Garden Street’s customized Eriez Brute Force feeder reduces downtime and maintenance costs.

Garden Street Iron & Metal Recycling was a family-owned and operated scrap processor headquartered in Cincinnati. The company is known for its early adoption of new scrap metal processing equipment and for incorporating the latest in scrap recycling technology.

“Utilizing the most advanced technologies has been an objective since our company’s founding more than 50 years ago,” says Tyler Weber, Cincinnati operations manager and grandson of Earl Weber, one of the company’s founders. “A lot of our new technology has come to us through our strong partnership with Eriez, a supplier who has provided us powerful magnetic separators, feeders and other next-generation equipment.”

As the company has many times in the past, Garden Street came to Eriez recently for a customized solution to a problem that plagued the operation for years. More than 140 tons of steel per hour pass over the company’s ferrous stacking conveyor systems, causing a good deal of wear and tear. The impact of this high volume of ferrous scrap dropping onto the stacking belt causes rips and tears in the belt and requires considerable maintenance on a regular basis that ranges from patching to more involved repairs. Ahead of the conveyor are two 96-inch Eriez P-Rex Rare Earth Scrap Drums and an Eriez PokerSort Separator.

Garden Street tracked the annual maintenance costs connected to the stacking conveyor belts and discovered that, annually, the company was replacing $5,000 worth of conveyor belts, taking three or four employees away from other assignments for a day and often shutting down the shredder.

“That’s an expensive problem to face every year,” Weber says. “On top of that, our head-tail pulleys needed to be replaced every two years, which was another $2,000 expense.”

He adds, “We needed to change the conveyor belt again at the beginning of 2021. Almost immediately, we saw holes and tears appearing in the belts after installation. We started to patch the belt as we have always done, but decided in March we had to take action, so we turned to Mike Shattuck, our primary contact at Eriez.”

Shattuck is Eriez market manager for Metal Recycling. He says, “Our team considered the Brute Force (BF) Feeder right from the start because it is ideal for high-impact applications. In this case, iron and scrap from one belt were being fed to a second belt.” He adds, “This application was particularly challenging as we had limited workspace.”

As the design team moved forward, the BF Feeder still seemed to be the right choice to satisfy Garden Street’s needs. Shattuck says, “We knew the feeder would take the beating, handle more than 200 tons per hour and pass the ferrous gently onto the stacking conveyor.”

Eriez Product Manager of Vibratory Screening Rob Yandrick was on the design team. “The abrasion-resistant steel tray we installed is unique,” he says. “This was a tight spot—48 inches by 46 inches by 6 inches—so a unique tray geometry was required to fit the existing layout. In fact, we designed the overhead drive to keep the motors up and out of way.”  

According to Eriez, the tray is wider at the rear to ensure that the material from the infeed conveyor belt is captured and that nothing falls on the ground. It narrows at the discharge to help ensure there is no spillage as the ferrous lands on the stacker conveyor belt.

“The BF Feeder stands up to the demanding application and lays down the material on the next belt. The feeder takes the hit and smoothly moves the ferrous forward,” Yandrick says.

He adds that the tray has replaceable wear liners to help provide years of equipment life.

Since the installation of its Brute Force Feeder, Garden Street has experienced the elimination of costly repairs, unscheduled maintenance and interruptions to its shredder’s operation.

Weber says, “We have not experienced any piercing of our stacker conveyor belt for more than a month. The shaker system really works well. And, we know if there are problems, Eriez will be there to provide the service and spare parts we need. We used competitive equipment at one time but we could never get service. We took out their equipment and replaced it with Eriez.”

Based on its observations from operating the unit throughout most of 2021, Garden Street expects this new feeder will increase belt longevity, decrease the cost of maintenance and reduce the chance of downtime, Weber says.

This case study was submitted on behalf of Eriez by Stevens Strategic Communications Inc., Westlake, Ohio.

The relocation follows the sale of the company's ferrous scrap processing operations.

MetalX has moved its corporate headquarters to a new location in Fort Wayne, Indiana, following the completion of BlueScope’s acquisition of the scrap company’s ferrous business Dec.17. Company offices previously were in Waterloo, Indiana, one of two locations the company sold to BlueScope. 

According to a news release, MetalX has secured a long-term lease on the north side of Fort Wayne in the Dupont Office Center at 9910 Dupont Circle Dr. East in Suite 200. Almost 50 people have moved into the new offices, which will be the center for all corporate activities as well as the company’s commercial management and staff.

A spokesperson for the company says, “We had been working on a new Auburn (Indiana) location, but when that fell through, we concluded that Fort Wayne was actually a better option for our new headquarters, especially when considering our nonferrous growth strategy.”

