renews Reclaim. reuse. recycle.
ISSUE III VOLUME III
Farm responds to new demands with Crambo shredder Splitter revolutionizes screening Compost takes Topturn on the road
The new Splitter
The versatile Terminator
The efficient Multistar 1
renews Reclaim. reuse. recycle.
Contents
Johannes Pohl, President
Komptech USA expands – again Dealer of the year R&D at Komptech Crambo helps farm with wood needs Terminator helps landfill boost profits Splitter revolutionizes screening Screen more, grind less San Diego chooses Multistar Topturn boosts new on-site services
In looking back over the past year, if there is one take-home, it´s that quality counts more than ever. Yes, it was a difficult economic environment - so cost efficiency was more important than ever to stay profitable. Many businesses invested in high-quality, high-efficiency machinery like ours, and we doubled our revenues in 2009 and ended the year with a profit. Customers appreciate our very high quality and our great parts availability. We´ve seen that there is plenty of market out there, but the availability of financing is crucial for customers. Therefore, we´ve established strong relationships with established equipment financing institutions like Key Bank and other sound, medium-sized financiers. As recycling takes off, customer requirements are becoming more specific, with new applications like shingle recycling calling for new solutions. Also, many operators need more powerful solutions in composting and especially screening.
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New facility for fas
We’re expanding again! It took us just two years machines out there, our parts business has exp twice the warehouse space, with room to expan
The additional square footage will let us stock u will help us dispatch orders quicker. The new lo the forwarding companies clustered around it, w times a day.
We’ve also boosted our shipping capabilities wi and shipping of parts orders that come in before
The first Komptec of the Year Award
Starting this year, we’re inaugurating the Dealer Simplicity Engineering in Westfield MA, covering CT, RI, NH, VT.
Simplicity Engineering was our best dealer in 20 economy. They have been particularly successf Topturn X53 and X60. James Butler, owner and been a Komptech dealer for almost 10 years, an technology, biomass generation and composting
Accordingly, Komptech has developed a brand new screening technology that will revolutionize huge parts of the screening market - the Splitter. This patented system is low in cost, and can cope with materials not considered screenable before. You can read about it in this issue of ReNews. Since efficiency is so important, we´ve also included some numbers on fuel savings with our Multistar XXL. But most important of all are our customers - so as always, you will find plenty about what Komptech users are doing! Sincerely Johannes Pohl, CEO, Komptech USA j.pohl@komptech.com
Did you know? 2
Recycling is big. According to the EPA, overall annual revenues in the US recycling industry top 230 billion dollars, and the industry employs over 1.1 million people, in well-paying jobs.
The Simplicity Engineering sales team, from lef James Butler, Steve Runge, Ernie Thielen
ster service
s to outgrow our present space. With more panded. The new facility will give us over nd as we continue to grow.
Research: A major priority at Komptech
up to 95% of all regular parts, and two docks ocation, near the Denver airport, has all of which includes stopping by for pickup 4-5
ith new software, for same-day processing e 3pm MST.
ch USA Dealer d
r of the Year award. Our first-time winner is g the northeastern states - NJ, NY, MA, ME,
009, increasing sales by 40% despite the ful in selling composting equipment like the d president of Simplicity Engineering, has nd is a respected expert in waste treatment g.
ft to right:
We frequently use words like “innovative” and “advanced” in our marketing and product literature. Of course, many companies claim to innovate; but at Komptech, it has been a priority right from the beginning. We back it up with major investments of time, funds and expertise. At our purpose-built, fully equipped Research Center in St. Michael, Austria, a dedicated team of engineers works to develop new solutions to new challenges, and improve existing technologies. We also have competence centers and development teams elsewhere in Austria and Germany. Overall, Komptech invests around $ 12,000,000 every year in R&D, so that we as a company can stay a step ahead of the market, and our customers can benefit from the most efficient, highest performance, most durable solutions anywhere in the world.
