Equipment Spotlight | JAN 2021 Conveyors

by MARY M. THORNTON

Organic material can be recycled into soil amendments like compost, mulch and liquid fertilizers, as well as biofuel – a renewable natural gas. This helps to keep valuable materials out of landfills. About 30 percent of what we usually throw away is organic, including food scraps and food-soiled paper products. Specialized recycling facilities use an array of equipment to process these materials. Conveyors are often among the equipment involved, as they are a robust and versatile method of transporting large amounts of bulk material.

Since 1972, Action Equipment Company has been designing and manufacturing vibratory conveyors, feeders and screeners for the wood products and recycling industries. Action’s complete line of heavy duty vibratory conveyors is custom designed by dedicated engineers to perform in the toughest of environments. Action’s vibratory conveyors are efficient machines for feeding a variety of process equipment like chippers, hogs, grinders, and shredders. Custom spouts can be made to fit all of the aforementioned equipment to eliminate spillage at the transfer point.

“Every unit we manufacture is specifically designed with the customers’ needs in mind. Conveyors are sized per application to fit the quantity of material being handled, incorporate material processing needs, and to fit the space available for the equipment,” explained Jai Cook, sales vice president. He also described how the trough design of their equipment conveyance surface allows units to carry bulk materials without spillage. The trough also allows for the incorporation of screens, magnetic traps, fiberglass sections for metal detection, dividers for product separation, fins for orientation, and nonferrous sections for overhead magnetic separators, hooding, and many more customizable options. Made in America, conveyors can also be balanced and isolated to eliminate vibration in the floor and surrounding equipment. Run off a single electric motor, the vibratory conveyor is energy efficient and has very low maintenance.

Andela Products offers pulverizers, crushers, trommel screens and conveyors, along with stands, supports/platforms, electrical controls and magnets. All items can be integrated for use as part of a complete system. “We provide solutions, not just equipment,” stated Cynthia Andela, president. “Our unique technology will selectively reduce glass, ceramics, gypsum board and compost overs into fine products. Via the trommel screen, the plastics, paper and metals in their original form are separated from the finer material. Andela’s flexible and purpose driven design for recycling equipment includes durability and ease of maintenance. If you need a reasonable price on a durable conveyor that will last in an abrasive, wet, and corrosive environment, we can provide you with equipment designed for your unique operations and products. We provide conveyors as an integral part, sold individually or as part of a complete system with processing capacities ranging from 1 ton per hour to 20 tons per hour.”

Andela noted that the recycling industry continuously strives to process materials that often are still also sent to a landfill, when instead those materials could be used to make products that could be beneficial to communities. As an example, compost can be an important soil amendment because it can be combined with recycled glass sand to make an organics-based blended soil. Glass sand is produced by Andela glass pulverizer systems and can add angular, hard, high-filtration rate “sand” to compost. “We provide solutions for the waste glass and organics industries. We’ve manufactured recycling equipment for over 25 years here in America and we offer parts and service as well,” Andela said.

Redwave, a plant builder for the recycling and mining industries, manufactures acceleration conveyors for sensor based sorting systems. “We offer a line of troughed (MGF), sliding belt (GGF) and chain belt (KGF) conveyors for material handling tasks throughout an entire recycling plant. Depending on the material to be conveyed and the application, our conveyors can carry anywhere from a few hundred pounds to over 40 tons per hour and can be supplied in lengths of over 170 ft. long. As a recycling plant builder, we are able to design and build conveyors to accommodate existing plant space constraints using modular construction, which also provides flexibility for future changes in recycling processes. This results in a significant reduction of a plant footprint. Our experience in plant design enables us to provide the best possible system for efficient and trouble free operation. As a service provider for customer plant maintenance, we appreciate the need for equipment with a high degree of ease of maintenance. Removable cladding panels, under belt guards and auto lubrication systems are just a few of the elements we incorporate to achieve this goal,” said Parker Pruett, sales manager.

Pruett continued, “With the uncertain nature of recycled commodities pricing, equipment cost is always key to customer needs. However, total cost of ownership is ultimately the most important value. Most recycling companies expect equipment to have a usable service life of 10 to 20 years. To achieve this, equipment must withstand the challenging environment of recycling facilities. Heavy duty belting, stainless steel slider beds and frames engineered for high torsional rigidity provide long lasting operation with minimum maintenance.

Our latest conveyor developments are focused on integrating our AI platform Redwave Mate, to optimize performance in customer plants. Additional sensors for our Mate AI suite are integrated in slider bed conveyors for real-time scanning of conveyed materials to monitor and adjust sorting, based on changes in input materials. Durability, innovation and ease of use should all be considered when choosing conveying equipment for your plant and at Redwave, we believe in technological advancement through progress for every element in the modern recycling system.”

Published in the January 2021 Edition