Iowa MRF Adds Metals System to Boost Recovery Levels

The city of Ames, Iowa, announced that it has recently installed a non-ferrous metal recovery system at its Arnold Chantland Resource Recovery Plant to pull more metals out of the solid waste stream.

“We believe this new equipment will allow us to collect more than 150 tons of non-ferrous metal annually, keep it out of the landfill, and recycle it while generating revenue,” said Gary Freel, Resource Recovery Plant assistant superintendent.

The recovery plant was built in 1975, and was the first municipally operated waste-to-energy facility in the nation. Previous to the addition of the new equipment, the facility used magnets to extract ferrous metals.

However, the company installed a system that includes eddy current technology, which separates non-ferrous metals. Aluminum, copper, brass, stainless steel and other valuable metals are diverted from the waste stream and captured for recycling.

The equipment purchased is a Steinert eddy current 40-inch system with an Induction Sorting System (ISS). The system is presently working, although a spokesman for the county says that at the present time they are tweaking the ISS system.

The advantage of the system is that while many sorting lines may take up a significant amount of space, the system that the county had installed took up far less space, making it an effective system for the recovery facility.e

Michael Sopchak, Western U.S. regional sales manager for Steinert, notes that the system installed is a modular design that uses a cascading design, with the eddy current stacked on top of the ISS for more effective sorting of the different types of nonferrous metal.

While the county looked at a host of vendors to supply the equipment to the plant, they chose the Steinert system due to the relative simple maintenance and ease of the system.

The system is expected to cost $1.1 million to purchase and install. The county, which had looked at purchasing a system for several years, expects to to see the payback for the purchase within four years.

“This new system could present an annual revenue stream of more than $100,000,” said Freel. “This does not include cost savings on transportation and landfill disposal of this material.”