New at Komptech David Whitelaw (left), Area Sales Manager
Greg Carrier (right), Manager of Operations
Did you know?
Woody biomass is forest management by-products, including limbs, tops, needles, leaves, stumps and other woody parts. In addition to its uses in composting, the US Forest Service (www.fs.fed.us/woodybiomass) has identified woody biomass utilization as a huge opportunity for reducing wildfire and disease threats, improving forest quality and wildlife habitat, creating jobs, and creating new sources of energy. 3
Royal Oak Farm responds to changing times with a Komptech Crambo 5000 shredder Royal Oak Farm, LLC of Evington, VA, is known throughout Virginia for leadership in compost production and specialty soil products. Recently, Ken Newman, managing member of Royal Oak Farm, decided to purchase a Komptech Crambo 5000 Mobile Shredder from Mid-Atlantic Waste Systems to supply his operation with raw wood materials. Since wood waste is one of the primary ingredients of his organic compost and specialty soil product line, and because it is becoming impossible to get wood waste at a reasonable cost, Newman said that a new shredder was the ideal choice for the future success of his business. “Wood waste in this area is extremely hard to come by,” he said. “There is no landfill ban on yard waste, and there is not a burning ban in this state. We have three paper mills in this area, and we have a power plant that burns wood chips and two chipboard manufacturers, so together, most of the wood waste is in extreme shortage around here. That is what made us go out there to start looking at grinders.” “There are plenty of high speed grinders (in the marketplace), but what we are after for use in our composted products is a large, coarse wood waste that will go into our system and keep the piles aerated,” he said. “All the other raw material products that we deal with, the sludges, the food waste, the wood ash, are all very fine materials. We need a bulking agent to open things up and to allow those windrows to ‘breathe’ as well.” Newman field-tested several brands of grinder/shredders, with the primary prerequisite being that the machine had to be able to grind stumps and brush. “We didn’t demonstrate high 4
Ken Newman of Royal Oak Farm, with a stump soon to be fed to the Crambo speed grinders because they produce a mulch type material that is too fine for this operation.” “By wanting to take in stumps and brush to meet our need, we knew that we needed a machine like the Komptech tracked unit,” he said. “We had to have a machine that we could take out to where people were clearing land to obtain our raw materials. We also wanted one that would shred the wood to the size we need.”
He added, “Other companies want a cleaner wood waste material than what we need for this operation. That gave us an excellent opportunity to work with farmers and contractors who are clearing land. We screen the topsoil out of the wood waste that comes from the stumps and roots that we put through the machine. That screened topsoil goes out to the screened topsoil side of our business, while the wood waste goes to the composting side.”
The facility
Newman got into the composting business after farming for several years, producing pasture-raised hogs and chickens. The hogs tended to tear up the pasture and that made raising livestock very difficult. “With the heavy clay soils that we have in this area, we couldn’t keep vegetation on the fields.” He said that the free range chickens had numerous predators, and over time, this venture proved to be less sustainable and profitable than originally planned. “So, we decided to finish hogs in buildings, where we bedded them on a deep litter style building, and we had them in the hoop structures now used to house some of our finished materials,” he said. “We did that for a number of years and that got us into composting because we needed to do something with the
hog manure pack waste. We had no lagoons, so rather than spreading the manure on the fields, we took the sawdust and manure from the deep litter barns, and composted it.” “During that time, we expanded our composting business,” he said. “We secured a contract with a local paper mill to compost their short fiber paper waste,” Newman added. He said that by securing that contract, his facility came under the oversight of the Virginia DEQ. “We went from an on-farm composting facility to a fully permitted industrial/commercial composting operation. We became the first, fully permitted, multi-feedstock solid waste composting facility in the State of Virginia. We can do categories 1 to 4,
and we have a 150,000-ton capacity per year.” “Craig Coker of Coker Composting and Consulting helped us with this project every step of the way,” Newman noted. “He is the one who created the equipment matrix where we compared the shredders and how they performed. He worked with Lance Hood of Mid-Atlantic Waste Systems, through their Bedford, VA office. He helped us determine that the Komptech Crambo 5000 shredder was the best one for our needs. Coker also took care of the permitting, and oversaw the construction project here.” Komptech thanks WHEN magazine for its kind permission to use this article.
