Operations focus: Buried treasure

Copper-containing cable that is recovered for recycling usually comes from a building that is being remodeled or demolished. But a cable recycling project taking place in Cleveland can be described as anything but typical. That’s because the cable is located about 2,000 feet below the ground inside a salt mine.

To put the depth of the mine in perspective, 2,000 feet is twice the height of Cleveland’s tallest building, Key Tower. Machinery and other items that take the five minute elevator ride through the earth down to the mine, don’t usually come back up, because it is too difficult. In fact, vehicles are taken apart in order to get down the elevator and are reassembled once in the mine. An entire mechanic garage, washing station and fueling station all exist within the miles of salt-rock that extend below Lake Erie.

Mining began at the site in 1965. The mine spans several miles and the floor, ceiling and walls are all made of salt, which is cut out in what is called a “room and pillar design.” Cargill has owned and operated the mine since 1997. It is part of the Wayzata, Minnesota-headquartered company’s Cargill Deicing Technology division based in North Olmsted, Ohio, and one of three salt mines the company operates. The other two are in Lansing, New York, and Avery Island, Louisiana. The Cleveland mine employs about 193 people, and produces road salt to several nearby states.

George Campbell, mine general foreman, explains areas that have been mined fully are designed to slowly collapse in on themselves. Anything within the old sections of mine that don’t need to go back up to the surface stay in the mine. Until recently, that meant old cable. It continued to hang in the ceilings for many years even though the expired cable was no longer in service.

Campbell explains why: “Over the years it had been determined that the cost of removing these items was expensive and time consuming.”
 

A good idea

About a year ago, an electrician who had been with Cargill for just one year at the time, Scott Evilsizer, proposed an idea that would tackle the removal of the cable without taking away from valuable work time. Cargill encourages its employees to volunteer. Many of the workers in the mine work long hours and late shifts, making it difficult to find a way to give back to the community through service. Evilsizer suggested having employees volunteer their time by removing the cable and donating the proceeds from recycling the material to charity.

“With Cargill’s commitment to community service, employees such as Scott have brought new and innovative solutions to recovering this metal,” Campbell says.

Evilsizer presented his idea to storeroom manager Jennifer Rhodes. Rhodes discussed the idea with supervisors who agreed to proceed with the volunteer opportunity and other miners soon chipped in.

“Our employee brought it to us, so we wanted to do everything we could to support him,” says Rhodes. “It was something that he was really passionate about.”

Cargill allocates three days per year for its employees to volunteer. Rhodes describes the cable recycling project as a volunteer opportunity that “suits the lifestyle” of many of the miners.

“We staff seven electricians throughout the mine and all of them have chipped in,” says Campbell. “As well, we have our maintenance department and belt crew recover most of the wire and take it to the electrical connex [large shipping container] where it is separated and boxed. This project continues on the surface where multiple employees also contribute. It has become a companywide volunteer project.”

The wire and cable that is being recovered often comes from areas of the mine that are no longer being mined. The wire and cable provided Cargill with many years of service, but is now being replaced. “We are currently upgrading our incoming power and need larger wire to carry the voltage we need to operate our equipment and ventilation system,” Campbell explains.

Evilsizer says he remembers thinking when the upgrading began, “It’s kind of sinful to bury all of that wire.”

Most of the cable is recovered with a cable truck. Any cable that can be salvaged is reused. Damaged sections, usually those with multiple splices, are cut into small pieces and placed in Gaylord boxes. The exposed copper is black from being inside the corrosive atmosphere of the salt mine, but inside the protective casing, the copper is the shiny reddish metal one would expect. Once the boxes containing the pieces of wire and cable are full, they are hoisted up to the surface via the skip elevator.

Campbell says time management is a challenge when trying to recycle underground. “We find the time to collect the wire as it is our intent to reuse as much as possible, but getting it transported out of the mine sometimes takes a while. We only want to send this up when it will not interfere with operations.”

Cargill also recycles wire and cable from its above ground buildings. All of the material is picked up by a local recycling company and taken to a third-party processor that removes the jacket from copper. The copper is weighed and Cargill is paid market value for it.
 

A worthy cause

So far with only two batches of cable being sent out for recycling, Cargill has raised more than $19,000.

Rhodes says Cargill always knew the material was valuable, but it took someone like Evilsizer who had the initiative to organize the effort and to find an outlet for the material to get the ball rolling.

All the money raised will be donated to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, based in Memphis, Tennessee. According to Cargill employees, the charity was chosen because of its dedication to families, children and its community. “Cargill and its employees have the same interest,” Campbell says. “It’s how we give back.”

Employees have a goal to raise $25,000 for the charity by mid-September when Cleveland hosts its St. Jude Walk/Run to End Childhood Cancer, but Steve Horne, mine manager, says the sky’s the limit.

“There are always projects at the mine that will require electrical upgrades,” he says. “Salt is a corrosive substance that will forever keep us finding ways to be innovative in how we dispose of and recover our precious minerals and metals.”

Horne adds, “Continued growth in community service programs is always a goal at Cargill. One hundred percent employee involvement is our goal. We will continue to challenge our employees until we reach it and this is one way to help us achieve our goal.”

The author is editor of Construction & Demolition Recycling and can be reached at ksmith@gie.net.

Go Inside
Go deep inside the salt mine for rarely seen footage in this exclusive video report on Cargill’s massive recycling project at www.CDRecycler.com/video/cargill-recycling-video.