring both move into the depacker uniformly. This helps to maintain an optimal organics slurry blend.”

The system is designed with flexible hammers that gently break down tough material, such as bulk packaging, frozen meats, frozen melons or commercial grade food tubs and cans. A large diameter, long processing chamber provides ample residence time to optimize liberation and recovery.

Output streams

After the infeed material enters the depacker, two streams emerge: the packaging and the organics slurry. The packaging is conveyed easily via a traditional conveyor. The slurry is pumped for storage.

The clean organics slurry produced by the Smicon system is ideal feedstock for anaerobic digesters, which produce renewable natural gas (RNG). It also finds markets as animal feed.

These systems can process in excess of 20 tons per hour while producing an organics slurry that is 99.5 percent clean of contamination.

Tested, proven and totally reliable, the Smicon organics recovery solution from Van Dyk will deliver years of dependable service. Learn more by talking with your Van Dyk Recycling Solutions representative.

Smart systems

Leveraging data to minimize downtime and provide critical insights

As the leading recycling plant systems integrator in North America, Van Dyk Recycling Solutions has continued to work with its equipment partners as well as third-party technology providers to deliver superior production and reliability.

As the internet of things (IoT) continues to develop, Van Dyk is leveraging this power to develop a suite of tools that allows it to provide customers with enhanced up-time reliability as well as a wealth of performance data.

Remote system monitoring

Through its remote system monitoring service, Van Dyk can evaluate a system’s performance to ensure it is being optimized. Importantly, this monitoring service, Van Dyk Connect, can be combined with tools like Van Dyk Vision.

In the instance of a problem developing, remote technicians can log-in to diagnose the source of the issue. “Often times our technicians can address the issue remotely and correct it on the fly,” says Maarten Eenkema van Dijk. “This helps our customers avoid extended downtime or the need for a service call.”

Should the issue require more advanced diagnosis, Van Dyk Vision allows one of the customer’s technicians to don a headset with an integrated camera that allows technical information to be shared via the lens, and a remote Van Dyk technician can see exactly what they are seeing.

“This system aids in trouble shooting a wide range of issues,” says Alex Wolf, director of technology at Van Dyk Recycling Solutions.

This allows Van Dyk customers to do more advanced troubleshooting that might otherwise cause the system to go down or necessitate a service call.

Performance reporting

Through an entirely new service, Van Dyk Reporting, system operators have a dashboard that provides a wide range of operational and performance data.

“This is far more advanced than SCADA [supervisory control and data acquisition] data that many operators are used to,” Wolf says. “It provides deep intelligence into your system’s performance, tons processed, the number of bales made by material, operational downtime, equipment downtime and more.”

The baler reporting, for instance, provides detailed reports of how many bales were produced during a given shift, specifically what grades and in what volumes. It also details the total production time as well as the idling time for the baler.

The dashboard reporting can be for a shift just completed, for an entire day, week or month. It allows operators to know a lot more about what is happening at their plants. Because it can be accessed anywhere, the dashboard is a very valuable tool for those responsible for multiple plant locations.

Van Dyk University

Training not available elsewhere

Van Dyk Recycling Solutions made an industry-leading investment in and commitment to training in 2016 when it opened Van Dyk University.

Designed to help educate customers on the ever-evolving technology in modern MRFs, coursework includes electrical, mechanical and hydraulic systems. Troubleshooting and maintenance always are part of the curriculum.

Courses include:

• Baler: Bollegraaf HBC Series;
• Tomra: Autosort; and
• Pellenc: Mistral+.

As material recovery facilities and downstream processing operations become increasingly automated and sophisticated, understanding the technology and maintaining the equipment are vital.

Classrooms are located right next to the company’s 19,000-square-foot material test center, which allows participants to benefit from classroom and hands-on education.