Paper Recycling Systems — Waste Not, Want Money

Dealing with boxes, junk skids and physically intervening with the equipment weren’t the only strikes against the old system. The direct mail and commercial printer wasn’t getting as much return on unbaled paper; recyclers will pay less on materials that need processing. What the company needed was a solution with a short ROI.

Can Pay for Itself

American Spirit Graphics opted for a RG42U rotary grinder from Vecoplan, with a small footprint of 7x6 feet. The setup was crafted to handle the 350,000 pounds of paper waste the printer produces per month. The entire shredding system, including new self-dumping hoppers, is slated to pay for itself just inside of two years.

“It’s a dump-and-run system where everything is pretty much set up automatically,” Hall notes. “It’s a pretty basic machine; just a shaft and a ram. Nothing too complex.”

Maintenance has been minimal and typical—blade changes, counterknife swaps, keeping the machine greased, etc. American Spirit is realizing better return rates on its waste paper, which is now recycled in tight, consistent bales.

Even the smallest of print shops need to appreciate the value a properly scaled system can bring in dollars, notes Chris Hawn, director of business development, waste systems, for Vecoplan.

“Historically, machines that are fed by hand require quite a bit more manual labor. The desire was to be able to dump material somewhere, walk away and let it process. That’s what our system does,” Hawn adds. “Users get the true dump-and-run functionality of the machine.”

Ed Fakeris, president of Ohio Blow Pipe, feels that smaller printers and those without any grounding in waste handling often fail to see the big picture and end up paying for poor decision making. That ends up hitting printers in the pocketbook.

“If you don’t have an efficient baling system, presses can’t be run at designated speeds, so you lose throughput and productivity,” he points out. “Plus, without the right kind of (waste handling) system in place, they’re probably expending much more labor.”