Thursday, May 31, 2012

Milk Jugs Recycled

Thanks to HMSHost's unwavering sustainability commitment, the used milk jugs at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport Starbucks locations are collected, compacted, baled and sold as valuable material.  HMSHost operates nine Airport Starbucks and developed the program in early 2011 as a pilot in the world's busiest airport.


Orwak Baler
With approximately 2600 milk jugs used per week, to date the program has kept over 135,200 milk jugs, roughly 7.5 tons, from their prior landfill destination.  Note the plastic syrup containers are included in the bales.  According to Rick Moore, HMSHost Starbucks Manager, the revenue from the material sale at a nearby MRF (materials recovery facility) offsets the the baler lease cost.


While developing the program, Rick performed an informal waste audit on the back-of-the-house waste containers.  To his amazement, over 90% of the "trash" generated were milk jugs and syrup containers.  The Ei FB album, 12-05-12 SFCI ATL Airport Milk Jug Recycling, gives a pictorial play by play of the collection, compacting and baling process.



Baled milk jugs ready for sale
Atlanta success was the catalyst for the HMSHost - Tampa Airport team to lease a baler for their Starbucks milk jugs as well as other material generated in their concessions operations.  Plastic film works well.  Perry Kranias, HMSHost -Tampa Operations Manager, is working on expanding their source-separate recycling to all material generated with a strong local commodity market.


GA Tech - GWCC ATL Airport tour
HMSHost, a Zero Waste Zones Participant, shares their successful program logistics with fellow participants.  In March, Cindy Jackson and Maria Linderoth of Georgia Tech and Tim Trefzer of the GA World Congress Center Authority took an Atlanta Airport field trip to explore how source-separated baling operations could work in their operations.  Susan Stanton with Orwak, the baler manufacturer, joined the tour and answered questions about the different baling models, capabilities and logistics.


Susan Stanton, Susan Long &
Rick Moore
While in Atlanta for the 2012 Plastics Recycling Conference, Susan Long, Starbucks environmental impact manager, toured the Concourse A milk jug recycling operations. With Rick and Susan (Stanton) present, Susan (Long) received a thorough overview of the program.


As the Sustainable Food Court Initiative's first pilot, the Atlanta Airport takes a proactive stand in their sustainability commitment.  The ZWA Blog post, Atlanta Airport - First SFCI Pilot!, announces the ATL Airport SFCI Pilot and the post, Atlanta Airport Makes a Bold Statement, details the airport concessions contract provision requiring compostable packaging use.

Monday, May 28, 2012

Cardboard and Plastic Waste Balers make the best Recycling Machinery Equipment

Large amounts of Cardboard and Plastic Waste are found in all areas of industry. All businesses have a duty to dispose of their waste in the most environmentally friendly way. There have been lots of changes relating to the subject of waste in recent years. Major changes have occurred because of new Legislation, not only in UK, but also Europe and the whole world. Everyone is trying to help the planet and the environment and the consequence of this can be rewarding.

The most notable Legislation gives the responsibility of all businesses to take action to Sort, Segregate, Reuse and Recycle more. Each business must demonstrate that they are doing this effectively. All businesses producing waste must Sort their waste. In other words, removing items which can be used again. These reusable items must be segregated or separated and removed from waste, which would otherwise be sent to landfill. The reusable waste must be stored in some manor and eventually transported to a place where it can be returned to a reusable state.

In the past, bins and other containers of various sizes have been the most common way of removing waste. Historically, all waste was collected in one big container or bin. It would all be compacted and transported to landfill.

Nowadays, there is a residual value of recyclable materials, such as cardboard, plastics, paper, polypropylene, metals and many more. So they can be removed from a businesses general waste stream and sorted for recycling.

This meant that less general waste is going to landfill. The first way of collecting these recyclable wastes was to give them each different containers.

For example, a bin specifically identified for Cardboard. It would have a sign saying, "Cardboard Only". This is not the greenest way to recycle cardboard or any other material. Transporting loose cardboard or plastic in this state means there must be many collection vehicles constantly on the road. These thousands of lorries transporting cardboard and plastics, produced lots of pollution and were required much more frequently than the preferred solution.

As a result of the changing world and technology, there has been an advent of the Waste Baler. This Recycling Machinery first started typically as a Vertical Baler. The Vertical Baler is basically a steel container, with a top door and a bottom door. The top door is for loading the Cardboard, Plastic or other Waste material into the Baler. The bottom door is for removing the finished bale. There is a Pressing-Plate which is forced down onto the Waste.

This really compacts the waste and a lot of waste can be forced into a bale under immense pressure. The smaller Recycling Balers Compactors may use a pressing-force of 2 to 5 tons.

