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A small,
secretive world with stiff competition
By
Rosalie E. Leposky
For generations,
the interface between garbage can and solid waste collection
vehicle has been a burly man hefting a large barrel
on his back. Now, increasing numbers of municipalities
and large private haulers are replacing that time-honored
“technology” with solid waste accessories—carts,
containers, lifters, and tippers—that aggregate
small quantities of refuse and recyclables in a receptacle,
then transfer the receptacle’s contents into a
collection vehicle in a mechanized or automated manner.
Solid waste
officials trying to choose among the available accessory
technologies face a bewildering dilemma. This industry
is a very small world, with a few large multinational
vendors, some small privately owned companies, and lots
of secrets. Every player in this game is familiar with
its competitors’ products, but few will share information
about their own products that might compromise a perceived
competitive edge.
The competition
is so fierce that many solid waste accessory manufacturers
won’t talk about the type and gauge of steel or
plastic used to make a product for fear someone else
will copy or improve upon the product or process, steal
their marketing thunder, or twist their language in
advertisements and sales pitches. Most manufacturers
don’t include precise engineering and material-content
information in their marketing materials, and most aren’t
forthcoming about providing such details. Confronted
with these sensitivities, prospective purchasers may
have trouble making an informed buying decision.
The vendors’
reticence may even extend to announcements of sales
results. “I am not always convinced that reported
numbers are real,” says Doug Hill, sales manager
at SCL A-1 Plastics Ltd. in Brampton, ON.
“We
currently have over 23 million curbside bins [from 5
to 22 gallons] that have been sold during the past two
decades, but the market is far from saturated,”
Hill says. “There are still pockets in the United
States with virtually no recycling. Massachusetts, Rhode
Island, and Pennsylvania communities are doing a good
job. So are California, Florida, Oregon, and pockets
in other states.”
Four Secrets
In an industry replete with secrets, four of the
best kept are these:
- Most
cart and container manufacturers have millions of
units of excess manufacturing capacity. Firms that
can create ways to use this excess capacity will dominate
the industry.
- New plastic
resins have risen in price to astronomical levels,
forcing cart and container manufacturers to sell their
products with little or no profit margin. Due to the
stiff competition, they haven’t been able to
pass on resin price increases to their customers.
- Competitive
bidding also helps hold pricing on carts and containers
at unrealistically low levels.
- The industry’s
pricing techniques have erected barriers to market
expansion.
Municipalities
typically buy solid waste accessories by the truckload
or pallet load, and that’s how the vendors price
their products. Thus, in the absence of acceptable pricing,
any user smaller than a municipality or large private
hauler cannot afford today’s state-of-the-art carts
and containers.
When Miami,
FL, purchased carts a few years ago from Schaefer Systems
International LLC of Charlotte, NC, for a new “one-armed
bandit” automated wastestream system, city and
Schaefer officials distributed 60,000 carts from the
turf at the Orange Bowl football stadium.
As mentioned,
the typical purchase is by the truckload or pallet load.
Manufacturers, as a rule, do not sell any product to
mass marketers like Ace Hardware, The Home Depot, Lowe’s,
or other large North American consumer sales organizations,
making it difficult for a smaller user—a residential
subdivision or a rural community of a few dozen to a
few hundred—to purchase carts and containers.
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PHOTO:
REHRIG PACIFIC
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Carts:
Identity and Inventory
Curbside bins come in an incredible variety of
sizes and colors. They can be hot-stamped on the sides
and top with the logo of a municipality or private hauler.
To encourage residents to use these carts, each should
display a manufacturer’s hot stamp stating what
it should hold, says Hill. “Make it easier for
the homeowners so they don’t have to think what
should be placed where,” he recommends.
“Communities
add serial and bar code numbers to inventory their carts,”
says Glenn LeMieux, product marketing manager for Cascade
Engineering Family of Companies in Grand Rapids, MI.
“Last year, Rochester, New York, introduced a new
system using in-molded bar code numbers to track cart
inventory, repair history, and warranty and theft information.
The system should save about $200,000 in taxpayers’
funds from container replacement and dumping. A truck-based
scanner links a cart to a specific address. The driver
can enter repair or replacement information.”
The bar code
number of each cart is scanned into the Rochester system
when it is delivered to a building or household address.
Later, if the truck driver sees a broken wheel, he will
enter that information and ask for a pickup and repair
or replacement order. Each day the information is downloaded
into the system’s database. Rochester has a semi-automated
wastestream system that requires the driver to get out
of the truck at each stop. It takes him a few extra
seconds to scan a bar code.
For more
information about the Rochester project, visit http://www.cascadeng.com/pdf/Rochester12.03.04.pdf.
Size and
Capacity
Wheeled carts come in three sizes:
- 95 gallons,
with an empty weight of about 42 pounds and an American
National Standards Institute (ANSI) rating of about
340 pounds
- 65 gallons,
with an empty weight of about 32 pounds and an ANSI
rating of 220 pounds
- 35 gallons,
with an empty weight of about 23 pounds and an ANSI
rating of 125 pounds
In addition,
many companies offer a 20-gallon insert that fits in
the 35-gallon cart and is used for recycling. It carries
the same rating as the 35-gallon cart.The
size information above represents one company; other
manufacturers’ products will vary from these norms.
