On purpose

For a feature story in this issue, I spoke with equipment experts about the benefits of purpose-built material handlers for waste facility operators. In this case, “purpose-built” means that these machines were built by equipment manufacturers for use in transfer stations and recycling plants, with designs customized with those settings specifically in mind.

It’s the first time I’d heard the term purpose-built, which isn’t necessarily a surprise as I’ve been going through a crash course in the waste industry as incoming managing editor of Waste Today (WT). For the last two months, I’ve been overseeing coverage for WT and its sister publication Construction & Demolition Recycling. But once I heard it, I couldn’t stop seeing examples of the purpose-built in the stories we’re covering in this issue.

For instance, after its transfer station was destroyed in a fire, Shakopee, Minnesota-based Dem-Con Cos. set out to construct a transfer station purpose-built for the haulers who use it day in and day out—and with fire suppression front of mind. The company’s approach involved improving traffic flow by adding drive-through loadout pits, enhancing flexibility by building mobile dividing walls to adjust the size of the tipping floors and installing an automated deluge fire suppression system.

In a landfill gas feature, Douglas Gatrell, an engineer with Australia-based GHD, and Stephanie Stolz from Shell Low Carbon Solutions offer advice on what operators should consider during initial planning for a purpose-built renewable natural gas facility. They suggest initial steps including modeling landfill gas generation, verifying viability, making necessary site improvements and meeting with regulators and local officials.

In our cover story, you can read about how the Garaventa family, the longtime owners of San Francisco-based Mt. Diablo Resource Recovery, purposefully stepped back from company leadership and built a leadership team and board to evolve and keep the company at the forefront of the industry. That decision involved bringing in industry veterans such as Ron Proto as well as Kish Rajan, an innovator in the business sector, who joined as chief administrative officer and succeeded Proto as CEO after his retirement last January.

Of course, it doesn’t escape me that we’re covering these stories in a publication purpose-built for the needs of the waste sector. Our deep coverage of collection and transfer, organics, recycling, conversion technologies, waste to energy, landfill management, special and hazardous waste, markets and contracting and mergers and acquisitions is consistently tailored to the decision-makers in the environmental services industry.

I’m excited to join the immensely talented WT team, and I’m looking forward to calling upon my background in newspaper and magazine journalism as I continue to learn the ins and outs of the waste industry.