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Pay the Landfill or Pay Yourself

Pay the Landfill or Pay Yourself

Dec. 10, 2020- By: Howard Fiedler

Construction & demolition (C&D) recycling systems and operations have continued to grow in sophistication & mechanization with each passing year.

Single line systems largely gave way to dual lines, magnets were added everywhere possible, air (density) separators became a staple, game-changing ballistic separators gained increased traction, and robots began to show up to work on select C&D 3D sort lines!

Like you, Sparta pays close attention to the best processing technologies to integrate into our turnkey Sparta C&D recycling systems. And regularly spending time on site with C&D recyclers throughout North America gives us extensive insight into their needs, goals, and best practices.

One trend that has emerged with little fanfare but is clearly here to stay, is the reduction in sizing of screened fines, a necessary byproduct of the C&D recycling process. As C&D fines commonly account for 10-20% (by weight) of recyclers’ daily inbound material stream, finding a viable fines outlet is challenging and important.

Commonly utilized by landfills as alternate daily cover (ADC) material, 2” minus fines initially emerged as an early standard. To help minimize the amount of potential ‘blowables’ in this stream landfills over time required incremental tightening up of C&D fines, with 1 ½”- fines being a frequent outcome.