The result of compacting the recyclable waste material in a Baler has created many benefits. Because the waste is very compact, in a tied stackable form or shape, it can be stored. The need for transportation will be greatly reduced.

So there will be much less pollution on the roads. The waste is being recycled efficiently, so less waste will go to landfill. Businesses will pay less landfill-tax. The removal of bales is usually free of charge and sometimes a business can even gain some revenue. The cost of having a Waste Baler is usually much cheaper than having bins emptied.

Businesses producing larger volumes of recyclable waste have found it beneficial to use larger Recycling Machinery or Equipment, commonly known as a Mill Size Baler. This Baler Equipment is much larger and stronger. The pressing-force can be up to 50 Tonnes in the case of a good Mill Size Baler.

The main use of a Mill Size Baler is for Recycling Cardboard. This Waste Baler will typically produce Cardboard Bales in the region of 500Kg.

Collectors of Waste will know that Mill Size Bales are worth approximately 20% more than smaller bales. This is because the smaller bales have to be re-baled in a Mill Size Baler, before transportation to recycling plants further away. If a business produces bales in a Mill Size Baler, he can usually have them collected free and should also receive a payment for large tonnage amounts.

Deciding on the correct Baler Equipment for your business, should be left to the people in the know. It's best to take advice from people who really know their machinery. You often imagine you need a larger baler and sometimes a smaller cheaper baler will be quite sufficient.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Introduction of the plastic granulating machine development

Plastic granulator operation entails the national economy fields, plastic granulator equipment is China’s big energy, also plastic granulator procedure contamination is frequently an vital source of environmental pollution in China, plastic granulator method progress using the advancement from the complete national economy consists of a extremely near relationship. plastic granulator fabrics principal dilemma:

1, plastic granulating machine of environmental pollution may be also extremely serious. from the most extensively used of all sorts of conventional plastic granulator equipment, having 3/4 above is hot plastic granulator equipment, this sort of environmental pollution is extremely serious, for plastic granulator plan coal furnace reformation has develop to be an essential job to be solved.

2, plastic granulating machine operation involves the national economy fields, plastic granulator is China’s important energy, moreover plastic granulator procedure contamination is generally an essential source of environmental pollution in China, plastic granulator technique progress using the development in the whole national economy has a extremely close relationship.

In the exploration of plastic granulator technology new advancement road, must be on energy efficiency, environmental security and the good quality using the product below consideration, in order to accomplish a comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable development. To implement effective and green plastic granulator advancement strategy, must take resource managing model advancement road, grow to be onefold extensive plastic granulator for combination, intelligent plastic granulator. Not only from the plastic granulator process on the fundamental transformation, but also to perform a comprehensive, multi-level energy-saving technological transformation, vigorously develop using renewable energy and industrial waste heat of plastic granulator technique.

Plastic granulating machine in plastic recycling process plays a exceptionally imperative role. Granulating machine can be divided into PVC granulator machine, PE granulator machine. plastic recycling machine consists of plastic granulator machine, and plastic extruders, plastic recycling machine, plastic shredder machine.

Monday, May 21, 2012

Machines reward recycling

SUB employees and student organization Net Impact worked with PepsiCo to bring the Dream Machine kiosks to UNM.

Sunny Liu, vice president of Net Impact and an ASUNM senator, said the kiosks focus attention on recycling by making it rewarding.

“A lot of people just don’t find the incentive to (recycle), and I think that these machines will really help reward those individuals who choose to recycle,” he said. “And those who don’t have incentive enough, this will give them a reason to.”

The PepsiCo Dream Machine Initiative debuted nationally on Earth Day in 2010, through a partnership between PepsiCo and Waste Management. According to the Dream Machine website, the goal of the initiative is to increase the national recycling rate of beverage containers from 34 percent to 50 percent by 2018. So far, PepsiCo has put 4,000 Dream Machine kiosks and bins across the nation.

In addition to the Dream Machine initiative, UNM’s Recycling Department began accepting plastics, which include yogurt containers, butter tubs and all types of batteries. McCormick said expanding the recycling program at UNM includes finding new types of recyclable material and increasing the number of bins on campus.

“That’s always a big, important thing at UNM is to get more (bins) outside because we have students, staff and visitors walking from building to building, so we want to have recycling available where the people are,” she said.

McCormick said recycling can save as much as 90 percent of the energy required to produce new products, and also creates job opportunities.

“If you were to look at the jobs generated by land-filling material, which is in essence wasting material, one job is generated by land-filling, whereas 17 jobs can be generated by recycling material because you can have jobs from collecting, processing recycled material, manufacturing and transportation,” she said.

The department also implemented the Reusable Office Supplies and Equipment program, which collects office supplies such as staplers, paper clips, and notebooks that can be reused.

In addition, the SUB has water-filling stations for students to refill water bottles instead of buying new bottles.