The Crambo 5000 hard at work 5
Komptech Terminator 6000 redefines processes at Athens-Hocking Landfill Reclamation Center The Athens-Hocking Landfill Reclamation Center handles an average of 600 to 800 tons of MSW and construction and demolition waste a day, from cities, counties and private operators throughout Southeastern Ohio. In early 2009, the facility purchased a Komptech Terminator 6000 shredder from Columbus Equipment Company for pre-shredding the MSW. Using a wheel loader to load the Terminator, the facility can shred up to 100 tons of MSW in an hour, said site supervisor Bill Nye. Shredding the MSW reduces the volume of the material by about 30 percent, Nye said. Once the material has been through the Terminator, it is spread out and compacted. “The Terminator-shredded material
compacts better than unshredded matter, resulting in a total volume reduction of up to 50 percent,” said Tony Kilbarger, vice president of Kilbarger Construction, which owns the landfill. “We get way better compaction with the shredded material. Before, you could run over a layer of waste in the cell and the compactor would sink down into it. Now it lays like dirt and you get better compaction out of it.” The 50 percent volume reduction means that Kilbarger Construction is able to put twice as much MSW into each cell, with the equivalent increase in revenue for the airspace. Additionally, it slows the need for opening a new cell, which requires a sixfigure investment to excavate the hole, put
in the required liners and drainage layers, and get the required permits. All this adds up to a better bottom line. When the facility does add a new cell, one of the requirements is that the first 5-foot layer of trash put down cannot have any items over 2 feet long, Nye noted. “Before, we had to pick through trash by hand to pull out what didn’t qualify. Now we can just run it through the machine to grind it. The Terminator really speeds the process up tremendously.” Nye, who works with the Terminator daily, has been impressed with the machine’s ability to grind just about anything. No matter what goes in, it comes out about the size of a 2-liter bottle, he added. One key feature of the slow-speed, hightorque Terminator is the hydraulic drive with overload protection, which ensures a high level of protection against contamination. Occasionally, as with most waste processes, large chunks of steel find their way into the stream. Unlike other grinders, the Terminator will kick out the metal, preventing contamination, damage and downtime to the machine, Nye noted. The Terminator 6000 is equipped with a 584-hp Caterpillar engine and is capable of throughput of up to 110 tons per hour, depending on material. Output particle size can be adjusted via the machine’s adjustable cutting gap. In all, Kilbarger rates the Komptech Terminator 6000 as an excellent investment. “It’s simple to run and it’s done a real good job so far,” he said. Kilbarger Construction has been a Columbus Equipment Company customer since 1978.
Bill Nye and the Terminator at Athens-Hocking Landfill 6
Article and imagery provided courtesy of Mediaworks Marketing, Inc., a communications firm specializing in the marketing of heavy industrial products. More information on the company is available at www.mediaworksmarketing.com
Splitter revolutionizes screening New technology handles materials formerly considered unscreenable As one of the world’s leading innovators in recycling technology, Komptech has developed a new screening technology that can handle almost anything. Called the “Splitter,” this patented system combines low cost with robust, trouble-free performance: - Absolutely no blockages or wraparounds - Resistant to abrasives - Screens anything coming out of a grinder or shredder - Up to 3 fractions (laminary, cubic, undersized grain) in one operation - Quiet operation, low power consumption (5.5 kW) - Works with a wide range of other machines upstream and downstream Fine particles – fall through the screen deck to the bottom
Cubic parts are laterally separated
The Splitter is simple and sturdy. The unique axial and sidewise distribution of material gives it the best screening performance in the smallest area, making it compact enough for easy integration into any set-up.
