Landfill space in Ontario is limited – no new landfills have opened in the past 20 years. This gives municipalities a powerful incentive to reduce the amount of waste they generate.
The City of Hamilton has been doing just that since 2006, when it began composting organic waste. The facility there accepts waste from the City of Hamilton, City of Waterloo, Region of Halton and County of Simcoe, serving 20 percent of the population of Ontario. All together, it processes well over 60,000 metric tons of organic waste per year.
According to the City, two Komptech machines are very important parts of their operations – a Terminator 5000 shredder and a Multistar 3SE star screen.
The Terminator works at the beginning of the process chain, shredding waste to seven-inch minus and breaking open bags and containers. This step is important, the City says, not just for size reduction, but also to expose organic material to air and bacteria so it composts fully and evenly.
According to Komptech, the Terminator’s low speed, high-torque design is important because it means that contraries don’t cause major stoppages and breakdowns. If the machine encounters an object it wasn’t designed for – a piece of metal for example – it gently stops, instead of crashing to a halt with attendant damage, like a high-speed shredder would. This means much lower maintenance costs.
Currently, Hamilton says their 5000 machine is at 7,500+ operating hours with no major component replacement. Hamilton’s facility operator, AIM Environmental Group, says they have also found that the Terminator has much higher efficiency than the high speed shredders it has used previously, giving four times the throughput with less than half the power consumption. After composting, material goes to a Komptech Multistar 3SE star screen, which removes foreign objects and debris.
AIM says they are very happy with the Multistar 3SE’s high throughput of 160 cubic yards per hour, and its flexibility. It can handle wet or dry material without problems, and operators can change the output grade by simply pressing a button.
The finished compost is sold to area farms, where it is in high demand. Currently, Hamilton and surrounding municipalities are diverting approximately half their waste from landfills. The operation in Hamilton is also dealing with food scraps by converting them into agricultural compost.
Meanwhile, Komptech says nearby Guelph, Ontario is in the process of commissioning its own composting plant, with a planned capacity of 30,000 metric tons per year. Like Hamilton, the Guelph plant will make use of Komptech machines – a Terminator shredder and Multistar 3SE star screen, as well as a Topturn compost turner.
