Paper Recycling — Saving Money, Sanity

TRUTH BE known, while many of you make a handsome living in the printing and associated services sectors, you hate paper. And that’s OK, for you have good reason to feel that way.

Paper can be pretty annoying. It’s pricey, for one, accounting for a lion’s share of total costs. It is a space hog; between the real estate it consumes and the cost, many would prefer to have the least amount necessary in inventory. Web rolls are bulky and awkward...ever get your foot pinched by one? People have even been killed by runaway webs.

Perhaps worst of all, paper gets wasted. Even with the shortest makereadies, stock will end up in the Gaylords. And then there’s trim—dirty, clingy and messy, needing to be disposed of properly. Or in some cases, improperly and inefficiently. Yes, the indignation never ends.

Fortunately, there’s a consolation prize for those who take the initiative and install trim collection and baling systems: about $110 a ton for recycled, baled paper. Depending on your volume, these systems can pay for themselves in a fraction of the time it takes to pay down the heavy hardware.

In a perfect world, every company would have an efficient, money-saving system in place. But getting optimum return for scrap is located pretty far down on the priority list. Perhaps it’s time to bump it up.

“I wish I would have installed a system sooner,” says Mike Vandenburg, vice president of operations for South Bend, IN-based Mossberg & Co. “I really didn’t take the time to research it. You’ve already paid for the paper, so you don’t think of the scrap value of the paper going out the back door.”

Prior to tapping Air Systems Design for its current system, Mossberg & Co. used an evacuation system to handle folder trim scrap. Meanwhile, pressroom waste and paper from the cutters and stitchers were gathered manually and dumped into Gaylords. The company filled up to two and a half semi-trailers per week.

“Because of that, I had limited resources on my dock,” Vandenburg says. “So I had a local company that we’d call, which would then send a truck over (for pickup) within the hour. We were really being serviced for convenience reasons.”

Mossberg’s three blower systems went live roughly two years ago. One removes the scrap from three paper cutters, a second handles four folders, and the third tends to two stitching lines. An accumulator is mounted above the baler and an air filtration system minimizes the dust that’s created. The ROI is less than two and a half years.

The up side for Mossberg is a 300 percent gain in scrap material return. Vandenburg watched the value surge from $40 a ton for Gaylords to $110 per ton for baled waste, depending on the mix.

Another benefit that’s difficult to measure in hard costs is the savings in operator time spent moving Gaylords around, according to Vandenburg. An operator making more than $20 an hour doesn’t have to spend time changing out boxes.

Maintenance has been minimal. Fittings on the blower units get greased and the motors are inspected—fairly straightforward business. On weekends, the system is programmed to send large amounts of air through the filters, clearing out dust.

“The filtration system does a wonderful job keeping our area clean, but you’ve got to maintain the filter system,” Vandenburg says. “Otherwise, they get clogged and lose their efficiency.”

Manual No More

Another company that was handling scrap manually was Progress Printing in Lynchburg, VA. According to Stan Smith, vice president of manufacturing, the process of transporting material in containers to the balers in order to make paper bricks was labor prohibitive.

Progress Printing turned to Kernic Systems for its recycling system, which has two cyclones and occupies roughly 2,500 square feet. Kernic designed a system tailored toward Progress Printing’s volume of one million pounds per month.

“The initial system was installed to provide air extraction from our saddlestitchers, cutters and folders,” he says. “Later on, we had to make upgrades to extract from a perfect binder and an additional stitcher. It’s very important to understand your requirements for today, as well as the need to grow in the future.”

Smith underscores the importance of having a quality system in place, especially for the rigors of a 24/7 operation. In a sense, it is as vital to production as the equipment on the floor.

“A good system provides the opportunity for a printer to maximize the value of the waste stream,” he notes. “While we all work hard to minimize the waste factor of every job, handling the waste efficiently and making bales will generate the best possible return on investment.”

In the case of Johnson City, TN-based Mazer Corp., the need for a paper recycling system was borne out of a growth initiative. For the longest time, Mazer relied on equipment operators to clean up around the gear. The closest thing the printer had to a central collection system was a 40-yard container kept outside the building.

“It became a revenue and expense issue for us,” notes Rick Morrison, director of manufacturing for Mazer. “We were losing revenue by not having tight bales of paper, and it was an expense because we were devoting more labor to collecting the paper.”

The final straw came when Mazer acquired a perfect binder from Muller Martini. The facility had been expanded, and with more volume coming through the plant, Mazer execs didn’t want to rely on the status quo for their paper collection.

So the printer gave G.F. Puhl a call. The single-cyclone system was installed by the end of last April, with the final piece being a dust collector added a week later.

“It has performed very well for us,” Morrison notes. “We had a short deadline, but Puhl put together a system that really met our needs. It should easily pay for itself within a couple of years.”

Sometimes the road to ultimate efficiency has a few wrong turns. Take Heeter Direct in Canonsburg, PA, for example. For a number of years the printer relied on using a compactor for its paper and board scrap. A recycling company would pick up the scrap, drop off a new container and sort out the flattened bricks back at the recycling center.

Heeter then instituted a baling system, but it wasn’t automated, and employees would have to take time to tie the bales, according to Tim Thomas, executive vice president. It was a modest improvement over the old system.

Finally, Heeter signed on with Advanced Equipment Sales (AES) to devise an evacuation and baling system. The printer reconfigured some receiving racks and bindery equipment but, thanks in part to its high ceilings, Heeter didn’t need to alter its building to accommodate the system. The system was completed in the summer of 2007.

“We were concerned about a number of things,” Thomas remarks. “The air constantly running. How much energy would it take? Would it suck out AC and heating? (AES) assured us it wouldn’t. Their engineers came in and explained how it would work to our facility maintenance director, (owner) Scott Heeter and myself. We showed them how much waste we were collecting on a monthly basis based on the current vendor we were using. They determined how big a system we would need, factoring in some growth.”

Thomas believes the system is fairly self-sustaining. And not only has it not robbed the facility of heating or cooling, it has removed spray powder from the press sheets out of the air, making it cleaner. Heeter is on track to see an ROI within the 18-month to two-year window that was estimated. But it goes beyond dollars and cents.

“The old system was loud, dirty, and it took one to two employees several hours a day to tie the bales up, move them out of the way and maintain the system,” he relates. “This one is basically maintenance-and labor-free. It’s been one of our best investments.” PI

For More Information on paper recycling systems, visit www.piworld.com/infocenter and enter the numbers below.

Advanced Equipment Sales — 395
Air Systems Design — 396
Allegheny Paper Shredders — 397
American Baler — 398
Balemaster — 399
Kernic Systems — 400
NexGen Baling Systems — 401
Ohio Blow Pipe — 402
G.F. Puhl — 403
Vecoplan — 404
WEIMA — 405