Supplier News

Mack electric model is Alabama-bound

Photo courtesy of Mack

The city of Mobile, Alabama, has ordered a Mack LR Electric Class 8 refuse vehicle to achieve its goals of being a more resilient and energy-efficient city, according to Greensboro, North Carolina-based Mack Trucks.

“Mack would like to thank and congratulate the city of Mobile for its advancement toward electrification,” Jonathan Randall, Mack Trucks senior vice president of sales and commercial operations, says. “We look forward to furthering our commitment and the city of Mobile’s commitment to sustainability efforts,” he adds.

Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson says the Mack should be able to keep pace with its existing fleet.

“The LR Electric provides the kind of comfort and usability we wanted for our staff, as well as the reliability we’ve come to expect from a Mack truck,” Stimpson says.

The city of Mobile chose the Mack LR Electric as its first electric vehicle (EV) purchase in part because of Mack’s commitment to a delivery schedule that met the city’s needs, according to Mack.

The Mack LR Electric Class 8 model will operate within the city’s fleet of 26 refuse trucks.

Mobile, which has a population of 187,000 residents, received funds from the Volkswagen diesel emissions lawsuit settlement that will help fund the purchase of the LR Electric vehicle. The city will seek grants to help it fund charging stations and the development of a comprehensive EV plan, says Casi Callaway, the city’s chief resilience officer.

Four nickel-manganese-cobalt oxide, or NMC, lithium-ion batteries power the Mack LR Electric model, with twin electric motors producing 448 continuous horsepower. A two-stage regenerative braking system is designed to recapture energy from the hundreds of stops the vehicle makes each day with an increasing load, the manufacturer says.

Mobile’s Mack LR Electric will be equipped with an automated side loader and will operate in residential areas, Mack says. Mobile also is investing in what Mack calls a “portable superfast DC charger.” Mobile-based Gulf Coast Truck & Equipment Co. will provide support.

EverestLabs places robots in California

Fremont, California-based EverestLabs says the Sunnyvale, California, material recovery facility (MRF) has announced it has installed additional EverestLabs RecycleOS-powered robotics.

The installation has taken place at the Sunnyvale Materials Recovery and Transfer Station (SMaRT Station), which processes up to 7,500 tons of recyclables annually.

SMaRT Station accepts municipal solid waste and recyclables from 235,000 residents and all businesses in Sunnyvale and Mountain View, California.

The installation of the robotics is expected to increase material recovery by a factor of “two to three times higher than human sorters and help alleviate labor availability issues,” EverestLabs says.

RecycleOS-powered robotics will deliver 49 percent more picks using 45 percent less space than competing solutions in the market, according to EverestLabs. RecycleOS also will enable the Sunnyvale facility to track data for “real-time continuous improvement and reporting,” the company says.

“We elected to expand the use of EverestLabs robots because of their small footprint, ease of installation and successful recovery of hard-to-recover objects like HDPE [high-density polyethylene] milk jugs in tight locations,” says Jeff Dobert, director of operations at Bay County’s SMaRT.

He adds, “We not only tested EverestLabs solutions extensively on our site but also saw how successful RecycleOS-powered robotics have been at our sister site in Northern California and other locations nationally.”

EverestLabs says it has increased the operational efficacy of MRFs by performing quality control and new recovery tasks with 99 percent uptime, artificial intelligence (AI) accuracy of 95 percent-plus and a robotic efficacy rate of more than 90 percent.

EverestLabs describes RecycleOS-powered robotics as “the only enterprise AI software and automation solution for addressing critical problems in recycling plants or MRFs.”

NWRA names CP Group Innovator of the Year

Photo courtesy of CP Group

CP Group, based in San Diego, has been recognized as the National Waste & Recycling Association’s (NWRA’s) 2022 Innovator of the Year for its OCC (old corrugated containers) Auger Screen.

The award recognizes “recycling equipment designers and manufacturers that successfully challenge and advance recycling sector operations,” NWRA says.

The patented OCC Auger Screen is a nonround anti-wrapping, anti-jamming screen that does not require an upstream presort and creates a finished OCC product. Because the screen is cantilevered, all wrapping materials screw off the end, minimizing maintenance and cleaning, CP Goup says. The screen fractionates out smaller material, so sorters only see the larger items, which improves sorter safety by reducing exposure to sharps. Additionally, the patented nonround attribute of the auger flights creates the agitation needed to produce clean OCC.

CP completed the machine prototype in 2017. After months of testing, that prototype machine was installed in the Waste Connections Ecosort facility in Eugene, Oregon, which processes commercial material. The OCC Auger Screen is still running today.

The first residential material recovery facility (MRF) began using an OCC Auger Screen in late 2021. The Metro Waste Authority (MWA) MRF in Des Moines, Iowa, is the first high-volume single-stream MRF in North America to operate without a presort or postsort station of any kind.

MWA Executive Director Michael McCoy says, “The screen, located at the front of the system, captures more material, decreases contamination, significantly reduces maintenance downtime and eliminates the presort, making the process safer and much more effective.”

Starlight Software Solutions adds chief marketing officer

Photo courtesy of Starlight
Software

Starlight Software Solutions, a Denver-based software solutions firm serving the waste management and recycling industry, has appointed Jeanette McMurtry as chief marketing officer.

McMurtry joins Starlight Software Solutions as the company says it’s poised for rapid growth. Starlight attributes that growth to the completion of its cloud-based system designed to serve the hauling and recycling sectors.

Starlight says it offers a robust suite of software solutions that accelerates efficiency across dispatch, inventory, route management, customer and contractor change orders and driver productivity systems for users.

“Jeanette brings a new level of marketing expertise to Starlight, helping us strengthen our brand, as well as our lead generation and sales processes,” says Bill Bradley, CEO and founder of Starlight Software Solutions. “Her ability to create and drive winning marketing strategies and campaigns has quickly boosted our pipeline and set us up to exceed our growth goals for 2022 and 2023.”

The company says her success is rooted in her approach to psychology-based marketing, which is the focus of her prior public speaking career, 15-year monthly marketing column and three international books published by Wiley and McGraw-Hill.

“I am honored to be part of Starlight Software Solutions and help accelerate growth for one of the most robust products in waste management that is a true game-changer for the entire industry,” McMurtry says.