Branching out

Construction and demolition (C&D) recyclers traditionally use excavators to sort and load material at their facilities, but Champion Waste & Recycling Services, Dallas, has headed in a different direction in recent years.

The company, which operates a C&D material recovery facility (MRF) in Celina, Texas, uses material handlers manufactured by Germany-based Sennebogen GmbH, with its North American subsidiary, Sennebogen LLC, headquartered in Stanley, North Carolina, to sort and load material. Champion Waste & Recycling Vice President Paul Kuhar says the company made the transition from excavators to material handlers around 2015.

Champion leases three Sennebogan 818 E material handlers, running two at the Celina facility and one at its commercial MRF in Dallas, he says.

At the C&D MRF in Celina, Kuhar says the company uses one 818 E to load the sorting system and the other to load residuals and sorted materials into transfer trailers.

“We deal with C&D material [in Dallas], as well, that gets fed up to the C&D MRF in Celina,” Kuhar says. “We’ll load different materials there in trailers, whether it’s clean wood or clean cardboard.”

Increased precision

The combination of an elevated cab, a feature many excavators don’t have, and a five-prong orange-peel grapple attachment has been the biggest benefit of moving to material handlers, Kuhar says.

While an excavator equipped with a three-over-two grapple works in demolition and general applications and for loading trucks with material, “you can’t manipulate it as much as you can with the Sennebogen handler with the grapple extension,” he says. “The grapple actually spins 360 degrees, so if you have stuff that wraps, you could be very, very meticulous in how you prep the material.”

He says using the three-over-two demolition attachment is like working in two dimensions versus working in three dimensions with the orange-peel grapple.

Kuhar says it’s possible operators could grab something as small as a 20-ounce bottle using the material handler’s orange-peel grapple.

“I bet if you asked them to, they probably could if they could see it,” Kuhar says. “The smallest thing I’ve had has literally been a plastic bag that was in the load, and they didn’t want that going up the conveyor, so they picked it out.”

Although operators typically have the skill to grab smaller items, Kuhar says most of the materials picked out of piles are larger because it can be time-consuming to remove smaller items.

Kuhar says operators need to strike a balance between efficiency and purity. More typical items operators might remove are steel or metal objects, aggregates and erosion fencing, Kuhar says. Although it took time for Champion’s employees to learn how to operate the material handlers, Kuhar says they’re now veterans on the machines.

“You have really dialed-in control on the loadout part,” he says. “It takes getting used to when you come out of an excavator. … It’s a bit of an adjustment, especially when you’re elevated that high. [But now] they literally can pick small items out of the pile, almost like you would grab with your finger. It’s been really beneficial. Especially with C&D, you get all kinds of different materials; you get different plastics and things that could potentially wrap or blow.”

Although the grapple and elevated cab provide operators with great advantages over the excavator in terms of dexterity and visibility, Kuhar says efficient use of the equipment depends on the operators.

“The experience of the operator, no matter what piece of equipment he’s in … is the most important piece because you can either overload the system, under load a system [or] put stuff in trailers that shouldn’t be in there,” Kuhar says. “Our guy really does a great job at metering the material to ensure it’s getting into the system in a very consistent manner, so the burden depth is good, [while] also looking for things that we don’t want to put in the system.”

In addition to loading material into its sorting systems, Kuhar says Champion uses the 818 E to load an infeed conveyor that leads to a baler.

“Sometimes sorters make mistakes,” he says. “So, we’re able to kind of fluff out some of those sorted products. … If you see something that’s not supposed to be in there, you can go in there and pick it out.”

Kuhar continues, “The combination of the grapple attachment and the cab being up in the air really does give you, in my opinion, better hand-eye coordination.”

Wheels vs. tracks

Another advantage Kuhar says the Sennebogen material handlers have over excavators is that they are equipped with wheels rather than tracks.

At the C&D MRF in Celina, he says much of the site is asphalt and concrete, which does not hold up well to tracked machines. With the facility’s former tracked excavator, he says navigating in paved areas was time-consuming, difficult and more awkward than it is with the material handlers from Sennebogen.

“When you move you’ve got to lay down plywood, and you’ve got to track this thing all the way back to the maintenance shop, and it doesn’t go fast,” he says.

By having the freedom to move the material handlers around the site, Kuhar says Champion has more flexibility and efficiency in its operations.

He explains, “If we get backed up on the outbound side, that Sennebogen on the inbound side can just drive over to our outbound side and start loading trailers with the other machines.”

A cost of doing business

Champion is leasing its material handlers rather than buying them.

Kuhar says he often is asked by others in the industry whether leasing or owning equipment is best.

“We’ve learned as we’ve built out multiple facilities—some of these facilities have six, seven, eight pieces of yellow iron equipment, big loaders and Sennebogens—it can get really expensive really fast,” he says, adding that repairs alone can cost $80,000 or $100,000.

Leasing rather than buying increases predictability in expenses while reducing downtime, Kuhar explains. “You just have to look at the lease as a cost of doing business … but, you don’t have these big maintenance swings,” he says.

Kuhar says his advice to anyone curious as to whether a material handler would be better than an excavator is to try one out.

“I tell them, if you’re on the fence, the biggest thing is [to] just get a demo and do everything you do exactly the way you do it with the machine and see for yourself,” he continues. “I can only tell you what our experiences are.”

The author is managing editor of Construction & Demolition Recycling and can be reached via email at bgaetjens@gie.net.