The company’s main phone number, all direct phone numbers and email addresses remain unchanged.

The aluminum recycler donates $100,000 through its “Giving Together” program.

Aluminum recycler Spectro Alloys, Rosemount, Minnesota, has announced $100,000 in donations to 20 Minnesota nonprofits this holiday season as part of its annual “Giving Together” program.

Recipients were selected by Spectro Alloys team members and range from smaller charities that serve Dakota County to larger ones that serve the entire state. Many Spectro employees also are making personal donations or volunteering with these organizations this holiday season:

“It is our responsibility to be a good neighbor,” Spectro Alloys President Luke Palen says. “We love closing out the year with the ‘Giving Together’ program because it reminds us of the many organizations that work hard each day to make our community stronger and helps us support the causes our team members care about.”

Through the partnership, the two companies aim to protect the environment, conserve natural resources and support the communities in which they work.

Kyocera Communications Equipment Group, San Diego, has teamed up with Big Sky Recycling, Portland, Oregon, in a joint effort to expand the company’s existing cellphone recycling program, which was launched in 2015.

As stated in a press release, the two companies aim to protect the environment, conserve natural resources and support the communities in which they work.

Since beginning business in 1959, Kyocera says it has embraced the principle of "harmonious coexistence," meaning the company does what's right for the environment and their communities. To this day, Kyocera says it continues to “take a careful look at what they do, how they do it, and who they entrust to work with.” These values are what ultimately led Kyocera to partner with Big Sky Recycling.

Through the program, each cellphone that is donated will be erased, properly recycled and help support those in need. By harnessing the power of donated cell phones, Big Sky Recycling says it is dedicated to reducing e-waste and using profits to support environmental, humanitarian and military nonprofits.

For more information about the Kyocera Take Back program, visit www.kyoceramobile.com/sustainability. 

Mars Petcare Sheba brand to use certified circular PP from SABIC’s Trucircle portfolio.

SABIC, Mars Petcare and Huhtamaki have announced that their collaboration in pet food packaging using certified circular polypropylene (PP) from SABIC’s Trucircle portfolio has been expanded to the Sheba brand. Mars Petcare, part of Mars Inc., McClean, Virginia, has adopted a flexible film structure with SABIC PP BCT18F impact copolymer for retort pouches that are used to package Sheba wet food. The multilayer film is manufactured by Finnish company Huhtamaki.

“We are very pleased about the ongoing strategic efforts with Mars and Huhtamaki,” says Lada Kurelec, of SABIC. “The transformation of the industry towards a circular economy requires unprecedented innovation and intensive collaboration across the value chain. Together, we have set another milestone on this exciting journey.”

“Over the past year, we have been closely working with SABIC and Huhtamaki, continually testing and learning and scaling up the recycled plastic content in our pet food packs,” says Barry Parkin, chief procurement and sustainability officer at Mars Inc. “As part of our Sustainable in a Generation plan, we are committed to doing our part to help drive a circular economy, which includes redesigning our packages for circularity. The fact that we are now able to introduce recycled content into our Sheba pouches helps us accelerate our journey to achieve 30 percent average recycled content in our plastic packaging and to reduce by 25 percent our use of virgin plastic.”

In November 2020, Mars Inc. announced its goal to introduce food-safe recycled content PP into its pet food packaging.

The companies say one of the most critical issues to overcome for the joint development team were the technical challenges involved in receiving approval for the complex new packaging structure. Wet food retort packaging is associated with demanding thermal processing conditions to ensure the highest food quality and help Mars Petcare achieve its purpose of creating a better world for pets. By using material from a recycled source under the International Sustainability & Carbon Certification (ISCC) PLUS program, it proves that under even the most challenging of packaging processed, recycled content can be safe and a reality for the future, the partners say.

Marco Hilty, president of Huhtamaki’s Flexible Packaging business segment, says, “Successfully processing recycled polymers into high-quality, easy-tear films for wet retort packaging at an industrial scale is a significant milestone in delivering on our ambition to have more than 80 percent of our raw materials renewable or recycled. This is important for consumers and in line with our ambitious 2030 strategy.”

Huhtamaki uses the certified circular polymer as a phthalate-free and gel-controlled film layer, which lends the flexible pouches high impact strength and puncture resistance even at low temperatures down to negative 20 C. For wet food packaging, the pouches must also be capable of withstanding a retort temperature of 135 C for 60 minutes. Even higher thermal  resistance of up to 160 C might be needed in freezer-to-oven applications.