For more information about recyclable materials, visit the UNM Recycling website at sustainability.unm.edu/recycling.htm.

For information about the Dream Machine Initiative, visit facebook.com/DreamMachine or DreamMachineLocator.com, or follow the QR code for more information.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Manual feed balers or continuous auto-tie horizontal balers

Manual feed balers or continuous auto-tie horizontal balers: Which is right for you?

As the world business is changing the way of doing things in a more environmental friendly way, baling machine, as effective recycling equipment, is becoming more central in giving waste materials a second valuable life. A proper baler/baling machine can help greatly increasing your company’s revenue on recyclable waste, and can produce a positive Return On Investment) within a relatively short timeframe.

There are two basic baler designs that are generally used by industry – vertical baler and horizontal baler. The key difference between these two types of balers is how the recyclable material is compacted.

Also known as down stroke balers, vertical balers compress waste from the top (vertically). They are usually stand-alone machines, and are typically accompanied with manual feeding and strapping. Whilst on the other hand, horizontal balers compress waste from the side (horizontally). Most horizontal balers are fed by conveyor belt, cyclone or forklift for achieving continous feeding. They can be further classified into closed end and open end types. For closed end horizontal balers, the strapping is usually done manually and for open end ones, strapping and ejection of the bale is achieved automatically.

In terms of footprint, vertical balers are the smaller of the two. Thus, they are more suited for facilities where area is limited. With less steel raw material required for building, vertical balers are more cost effective compared with horizontal balers of similar compressing force. However, with the restriction of manual feeding and strapping, the bale making speed of vertical balers is not comparable with that of continuous auto-tie horizontal balers.

To sum up, vertical balers are usually manually operated, and compress from the top down. They are best suited for smaller businesses where waste is not overwhelming – small manufacturers, retail stores, supermarkets, textile manufacturers, or anywhere else there are smaller quantities of recyclable materials.

Horizontal balers are the larger of the two machines. Loaded from the top by conveyor belt, cyclone or forklift, because the feed is larger, and the output continuous (and automatic), they are ideal for larger quantities of recyclables and constant usage.

There is no absolute conclusion of one better over the other. Considerations need to be paid to your facility’s space situation, the waste material volume, labor availability and cost as well as your financial condition and more before choosing the right baling machine.

Monday, May 14, 2012

Conserving Our Environment Through Waste Recycling

Waste recycling is essential to ensuring that we conserve our environment for the future. Waste management and forms of recycling might range from everything from reusing paper, to composting and the safe disposal of electrical items. Different materials can be easily sorted at home and at work depending on the local council, while larger items can be sold on to other consumers, or in the case of mobile phones, sold for recycling. The more general environmental benefits of recycling and their solutions are as follows:

1 – Key Benefits

Recycling paper and cardboard helps to reduce tree deforestation, with the conversion of old paper into recycled types much more cost effective and less harmful than pulping and converting trees. Recycling processes generally use less energy than new production and conversion.

Recycling also limits the amount of carbon dioxide, methane and other harmful gas emissions that pass into the atmosphere from landfills. When totalled up, these gases will continue to cause damage to the planet’s ozone layer, which will in turn cause increased global warming and the danger of sea levels rising and flooding.

In the same way, food waste placed into landfills produces methane that both harms the ozone layer, and carries a much higher toxicity level than carbon dioxide. Landfills can also be home to dangerous gold, zinc and other metallic components of discarded electrical equipment, which over time will seep into soil and water supplies, affecting both natural ecosystems and the health of our drinking water.

2 – Easy Conservation Solutions

Good recycling practice needn’t be difficult. The important thing to focus on is knowing what can be recycled, and how often to do it, while taking general care over the kind of products that you buy, and how long you plan to use them for. The UK currently lags behind the rest of Europe in terms of recycling, despite a wide ranging set of paper, glass, plastic, food waste and garden waste collections being carried out around the country.

Most people don’t realise that 60% of their average bin rubbish can be recycled. Although some councils do not yet offer a full range of services for materials like glass, most areas will have recycling bins and centres where substances not removed from the home can be taken. In the same way, around 50% of waste can be composted, from food left overs to tea bags, pet food and other materials. For electrical goods, many companies will now pay for old mobile phones, while old furniture and equipment like refrigerator can be passed on to other people for free through services like Freecycle.

3 – Focusing on Sustainability and Diversity

Recycling schemes will ultimately help the environment by converting waste into new products, while also creating high quality fertiliser and biogases that can be used as alternative forms of fuel. By making a small but consistent solution to recycling, we can help further these broader plans, as well as cutting down on the amount of disposable waste that we build up around the home.
Guest author Christina Appleworth writes on behalf of Select Environmental, specialising in waste management, waste collection and recycling. Visit www. selectenviro.co.uk today for your waste management needs!