Stepping things up: with price and demand for secondary commodities increasing, MRF operators are seeking ways to improve their operations.

The business of siting and operating material recovery facilities (MRFs) can often be a challenge. With pressure from states and municipalities to maximize their recovery levels, most notably California's Assembly Bill 939, which mandates that local jurisdictions in the state achieve a 50 percent diversion goal by 2000, many communities are seeking help from expanded collection programs and high-performance MRFs.

Many cities are finding the least restrictive way to meet these levels is to ship greater amounts of recyclables to MRFs, increasing the volume and diversity of incoming material.

PLANNING FOR GROWTH. When a company is looking to build a MRF, a primary consideration is the importance of ensuring that the facility will meet the expectations of the community, not only in the present, but in the future, as well.

Mick Barry, president of Mid America Recycling, a Des Moines, Iowa-based company that operates a number of MRFs in the Midwest, notes that when his company looks to open a MRF, it factors in expectations of population growth and demographic information for the area.

Harvey Gershman, president of Gershman, Brickner & Bratton Inc. (GBB), a solid waste consulting firm based in Fairfax, Va., remarks that the best strategy is to build a MRF as large as possible. Additionally, another strategy to focus on is constructing a MRF at an existing site, whether it is a transfer station, waste handling plant, waste-to-energy facility or some other facility that presently handles the material.

While companies employ different approaches to designing and operating MRFs, more are recognizing that designing a MRF doesn't just entail finding the right type of equipment to fit into an operation.

Nat Egosi, president of RRT Design & Construction, Melville, N.Y., says an operator must consider many of the secondary and ancillary issues. He notes some MRFs have found an ideal building in which to install equipment; however, possibly because of space limitations or even location, the MRF is unable to expand or adapt to changes in its operations.

Hans Ouellet, with equipment manufacturer CP Manufacturing, National City, Calif., says one of the biggest and most important issues for a company to figure out before investing in a sorting system is finding the right location for the MRF.

At times, such forethought is lacking. "There isn't [always] a lot of strategic thinking that goes into building MRFs," Egosi says.

While centrally locating a MRF is important, there is no hard-and-fast rule for how far out the hauler can economically collect and deliver material. Single-stream collection methods will ideally increase the volume of material collected when compared to source-separated programs.

For some cities, the ability to allow packer trucks to consolidate shipments from several smaller trucks also increases the possibility to collect material from a wider area.

Also factoring into the distance a hauler can service is the relative cleanliness of the material collected. If a MRF deals with minimal outthrows and contaminants with its shipments to end markets, pulling material from a wider distance is feasible. However, Ouellet says some cities in California (as well as in other states) may see their coverage areas shrink in light of poorer material quality.

Ouellet says California Assembly Bill 939 has resulted in some MRFs dealing with 18 percent or more non-recyclables.

While this means many MRFs that have to service municipalities with single-stream collection programs will have to put in more sorting equipment, such as disk screens, to remove more of the material, the ultimate impact is that less of the recyclables being delivered truly end up being recycled.

LESS OF A HAUL. While a MRF can typically handle the volume from a heavily populated area, the geographical range is something that needs to be factored in.

Ouellet says that the city of San Diego has two MRFs servicing the community, not necessarily because either facility couldn't take in all the tonnage collected, but because it allows more efficient servicing of a wider coverage area. The farther out a hauler goes to collect the recyclables, the more uneconomical it is to deliver the material to the MRF.

While getting the proper technology in place is always an essential part of the overall picture for MRFs, the reality is that a fairly decent sized plant should be able to service the needs of a community. A bigger issue, however, is balancing the right mix of automation and labor to ensure that the material is properly sorted according to expectations.

Despite some harsh criticism from several paper companies as to the much poorer quality material that comes out of many MRFs, especially those processing single-stream material, many MRF operators say that the quality of the material that comes out of their plants is far superior to what was produced several years ago. In fact, some operators say they are able to clean and sort grades of fiber that had previously been impossible to reach with older single-stream MRFs.

Steve Sargent of Rumpke Recycling, a Cincinnati-based waste management and recycling company, says the company has been able to ship such higher grades of fiber as No. 8 news to some mills with its single-stream processing systems.

As the automation among MRFs grows, some companies are taking additional steps to further improve sorting.