The Splitter at work
Users are finding that by screening and recirculating material, they can use bigger screens in their grinder or shredder to boost production, reduce overall fuel consumption and wear, and still have the desired end-product.
Compact and easy to move
Long particles – are moved off in the conveying direction
Patented technology
The open-ended shafts can handle anything
How it works: The Splitter is essentially a screen deck made up of spiral shaft augers all turning in the same direction. The open-ended shafts completely prevent blockages. Diesel-electric drive makes it easy to control the speed of the shafts, for full control of the flow over the screen deck and thereby the end product. The end product can be between 3’’ and 10.’’ After two years in development, this technology is now ready to revolutionize screening, boost production and lower costs. Call us for details.
Did you know?
There is a large and growing market for recovered construction materials. In the US there are over 700 facilities for recycling wood waste, and over 300 for mixed waste. 7
Grind less, screen more, save most
Careful process design can bring dramatic economy Economical operation goes beyond just individual machine specs, to encompass the way different process functions interact. A great example of this is grinding and screening in mulch production. The Komptech Multistar screener can screen out at least 50% of mulch after a first grind, which means only half the amount to double-grind. Since many grinders run in the 40-50 GPH range, while even the Multistar XXL only uses
2-3 GPH, it’s obvious that there are huge savings to be had here. At $2.30 per gallon, an hour’s screening at 3 GPH costs just $6.30 in fuel, while the same time grinding at 50 GPH costs $115 in fuel. Over an eight-hour day, the difference is a whopping $869.60. Another big factor is machine wear. The wear on a Multistar screener is much less, ton for ton, than on any grinder – up to 95% less in wear costs.
CLEANSTAR keeps things running smoothly The Multistar screen units are continually cleaned by the patented CLEANSTAR cleaning system. Each star has a wear-resistant cleaning finger that clears the screen gap to the surrounding stars on each rotation. In contrast to competing products, this prevents both material wrap-around and adhesion caused by wet material. Star ‘A’ runs at a slightly different RPM than ‘B’. This means that the cleaning finger on the star cleans a different section at every revolution. This equals almost no wear on the stars; instead, wear is concentrated on the cheap, easily replaceable cleaning finger
Did you know? 8
Household and commercial waste separation and recycling can reduce landfill use by up to 80%, using existing technology.
The Multistar is an especially efficient screener in other ways too. It combines 2 or 3-fraction separation with optional wind sifting and Fe separation, to take care of all contaminants in a single pass. Unlike with trommels, changing the end-product size is a simple matter of pressing a button on the touch screen, so there is no downtime involved. Komptech’s special CLEANSTAR system prevents blockages (see inset).
Multistar XL star screen helps boost compost production The Miramar Greenery crew and their new Multistar XL
City of San Diego adds its third Komptech machine The City of San Diego’s Miramar Greenery is one of the top producers of quality compost in Southern California. The City purchased its first machine in 2002, when they had a big need to remove plastic contamination as well as silverware in waste collected from the Miramar Air Base food waste program. Three years later the city purchased a Komptech Magnum trommel screen to replace their old trommel, which had started to develop maintenance issues. The Magnum trommel feeds directly into the Komptech Hurricane windsifter and produces very high quality finished compost. With the growing demand and increased size of their operation, Miramar needed another screen to process material, so in 2009 the City purchased a Multistar XL star screen to keep up with their production needs. This new screen allows the Greenery to produce over 300 yards of material per hour, while removing plastic contamination and metal. In addition, the star screen gives instant product adjustability, so the Greenery can
Did you know?
produce their many products without having to change out drums or screen segments. One of the biggest advantages with the new Multistar XL is its ability to run completely on grid power. With the 480/60 US current electric drive already installed, if work needs to
be done to the engine, or simply to take advantage of the lower cost of operating with grid power, all the Greenery needs to do is plug in. As its needs grow, San Diego plans to continue to look to Komptech to help in their composting equipment needs.
