Tight fit: an East Coast recycler's heavy equipment has to maneuver in a small work zone.

Situated on a three-acre tract in the heart of New Haven, Conn., scrap recycler Alderman-Dow Iron & Metal Co. Inc. has more to consider than the competing recyclers who serve the New York-to-Boston region.

Alderman-Dow, also known as Alderman's Scrap Yard, has been operating on the New Haven waterfront since 1895. It is now under the shadow of the U.S. 1 expressway, and the fences surrounding Alderman-Dow are squeezed in by land-hungry enterprises of every description.

Inside, Norm Alderman, the third-generation of Aldermans to operate this yard, has to strive for efficiency to make his tight-fitting location profitable.

KEEPING THINGS MOVING. The Alderman-Dow yard doesn't rank among the largest of recycling yards, but it's a busy place, processing the full range of scrap metals.

Norm, working with his brother Elliot and son Jason, has to make every square foot of his downtown property pay off. To help, he recently updated his material handling equipment with a new German-built Sennebogen 830 R-HD Green Line machine.

"When we decided to replace our old machine, I was mostly concerned with having a machine with the right reach, speed and control for our needs," Norm says. "Our dealer Tyler Equipment recommended Sennebogen, so Elliot and I checked with some of their other scrap customers in the area."

With the help of Tyler's Tim McDermott, Alderman acquired a scrap handler designed to help the company maximize the operation's total productivity.

"The contour of our yard made the stability of the machine an issue," Norm says. The 830 R-HD is crawler-mounted and, at 77,000 pounds, it is one of the smaller scrap handlers Sennebogen, which has its U.S. distribution headquarters in Charlotte, N.C., builds.

The 830 R-HD is able to shift its full load capacity through 360 degrees of swing. The compact green machine is unrestricted as it reaches for material piles in every direction, so there is less time lost positioning the machine.

LONG HOURS. For an operation like Alderman's, with just one material handler on the site, any unplanned down-time at all puts a serious dent in the business. Alderman relies on his machinery dealer Tyler Equipment to keep his Sennebogen running smoothly.

"Tyler was looking after my old machine, too, and I was very impressed by their service," Norm says. "They were a major factor in my decision to go with Sennebogen. Our operator does the daily service checks, of course, but Tyler looks after everything else."

The man who carries much of that responsibility is Bruce Tupor, a 25-year veteran of equipment service who has been with the Tyler team for more than six years. He has a few green machines under his care, all working in scrap handling applications proximal to Tyler's base near Springfield, Mass.

Bruce has worked on almost every major brand of heavy equipment made today and says Sennebogen makes it easier for him to keep the Alderman-Dow machine up and running.

"The first thing you notice is, it's simple," Bruce says. "All the test points and service points are together in one place." Rather than center-mounting the engine to the rear of the chassis, Sennebogen mounts it longitudinally to one side. A gull-wing door allows easy access to dipsticks, filters, fill points and diagnostic hookups from ground level.

Tupor also applauds the absence of high-tech sensors and circuitry on the green machines. "We just don't need computers on a piece of heavy equipment. They add too many things that can wrong," he says.

After servicing scrap handlers with up to 1,500 hours on them, Tupor likes what he sees from the Green Line. He remarks that the dealership's customers tend to be satisfied with their Sennebogen machines and that the product line has proven to be a good addition and fit for Tyler Equipment.

THE BIG UNIT

Scrap recyclers who want maximum lifting capacity may wish to consider the Liebherr R974 BEW material handler, distributed in the United States by Republic Crane and Equipment Co., based in Charlotte, N.C.

The 205,000-pound, track-mounted machine has 70-foot reach and works with a 6-foot-diameter lifting magnet or a Type 72 or 75 grapple.

For recyclers who want a more mobile version of this heavy lifter, Liebherr also makes the A974 B material handler model, mounted on rubber tires.

This machine checks in at nearly 250,000 pounds and can work in tandem with a lifting magnet that is 7 feet in diameter or a Type 75 or Type 85 grapple.

Depending on the configuration, the machines are specified to lift loads from 10,000 metric tons up to 32,000 metric tons, depending on the reach radius and height.

The author submitted this article an behalf of Sennebogen, North America, Charlotte, N. C.