WHETHER TO AUTOMATE. While not essential, many MRF operators find that one of the best ways to maximize their operations is through automating more heavily. Some companies are still reluctant to increase the level of automation at their MRFs, preferring to employ manual sorters, however, for some operators, especially those in California, the high cost of workmen's compensation is making it more expensive to have a larger labor force.

RRT's Egosi says that private companies, such as Waste Management Inc. (through its RecycleAmerica Alliance subsidiary), are looking for more automation in their systems. However, he says, it appears municipalities are more leery of this method.

"While municipalities want better quality, there is some uncertainty on their part whether automation can do it," Egosi says.

Barry says Mid America seeks greater automation, as long as the business can justify it. While the company may seek automation and better equipment to improve the efficiency of its MRFs, Barry says Mid America takes a judicious approach toward equipment installation.

"We have found the cookie-cutter approach does not work for our recycling plants," Barry says. Rather than purchasing a system "off the shelf," he says Mid America looks to manufacturers in the same geographical area to put together a system that will work for that particular facility.

For example, if a facility has a five-sort system, a conveyor line is often unnecessary. However, as communities move toward single-stream collection programs, conveying and sorting equipment are needed.

Additionally, as single-stream collections continue to grow in popularity, more companies are looking to install optical sorting systems in their MRFs to aid in sorting and separation. Sargent says that while Rumpke's Columbus plant has an optical sorting system that is not included in its conveyor line, the move by the city of Columbus toward a bluebag program may mandate a change. "There is great potential for optical sorting. While it is not linked with the MRF right now, we are contemplating amending our line to include the optical sort," Sargent says.

Egosi says that on the plastics side, optical sorting can keep up with the MRF operations.

Ouellet agrees that optical sorting is an effective component in single-stream programs.

Gershman, though, says he feels that single-stream MRFs aren't the only answer to the question of increasing the tonnage of recovered recyclables. He says keeping some of the materials separate and then shipping a certain commodity to another plant for processing may also be beneficial to the MRF operator.

A strategy that may be effective is looking at the development of intermediate processing facilities, where different recyclables can be sorted and then shipped for further processing, Gershman adds.

THE ULTIMATE COMPETITION. Recyclers often say that they are competing for tons, business or contracts with other recycling companies in the area. However, one competitor that many forget about is the landfill. While in parts of the Northeast landfill tip fees are significant, in many parts of the country tipping fees are still fairly low. In essence, a MRF must design and operate a recycling program that can beat the cost of landfilling the recyclables.

This is even more important when many municipal budgets are only now recovering from the drastic shortfalls they saw in the early 2000s.

Sargent says that in parts of Ohio where Rumpke operates, landfill tipping fees are as low as $10 to $15 per ton.

Barry also says that tipping fees in Iowa are low enough that MRF operators have to adjust, taking steps to ensure that their services make economic sense. At the same time, Mid America is seeking to increase its coverage area in the state. This, Barry feels, provides the entry for more of a single-stream approach.

Egosi says there are many different schools of thought when it comes to MRF construction and operation. Ira community opts to own and operate a MRF, it is looking to bring in more recyclables from surrounding communities. This practice will allow the publicly owned MRF to reduce its per-ton processing costs.

However, privately owned companies may come in with the expectation of obtaining residentially collected material as well as commercial material.

While there are a host of variables involved in designing and operating a MRF, a key consideration is looking at the customers that the facility will service, not only today, but in the future, as well. Maximizing a MRF's potential is the best way to ensure that the plant can remain successful for the long haul.

RELATED ARTICLE: Avoiding growing pains.

When planning the material recovery facility (MRF) that would serve communities in Des Moines, Iowa, Mick Barry, vice president of Mid America Recycling, headquartered in Des Moines, says the company determined that the city would see some significant population growth, with the MRF serving a growing white-collar employment area. This, he says, gave the company the impression that collection levels would continue to grow with the MRF's capacity.

Mid America focuses mainly in the Midwest, with operations in slower population growth states, such as Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, Oklahoma, Nebraska, South Dakota and Missouri. But one advantage the company has is its ability to play a more active role in helping local municipal governments to develop recycling programs, increasing its involvement in the business dynamics of the area.

Barry says the benefit of becoming a significant operator in the Midwest has allowed the company to work much more closely with the various government agencies. "We sit on the long-term planning committee. We are heavily involved in the community," he says.

The author is Internet and senior editor of Recycling Today an can be contacted at [e-mail].