The partnership offers additional, complementary system solutions to meet application need in organics and construction and demolition waste.

ML Environmental Group, a supplier of equipment and systems for processing solid and organics waste for recycling based in Denver, has announced a partnership and exclusive United States distribution agreement with Scott Equipment Company, industrial equipment manufacturer of the Turbo Separator and GypStream product lines based in New Prague, Minnesota.  

"When we consider a company and brand as a potential solution partner, the most important characteristics we look at are that our company cultures, values and visions align," says Brandon Lapsys, ML Environmental Group president. "Scott Equipment Company checks all of those boxes and so many more. They have a world-class product that has been proven in the marketplace for nearly three decades."  

ML Environmental Group, the parent company to Komptech Americas and Plexus Recycling Technologies, says the patented Turbo Separator depackaging technology is a natural fit for Komptech customers in the food waste and organics recovery market. In addition, MLE customers have a new solution to process gypsum wallboard or drywall in the construction and demolition recycling market.  

Benefits of this strategic partnership include:  

Komptech Americas customers gain the ability to implement preprocessing and separation systems for food waste depackaging into their organics waste processes.  

The Turbo Separator and GypStream systems effectively complement Komptech Americas' equipment technologies, giving a broader audience reach to both companies, regionally and nationally.  

ML Environmental Group is the exclusive dealer for Turbo Separator organics systems for composting and Gypstream drywall recycling systems in the United States, excluding California.   

"Our recycling systems, including both the food waste organics recovery system and the gypsum wallboard separation and recovery machines, position nicely with ML Environmental Group's vision to offer their customers an end-to-end solution," says Kevin Pedretti, business development and product marketing manager at Scott Equipment Company. 

WB Waste & Recycling boosts capacity to 35 tons per hour.

The system processes residential single-stream and commercial materials. The Olive Street material recovery facility was awarded several new contracts for processing additional tons of residential single-stream (RSS) material, so the company needed to improve its recycling capacity to meet these requirements. As a result, it contacted Machinex to retrofit the recycling system.

On the container line, a magnet removes ferrous metals (tin cans), and an eddy current removes the nonferrous items, which are sorted to make a used beverage can- (UBC-) grade aluminum.

As it does in many cases, the Machinex engineering team had to cope with a tight existing building with a low roof to add several pieces of equipment. The result is an increase from 10 tons per hour (TPH) to 25 TPH of sorting capacity.

Dave Taylor, director of recycling at WB Waste and Recycling, says the company experienced six weeks of total downtime while Machinex upgraded its Capitol Heights facility.

“Working with Machinex, with their customer service, it was incredible how quickly we were able to get this project off the ground and completed,” he says.

New report backs deconstruction and recycling as beneficial in the cleanup process.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released a report highlighting what it calls “the importance of resiliency and effective planning for management of debris from natural disasters.”

The Resiliency and Natural Disaster Debris Workshop Report provides what EPA calls “key takeaways” from two virtual workshops held in 2021. The workshops were attended by people with different core focuses, including disaster debris planning and management, disaster response, environmental justice, zero waste, circular economy, deconstruction and green building according to the agency.

“The report published today has important implications for our Pacific Southwest region, especially for communities in coastal areas in California and Hawaii and the Pacific Islands,” says EPA Pacific Southwest Regional Administrator Martha Guzman. “Planning now to reduce disaster debris through resilient design, reuse, recycling, and composting can better protect vulnerable communities, support equitable disaster recovery and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Recycling and landfill diversion are mentioned frequently in the EPA press release announcing the report. EPA says priorities in a disaster cleanup should include: reusing materials that can safely be recovered, which reduces the embodied carbon from the greenhouse gas emissions used to produce, transport and dispose of new materials; advance planning and designing for adaptation to “empower communities to reuse, recycle and compost materials safely” following disasters; and deconstruction  (reusing building materials instead of demolition and landfill disposal), which “creates local disaster recovery jobs, construction industry job training and low-cost materials for rebuilding,” while also potentially reducing “the spread of lead-based paint dust and other toxics materials from post-disaster demolition of some older (pre-1978) homes and buildings.”

Disaster cleanups in recent years that led to considerable recycling activity include those following California wildfires and the cleanup in Texas and other Gulf Coast states after Hurricane Harvey.

Access to the full EPA report summarizing the workshops can be found on this web page.

The company says the advances the company’s goals of designing and developing technology to move the waste industry forward.

Dodge Center, Minnesota-based McNeilus Truck and Manufacturing Inc, an Oshkosh Corporation company, has acquired the CartSeeker curbside automation product from Eagle Vision Systems Inc., Kitchener, Ontario.

CartSeeker curbside automation is a patented AI-based recognition technology that identifies and locates curbside waste carts and helps automate the operation of the truck’s robotic lift arm without joystick manipulation. The CartSeeker product will complement McNeilus’ ongoing work with autonomy by providing more potential for solutions that bring operational simplicity and high performance to customers.

McNeilus says it is focused on designing and developing technology and other heavy duty truck advancements that move the waste industry forward. This investment in refuse collection vehicle automation drives that strategy forward.

“We put a priority on bringing our customers innovations that advance their business, and this strategic investment in autonomy boosts our product capabilities and future offerings,” says Jeff Koga, vice president and general manager of refuse collection vehicles for McNeilus.

Food waste drop-off locations in Upper Arlington experienced a 40 percent increase in use after households received information on the Save More Than Food program.

The Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio (SWACO) has released a study that was conducted in the spring and summer of 2021 to evaluate the effectiveness of the authority’s Save More Than Food campaign, as well as current attitudes, behaviors and barriers to diverting food waste from the Franklin County Sanitary Landfill.

The study, funded in part by a federal grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, was conducted in the city of Upper Arlington by The Ohio State University (OSU) as part of SWACO’s efforts to divert food waste from the landfill. The study gathered research from more than 1,600 participants.

According to SWACO, participants who received Save More Than Food materials reduced the amount of food waste they created by 21 percent. During the study period, Upper Arlington’s three food waste drop-off locations also experienced a 40 percent increase in use after households received information on the program.

“Not only is food waste the single largest source of material entering the county landfill, [but] it also presents one of the best opportunities to increase diversion and help slow climate change,” says Kyle O’Keefe, SWACO’s director of innovation and programs.

In addition to documenting a decrease in the amount of waste these households created, the study also documented the following:

“The evidence collected in Upper Arlington suggests that community-based implementation of campaigns like Save More Than Food can move the needle on food waste reduction,” says Brian Roe, an OSU professor in the department of agriculture, environmental and developmental economics, who helped assess the effectiveness of the initiative.

“The results of the study were eye-opening for us. We learned that it takes more than just having a program in place to collect the food waste; the educational component is crucial to maintaining a successful program,” says Katy Rees, performance analyst with the city of Upper Arlington.

The city of Upper Arlington is using the results to inform decisions about how best to expand the program. This spring, the city will pilot a curbside food waste collection. Work is already underway in the cities of Gahanna and New Albany, which will be opening new food waste drop-off sites in the coming month, as well as implementing the Save More Than Food campaign in their communities. 

They join the cities of Bexley, Dublin, Grandview Heights, Grove City, Hilliard, Upper Arlington, Westerville and Worthington who all previously launched food waste drop-off locations in central Ohio with support from SWACO.

SWACO is currently evaluating ways to improve composting infrastructure in central Ohio which would help create opportunities for increased food waste composting and support curbside collection programs across Franklin County.

To see the full results of the study once finalized, visit www.savemorethanfood.org.