Six years on and Hamilton Waste & Recycling are still gaining the benefits of the EDGE Slayer.
Low maintenance and operational costs, uniform piece sizing, high percentage up-time, ease of maintenance and service second to none has Hamilton Waste and Recycling still singing the praises of the EDGE Slayer Series, six years later. It’s the kind of review that all equipment manufacturers dream of but that’s the opinion of Hamilton Waste and Recycling director, David Hamilton.
Since 2002, Hamilton Waste and Recycling has continually grown year on year. It is now regarded as being one of Scotland’s largest independent waste management companies. Based in Edinburgh as well as East and West Lothian, Hamilton Waste and Recycling from has operated three transfer and recycling stations for almost ten years. In 2010, this family run business on the outskirts of Edinburgh took the decision to purchase an EDGE slow speed, twin shaft shredder. Before acquiring the shredder, Hamilton Waste and Recycling had been sorting material on the ground before sending on for processing. With the introduction of the Slayer to their waste processing stream, Hamilton’s have been able to reduce the size of the municipal skip waste to a homogenous piece size of 400mm. This enable Hamilton’s to pass shredded material over a screen and on to a 4 bay picking station.
A fourth, 15 acre state of the art transfer and recycling facility was added near Smeaton in 2011. Fast forward to present day and Hamilton waste have continued to invest heavily in new material handling and separation technologies with the installation of a new £2 million bespoke separation plant in 2014 on the same site. The new plant incorporates mechanical separation in the form of flip flow screens, a trommel, air separation, water separation and manual up-stream picking. At the front end of this new recycling plant, Hamilton Waste and Recycling have chosen to stay loyal to the trusted EDGE slow speed shredder. In fact; when it came to designing the new plant, David Hamilton states that the “first piece of the jig-saw was the EDGE shredder. The product it produces dictated the type of plant that could handle that product. The EDGE shredder is an integral part of what we do here at Hamilton Waste and Recycling”.
Over 100,000 tonnes of municipal skip waste passes through Hamilton Waste and Recycling weighgate each year, all of which is fed through the EDGE shredder. The Slayer’s capacity to consistently produce an end product of no greater than 400mm is vital to Hamilton Waste’s ability to process material cost effectively. It enables the pickers to effectively identify and pick commodities as well as allowing the air and water separation systems to work at their optimum throughput. David illustrates the importance of the EDGE shredder to the day to running of the waste recycling facility; “the EDGE Shredder is integral to our business. It allows us to process material and get it through the plant cost effectively... If it went down for a day or so or if we didn’t have it; it would be a big problem”.
Design features found on the Slayer has also made it a firm favourite of Hamilton’s service engineers and operators with the tramp metal detection system being identified as real cost saving feature with non-shreddable fragments being quickly removed. David describes to the aftersales customer support the company has received from EDGE Innovate; “we are delighted with the service and backup which is second to none, with spare parts being very cost effective. Their engineers are very helpful…their back up is very important to Hamilton Waste and Recycling”.
Talking with David Hamilton he recalls the decision making process Hamilton Waste and Recycling went through and it was not as simple as achieving the desire throughput at the right piece size. “We research the operating cost of a high speed shredder in comparison to a slow speed. We found that the high speed grinder suffered from much higher wear when processing unsorted contaminated material along with needing much more fuel. The material we received needed to be pre-sorted so our processing costs would be considerably higher”. Hamilton’s came to the conclusion that a slow speed was more suited for the processing of their municipal skip waste stream and started to look at numerous shredders.
Their search brought them to the EDGE Slayer due it’s robust design, versatility and low running costs in comparison to its competitors. On initial testing the EDGE Slayer was averaging under 20lts per hour of fuel, less than half of its competitors. According to Mr. Hamilton it’s the operating costs where the EDGE Slayer really stands out; “one of things we like about the EDGE Shredder is that there is not much wear or tear oppose to a high speed shredder. We basically hard face the shredder shafts once a week and it takes us maybe 2 hours on a Saturday morning and the unit is ready to go on a Monday morning as usual. It is easy to maintain and the fuel consumption is very low, surprisingly low. This was one of the major factors when deciding on the purchase. The operating and running costs are very low and we are very happy with this”.
With the average fuel consumption as low as 20 litres per hour, a robust design which lends itself to minimum pre-sorting; the EDGE Slayer has drastically reduced Hamilton Waste’s processing cost per tonne. With volatile commodity prices, profit margins are continually being challenged, it is vital that businesses are operating at the lowest possible processing cost per tonne and the EDGE Slayer is a vital component in helping Hamilton Waste and Recycling achieve this. With any capital purchase; the higher the uptime of the equipment, the quicker the payback. After six years of operating within Hamilton Waste and Recycling, Mr. Hamilton reports that they are delighted with the reliability of EGDE Slayer. “The percentage uptime is extremely high so we are more than happy with it”. With high performance, consistent product piece size, high percentage uptime coupled with low maintenance and operating cost it looks like the EDGE Slayer after 6000 plus operating hours has been the perfect fit for Hamilton Waste and Recycling.
EDGE Innovate offer two different sizes of slow speed waste shredders in a number of different formats ranging from hooklift to track. Operators can choose form direct electric to diesel/hydraulic units.
For further information about this shredder or to arrange to come see one in action, email info@edgeinnovate.com or call +44(0) 2887 741525.
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