Future-proofing a material recovery facility

The material recovery industry is defined by a constantly changing target market and a need to be nimble and quickly adapt to changes in the market. The capital investments required in a new material recovery facility (MRF) and the long in-service timeframes make changes on-the-fly to respond to market conditions a difficult task. However, there are several ways operators can plan their facilities to meet the challenges of an evolving market.

Site Design

When designing a site plan, operators may have a well-defined mix of inbound vehicles and how a plan to load out the baled and residual materials. Operators should also consider designing the site for the largest potential vehicles that will need to accommodate in the future. For example, there may be a facility that will receive all its materials from route trucks, but there may be a need to accommodate walking floor trailers in the future. If the facility’s access roads were designed with tight turns, this might not be possible.  

The goal is to take a step back from a MRF’s immediate need and think about how that operation might look like in five, 10 or 20 years and see if the design still works for each reasonable need. An additional site consideration is to accommodate for possible building expansion. Operators want to ensure the site can accommodate expansions to the tipping area, bale storage and process areas if there is a possibility the company’s market share can grow in the future. While it may not be required initially, it would be best to design a site that can allow for future growth, rather than be constricted by site features that will increase the cost to relocate later.

Building Shell Design

Like site planning, when designing the building, operators should try to project what those operations may evolve into as the operation grows. Operators need to plan out how that could be addressed within the current building footprint or within an expansion. Equipment suppliers often provide layouts that accommodate the current request of the customer, but also take into consideration future expansion. 

When designing the system, it is important to understand any present limitations or future bottlenecks and what can be done to remove that obstacle as the MRF continues to grow.  

Another consideration for the building is height. The trend for sorting equipment is to be taller, and additional building height is typically inexpensive when compared to making the footprint larger. This additional building height is a good consideration as long as the municipality doesn’t have height restrictions.   

Another component of the building shell design is to build the roof structure with enough capacity to hang future loads from it. Various material processing systems hang ductwork or conveyors from the overhead structure to make access and cleaning more accommodating. Adding five to 10 pounds-per-square-foot to the collateral loading of the roof structure is not very expensive but buys a lot of flexibility for supporting overhead loads in the future.  

Finally, the incorporation of overhead cranes in the initial building design can help facilitate future maintenance, but it can also save you in the initial installation as various rigging equipment might not be necessary, and it can speed up the process. 

It will also help with future upgrades to the MRF if capacities or requirements change.    

Process Area Slab        

It is not uncommon to see the concrete under a sorting system to be a patchwork of various thickened slabs designed for each piece of equipment or for the individual support legs. While this can be a somewhat less expensive approach, it limits future flexibility and increases the risk of construction errors and increases project difficulty. Operators may want to consider a uniformly loaded thickened slab that goes under the entire system (except the balers and any vibration-isolated footings) with a single slab design. This is typically a rugged concrete slab with 2-layers of rebar. While not cheap, this allows the equipment to be moved and reconfigured without needing new or modified foundations. Also, the added simplicity streamlines the construction process, speeding the delivery of the slab for equipment installation.

Facility Utilities

As the facility is laid out, operators should keep in mind that all the equipment, pits and more are subject to possible relocation in the future when they need to re-tool or increase the throughput. With that in mind, lay out the utilities, like power, water and compressed air to be overhead wherever possible or in locations that are not likely to be in the way of future improvements.  

For example, don’t run electric conduits under the slab because they are subject to damage from floor wear, or from future excavation to add/modify equipment. If it’s overhead, it’s visible and easy to access. In addition, when you design the building, place the electric service entrance and sprinkler mechanical rooms in locations that won’t be in the way of future building expansions. Moving these is difficult and expensive, so planning for them now will pay dividends in the future.

Equipment Platform Area

Operators want to plan for adequate or extra platform and sorter space on the system. Those added QC and sort stations in an initial design could be retrofitted in the future to be AI-based robotic sorting systems. If the facility doesn’t have the room on a sorting platform initially, adding that in the future can be very difficult, and the disruption to ongoing operations can have real impacts.  

Equipment Bunkers

They call it the “Evolving Ton” for a reason. As the material stream changes, it may be tempting to eliminate bunkers for material streams that are decreasing dramatically or changing in composition, but that changing material balance is exactly why operators should keep them all and possibly add more. It is difficult to add bunkers in the future without ripple effects on the rest of the system, so incorporating them now, or leaving space for them is important. As sorting systems evolve and the relative desirability of materials shifts, it is difficult to predict what will be the premium materials in the future. However, by having a few extra bunkers, operators will have the space to sort additional materials and integrate them into operations.

It is difficult to predict the future, especially in the recycling market. Between shifting markets and ever-changing regulatory requirements to rapidly evolving/improving sorting equipment facilities, developers have a lot of priorities to balance. Keeping an eye on the future as well as their immediate needs, owners can develop a MRF that suits them best now and years down the road.

Evan Williams is a design project manager at Cambridge Companies (Griffith, Indiana, and Scottsdale, Arizona), the leading design-build firm working with the waste industry for more than 25 years. Cambridge carries licenses in more than 30 states and in its history has completed more than 170 solid waste design-build projects, including new build, repairs, upgrades and/or modifications. Cambridge has worked on transfer stations, recycling centers/MRFs, maintenance facilities, landfill entrances and shops, office buildings and more. Cambridge continually monitors the industry to determine any new needs, changes or improvements that will benefit its clients and improve its design-build solutions. Evan can be reached via e-mail at Evan@cambridgecoinc.com or visit www.CambridgeCoInc.com.

Chris Hawn has been with Machinex since 2010 and has worked his way up the ladder as the North American Sales Manager, to vice-president of Sales & Business Development, and now CEO since 2017. Hawn helps broaden sales and business development in the North American market for the company while also overseeing all business growth plans. He also coordinates initial project information, concept drawings and budgetary proposals. Upon approval from the customer, verification of funding and receipt of accommodating facility details, he brings in the project director and the chief engineer, to oversee the formal drawing and pricing. From the bidding document preparation to the customer’s purchase order, Hawn coordinates meetings, presentations and manages the negotiations for the final contract. Machinex has celebrated its half-century of equipment manufacturing expertise in 2020. Chris Hawn can be reached via e-mail at Chawn@machinextechnologies.com or visit https://www.MachinexRecycling.com/.