5 Questions About the Future of C&D Recycling

1. How does GK plan for a system’s future?

When GK receives an inquiry about a C&D system, we ask a few fundamental questions: Why do you want to do this? What are your process goals? How long do you plan on running the operation? By exploring these questions, we can offer the best system that allows flexibility for future growth. The solution may be as simple as adding a screen to an A-line sorting belt or as sophisticated as developing A-, B-, C- and D-line sorting that incorporates screening, metals recovery, density separation, shredding and optical/robotic sorting.

2. How do you account for ever-changing waste streams?

The biggest challenge to sorting C&D materials is the effective processing of various material shapes and sizes, ranging from long, skinny pieces of wood to the literal kitchen sink and everything in between. The sorting process starts with the primary screen. This is where GK’s Finger-Screen™ 2.0 stands apart, handling the most challenging material while increasing separation capacity, maximizing uptime and improving profitability.

3. What’s new in fines processing?

C&D fines have been a hot topic of discussion dating back to when I started in the industry more than 30 years ago. Since then, GK has been working to improve fines recovery through our screening technology.

The biviTEC screen for fractional size screening of wet and sticky materials uses a unique flexible screen panel that generates high g-forces to move material, improve separation and minimize buildup. This is just one of the many screening technology improvements that can be incorporated into a GK System.

4. How does GK improve wood processing?

Up to 40 percent of incoming C&D material volume is comprised of wood. Plywood and 2x4’s are two examples with very different physical properties that can pose issues in the screening process. Plywood can ride across the screen deck and blind over the openings, while 2x4’s can easily get trapped in the openings in a wire mesh screen or perforated plate. GK developed the tapered finger screen opening to easily relieve the material and minimize jams. By incorporating a mid-step deck, large flat plywood pieces get turned to expose more openings to the fines. The result is the scalping off of the long, skinny pieces and the agitation of the flat pieces to improve wood separation.

5. What is the latest technology entering the market?

Robotics, optical sorters and AI-enabled systems are unique technologies that will improve materials recovery and reduce manual labor in the future, but the material stream still needs to be separated and presented to these devices for these new technologies to work. This is where GK’s vibratory screening and density separation technologies excel and will continue to improve the material separation process as we look to the industry’s future.