PPRC 2022: What to consider when upgrading a MRF

During the 2022 Paper & Plastics Recycling Conference in Chicago on Oct. 19-20, experts spoke about factors operators should consider when designing a material recovery facility (MRF).

The panel was moderated by Brent Hildebrand, CEO of American Recycling Holdings, and included Nat Egosi, president of RRT Design & Construction; Kurt Schmitz, senior vice president for Pratt Industries; Stephen Miranda, vice president of recycling in North America for GFL Environmental Inc.; and John Sliwicki, senior vice president of MRF operations at Lakeshore Recycling Systems.

For Egosi, deciding what technology goes into a MRF starts at the tipping floor. There are four factors operators need to consider in the design phase, including what equipment can load and unload, what material is being processed and how it’s fed into the facility’s sorting process.

“The tipping area is a focus area from our point of view in designing these facilities, were concerned about safety and operational issues,” Egosi said.

To start, operators should consider compartmentalizing their tipping floors, which Egosi said helps separate material and equipment. By organizing the tipping floor, operators can more easily access material to improve how each load is inspected and ensure the material is separated properly. It also separates the material from diesel equipment that could cause potential fires down the line.

Compartmentalizing also allows operators to manage how material gets fed into a system. Egosi said by using walls to organize the material and equipment, operators can account for when material comes into the facility and better stockpile it for when it’s time to get processed, resulting in a better sort.

Schmitz added that operators should consider compartmentalizing the facility if it takes in commercial and residential streams.

“Ideally, you don’t want commercial material running through this when you’re just scalping one product,” Schmitz said. “A lot of consideration to how you compartmentalize the tip floor, residential versus commercial and how you bale it at the end [should be taken].”

Sliwicki adds that fire inspection technology and safety training were essentially at his MRF in Chicago because of the lack of space on the tipping floor.

Once material is ready to be processed, it’s time to consider what equipment should be used for sorting. For the panelists, one of the most effective types of separation equipment is screens, typically thought to primarily be used for old corrugated containers. However, Miranda said screening should be used throughout the system.

Where the equipment is placed comes down to several factors. Operators should consider what material is processed at the MRF and need to know the volume they are processing and what they are trying to move before investing in screening equipment.

“If we’re not understanding our stream and we’re not creating [and] designing our systems for the proper mass balance of what’s going through the lines, we’re shooting ourselves in the foot right off the bat,” Sliwicki said.

Performing composition audits up front is where artificial intelligence (AI) learns what to sort from an operator’s stream, Sliwicki said. As the AI works to identify the material composition of the stream, it can provide new data that will help a business manage their MRFs more efficiently.

The trick is to teach plant managers what the data mean and how to apply it to the sorting process, Egosi said.

While the panelists agreed the data will get easier to read over time, Hildebrand suggests having a skilled analyst on staff that could help read and understand the data points.

When it comes to financial modeling and justifying new equipment for a MRF, Miranda said his company looks at factors like labor costs, maintenance costs, material supplies costs or lease costs.

“When you start to analyze a business, to understand what the composition is of the business, whether it’s a contract or a business, a collective business it is so important because you’re going to make millions of dollars decisions based on that composition,” Miranda said. “Without that true composition data, you’re never really going to truly understand the value of what’s in front of you.”

Another way to factor in how much needs to be spent is by auditing the residue at a MRF. Schmitz said auditing the residue helps a company figure out what is missing or thrown away, what couldn’t be recovered, what material is there and where it is ending up. Additionally, knowing where the equipment will go and how it will improve the sort ahead of time will optimize the company’s bottom line and save money.

Egosi said it is necessary to track downtime when figuring out what equipment to purchase. Understanding what contributed to that downtime, be it the type of material being sorted or an operating error helps operators find where improvements can be made to the MRF.

Once this data is collected, an operator needs to track it effectively using an enterprise resource planning (EPR) system. Schmitz added that EPR can help operators track data from different facilities to learn what works better where and why.

Egosi added that using an EPR system, not just an offline way of tracking, can help put the data into a fully integrated cost structure that will allow operators to make informed decisions.

“If you’re not able to convert that into the metrics of dollars, you don’t know where you’re at,” Egosi said. “You need to be able to capture that in an accurate way.”