American Disposal turns "ballistic" with first recycling processing facility

Though American Disposal Services of Manassas, Virginia, has been a waste and Single Stream recycling collection hauler since 2000, they had been taking their recyclable material to another material recovery facility for processing.

The company chose to strategically wait until this year to open their own recycling processing facility; understanding their investment would allow them (rather than others) to capitalize on the material they collected.   

The family-owned company chose Machinex to build their first recycling processing facility; a system designed to process 30 TPH single-stream recyclables with an annual tonnage around 70,000.  

According to Kevin Edwards, General Manager at American Disposal Services, “Machinex was chosen to provide our first recycling system because they offered everything our company was looking for in a system”.

Edwards added that Machinex also has an accommodating and personable sales and engineering support team that worked closely with them to design their system.  

“Machinex seemed to be a growing and stable company that would be able to continue to provide services for American in the future,” said Edwards.

One of the biggest challenges in working on this project was the narrow building. While over 300 feet in length, the building is only 55 feet wide.

"In order to achieve and build the proper system for American Disposal, Machinex had to innovate and challenge existing technologies by combining equipment such as: OCC Screen/ Scalping Screen/ Fines Screen; Dual eject optical unit; one of the biggest and most efficient ONP Screen available on the market and other innovative features." said Rusty Angel, Southeast Sales Manager at Machinex.

The system includes an OCC screen, Mach News screen, a Mach Ballistic separator, two optical sorters for HDPE, PET and tetra-pak, complete fibers and containers sorting lines including magnets, plastic bags vacuum system, eddy current, etc.  It also features both a single ram and 2-ram baler all in that same building. Furthermore, the platform is completely accessible from every workstation.  

American Disposal was intrigued by the MACH Ballistic separator in place of the traditional finishing screen for some factors.  First, the ballistic has no rubber discs to replace.  The ballistic separator also has no exposed shafts on which plastic bags can get wrapped around, causing inefficient screening and downtime due to cleaning.      

“American Disposal has had a very good experience working with Machinex." concluded Edwards. "The sales, design, and start-up teams have all been very accommodating, easy to work with and relate to. Everyone has been very responsive in answering any questions and if the answer was not immediately known, the Machinex member quickly tracked down the answer for American. Everyone was on the ball and made sure that the process ran smoothly and successfully.”