The Multistar’s throughput, economy and quality output are helping Miramar boost production
A properly managed compost pile essentially sterilizes manure. Pathogens are destroyed by heat and by other, more benign bacteria, which are in turn consumed by higher-order organisms as the pile cycles through the composting stages. 9
Going after the business
Checking out the composting process, up close and personal
Did you know?
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Organic fertilizers such as compost have a broad range of beneficial effects: • Reduced chance of nitrogen burn on plants than with inorganic fertilizers • Reduced nitrogen runoff, better surface and groundwater quality • Better long-term soil productivity • Higher trace mineral content, lower toxic heavy-metal content • Improved soil biodiversity, potential for reduced pesticide use
Topturn owner Frank Kalsbeek and Kyle Horn (Equipment Depot) with Todd Dunderdale of Komptech
In 2005, the Topturn X won the Industrial Design Excellence Gold Award. As an Austrian-based company, we are particularly proud of this recognition by the Industrial Designers Society of America.
Texas composter offers contract compost services with the highly mobile Topturn Frank and Geri Ann Kalsbeek of Green Cow Compost in Dublin TX have been in the compost business for 6 years. Their annual production is about 750,000 yards – that’s over 400 miles, or half the width of the Lone Star State – of manure compost in several blends and dairy farm waste and slurry. In January, Green Cow Compost bought a Topturn X53 from Komptech dealer Equipment Depot. What most attracted Frank to this machine was its mobility. It switches from transport to working position quickly, and with its hydrostatic traction drive and solid telescopic frame it can handle almost any kind of terrain. That’s a real premium for contract compost turning on-site at dairies. Frank doesn’t have to worry about conditions – the Topturn takes in stride the unimproved surfaces and muddy conditions typically encountered at dairy farms.
Another attractive feature was the slow roller speed which lets the Topturn handle rocks easily, an important factor when working at customer sites where there is less certainty about the composition of windrows. The slow speed keeps wear to a minimum for less downtime, which Frank values since his goal is to provide contract composting services to three dairies per day. On-site composting has some obvious benefits, which Frank anticipates that more and more dairies will see the value of. It lets the dairy take care of its slurry and manure in a sustainable and economically sound way, turning a “problem” into an environmentally beneficial product the dairy can use itself or sell for an additional revenue stream. It’s much cheaper for the dairy to have Green Cow come by and turn their compost than to invest in the
equipment to do it themselves. It’s also cheaper than transporting the manure offsite for composting, especially since the raw material is automatically “replenished” at the dairy each and every single day. Despite the low working speed, the Topturn X53 has a high throughput rate of 4500yd³/h. In travelling configuration it measures 17.5 x 10 x 9.5’ (L x W x H). At the site, once the cabin swings up into working position the Topturn can handle windrows up to 8 feet high with a maximum crosssection of 70 square feet. Green Cow Compost has been very happy with the performance of its new Topturn thus far, and if the experience of other users is anything to go by, Frank and Geri Ann can look forward to many more years of productive operations with this machine.
The Topturn doing what it does best – turning a windrow
Did you know?
Composting requires the right balance of air supply, moisture and heat. The biological processes in the pile generate heat, and a certain temperature level is important to kill off pathogens, but too much heat stops the composting process. All this makes aerating compost (windrow-turning) important for three reasons: It allows oxygen to get into the pile so the microoorganisms can do their job, it removes excess moisture, and it regulates the temperature so the windrow doesn’t overheat. Windrow-turning also ensures that all pathogens in compost are exposed to and killed by the high temperatures deep within the windrow. 11
Komptech USA Inc. [P] (720) 890-9090 [F] (720) 890-5907 info@komptechusa.com www.komptechusa.com
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