Neal Bolton

By Neal Bolton

After a routine physical checkup, Joe met with his doctor to go over the results.

"You're overweight, Joe," the doctor said.

"Yeah, I know."

"In fact," the doctor continued, "you need to trim off 48 pounds."

"OK," agreed Joe.

"Any questions?"

"No, doc. I understand. I have to lose 48 pounds."

"Right," said the doctor. "I'll see you next year."

Joe left the doctor's office that day with no details, no plan, and no hope of success. Forty-eight pounds Š it's overwhelming. Joe would have had a much better chance of trimming the excess weight if he'd gotten more detailed information, if he'd focused.

Would Joe have been more likely to succeed if his goal were to lose 4 lb./month, or 1 lb./week, or even 2 oz./day? Probably. Would the task have seemed less daunting if Joe knew that simply taking a 20-minute walk each day or ordering regular instead of "super-size" meals would tip the scales his way? You bet.

So what does this have to do with landfill? Well, that afternoon Joe the landfill manager was at a budget meeting.

"Joe, the landfill budget is too fat," his boss said.

"Yeah, I know."

"In fact," the boss continued, "you need to trim off $48,000."

"OK," agreed Joe.

"Any questions?"

"No, boss, I understand. I have to reduce expenses by $48,000."

"Right," said the boss. "I'll see you next month."

Sound familiar? Same lack of details. Same slim chance of success.

Trying to lose weight or save money based on vague goals is - at best - difficult. At worst, it's downright impossible.

To help you understand how to focus for success at your landfill, let's go through an example. We'll start from a broad perspective and then slowly focus on a specific piece of the operation.

The landfill's annual budget is $2 million/year. The facility takes in 300 tpd of waste. That's good information, it's interesting, but it's too broad to allow much room for tweaking. We need to focus.

The dozer costs $475,000. Again, it's good, interesting information. And perhaps it might stimulate you into thinking about shopping around for a better price for the next dozer you buy. But it's still too broad. Need to focus more.

The dozer costs $125/hour to operate. So how can we save money? Perhaps we could cut back the dozer's hours. But can you decrease the hours and maintain productivity? Perhaps, but we need to look closer.

What, in fact, does the dozer do? It pushes from the tipping area to the active face. Right. Let's say that the dozer works eight hours per day at $125/hour, so its daily cost is $1,000. Furthermore, let's say we've measured and found that its average push distance is 80 ft. If we break this down one step further, we find that under the dozer's current scenario, pushing costs $12.50/ft. - every day.

Can you visualize $12.50/ft. better than "The dozer costs $475,000 to purchase" or "It costs $125/hour to operate"? Me too.

With this information, you can brainstorm with your crew to find ways to shorten the average push distance. For example, shortening the push distance by 10 ft. saves $125/day, or $37,500/year. Now we're talking. We've focused down to a level where we not only can understand where the money's going but now we also might be able to get our hands on some of it.

Now that we've got the operation in focus, let's look around and see what else might turn up. Using the same logic, calculate how much it costs per (dozer) push. Again, it's eight hours per day multiplied by $125/hour. The daily cost is $1,000/day. If, on average, the dozer makes 100 pushes per day, each push costs $10. So to save money, you just need to make fewer pushes. No can do, you say? Check this out.

On a normal push (e.g., gather, push, spread, and return), the dozer can carry 6-10 tons of trash. And, as we just calculated, that 6- to 10-ton "push" costs $10. During the busy times, that's cool.

But what happens during the slow times, when no trucks are coming in? In most cases, wanting to keep busy, the operator will make a few "cleanup" pushes. You know, he's just cleaning up trash that spilled off the edge of the blade during the last few pushes. They aren't big loads; maybe a quarter- or half-ton per push. But those pushes still cost $10 a piece. Over the course of a day, a big percentage of the dozer's pushes are pretty "wimpy." Continually cleaning up a handful of spilled trash with a big dozer is a waste of time and money.

While most of us might consider hiring the kid next door to rake the leaves in our yard, we'd never hire someone to be on hand to rake up every leaf as it falls. To do so would be a silly waste of money. So why are we encouraging the dozer to do this very thing at our landfills every day? Probably because we are working from the mindset that says, "Keep busy. If there's nothing to do, find something." So the dozer keeps on pushing.

What if the dozer refused to push wimpy loads and just let the spilled trash build up over the course of the day - and didn't clean it up until the last truckload had been pushed: What would happen? No, the sky would not fall. First off, the dozer would make a lot fewer pushes. Let's assume it went from 100 pushes per day to 60. At $10/push, that represents a savings of $400/day, or $120,000/year.

As a side benefit, as the spilled trash builds up along the dozer's push path, it starts to create a berm, or windrow. The dozer is in effect beginning to "slot doze." And as a result, subsequent pushes can carry more trash because less trash is spilled around the edge of the blade.

Do you get the picture? So did Joe. Using the concept of focusing, he was able to save a lot more than the $48,000 his boss asked for. Oh, and if you want more information, don't call the landfill and ask for Joe. They won't know who the heck you're talking about. These days, everybody calls him "Slim."

Neal Bolton is a consultant specializing in landfill operations and management. He is principal of Blue Ridge Services in Atascadero, CA, and author of The Handbook of Landfill Operations

MSW - July/August 2003