Some companies
test how much their carts will hold. According to Mike
Knaub, senior vice president of Schaefer Systems, his
firm’s 95-gallon cart is tested at up to 500 pounds,
its 65-gallon cart is tested at over 300 pounds, and
its 35-gallon cart is tested at over 200 pounds.
Wheel size
is important. Trying to push a heavy cart with wheels
that are too small can exhaust a homeowner and may be
nearly impossible in snow or in rocky conditions.
“We
design childproof lids,” says Knaub. “Lids
are designed to hold up to 80 pounds without collapsing.
Once people put solid waste in their carts, children
don’t like to climb in them—but if someone
is caught in a cart, the lid weighs just 5 or 6 pounds
and is designed to be pushed open. Twenty years ago
they were built with latches. Now they are not.”
In some communities,
carts hold normal undifferentiated household waste.
Elsewhere, smaller color-coded curbside containers are
used to separate glass, newspapers, plastic, and metal
cans. “In many communities, the goal is to reduce
the amount of mixed waste rolled to the curb by separating
out what the municipality or private hauler can recycle,”
says Doug Howell, director of refuse products development
for McNeilus Companies Inc.’s Street Smart Parts.
Based in Dodge Center, MN, McNeilus is a subsidiary
of Oshkosh Truck Corp. of Oshkosh, WI.
Containers:
Big Rolling Boxes
Containers are big rolling boxes used primarily
for commercial and industrial waste. Curbside bins are
similar, used in residential and institutional settings.
Containers
and curbside bins come in 2-, 4-, and 6-yard capacities,
with easy-to-open lids and doors. The largest are big
enough to hold an adult. They are popular with fast
food outlets, neighborhood strip-mall stores, and small
businesses including law and insurance offices. Typically
they are green or brown, but the hauler providing the
refuse collection service determines their color and
the name or logo on them.
Some containers
have dual bins, each with its own lid. Axle and wheel
kits are available for many containers.
Containers
designed for home and industrial use may be modified
with locking mechanisms for use in holding, securing,
and transporting medical waste, or for confidential
banking and industrial documents destined for a shredder.
Lifters
and Tippers
Lifters and tippers are hoist mechanisms that attach
a cart or container to a truck and dump its contents
into the truck. In general, a lifter is fully automatic
and a tipper is mechanized (semi-automatic), but some
manufacturers use the terminology in reverse. To be
safe, look at the mechanism itself, not just what it’s
called.
One lift
manufacturer, Bayne Premium Lift Systems of Greenville,
SC, makes the devices by sawing or sheering raw steel
ranging in grade from standard ASTM (American Society
for Testing and Materials) 36 to higher-yield steels
such as 80 KSI (Kips per square inch) and 100 KSI, cold-rolled
and hot-rolled steels, stainless steels, and aluminum.
Bayne purchases its steel in sheet form from 14 gauge
to 0.5 inch, and in bar and round stock in various sizes.
Bayne uses
state-of-the-art CNC (computer numerical control) machining-centers
equipment. The firm designs, builds, and tests its own
prototypes. Its contributions to the lifter industry
include a patented rack-and-pinion actuator for superior
lifting capacity, lower maintenance, and ease of repair;
greaseless/composite bearing systems; powder-coated
parts; and a high-efficiency diverter valve.
Bayne lifters
are designed to handle any common domestic ANSI-approved
or European standard container, as well as non-standard
containers including drums and round cans with stationary
or mobile applications.
Historically,
two or three employees worked every garbage truck. One
drove; one or two others lifted garbage cans and poured
their contents into a truck. “Communities using
tipper and lifter systems have seen a large drop in
workers’ compensation issues,” says Knaub.
“The new systems use fewer workers, and the remaining
workers expend less physical effort. Most automation
has been done without loss of jobs, by means of normal
attrition and reassignment of workers.”
Reverse
Engineering
One reason solid waste accessory manufacturers
are so tight-lipped about their products and processes
is the risk of reverse engineering. Since 2001, McNeilus’s
Street Smart Parts has gone beyond supplying replacement
parts for its own lifters. Each lifter contains thousands
of parts, and Street Smart has reverse-engineered about
13,000 different parts for its competitors’ equipment.
“Our
engineers take a competitor’s equipment apart,
disassemble the part in question, identify its weak
points, and upgrade the materials used to make it—from
a lower grade of steel to a higher grade, for instance—and
add strength to prevent cracking,” says Howell.
“It’s
a totally new concept. To fit their form and function,
which we are stuck with, we build in as many upgrades
as we can to extend the usefulness of the client’s
truck. We started with high-wear, easily broken pieces
our clients complained about the most, focusing on cylinders—including
the bearings, ejector panel, fittings, pins, and wear
shoes.”
All of McNeilus’s
Street Smart Parts and diagrams are accessible online
at the firm’s Web site, www.mcneiluscompanies.com/.
Parts are identified by their McNeilus numbers, OEM
(original equipment manufacturer) numbers, and MTM (McNeilus
truck and manufacturing) numbers. The parts are listed
and described, and changes and upgrades are highlighted.
Updates and additions to the parts line are posted frequently.
Use of this database requires a free eDrawings reader
from SolidWorks Corp. of Concord, MA.
Specifications
and Reality
In most businesses, an entrepreneur gets an idea
for a new product or process and builds demand for it,
or a company perceives an unfilled niche and creates
something to fill it. This isn’t the case for solid
waste accessory manufacturers; they all compete for
the same clients—primarily municipalities and large
private haulers.
These clients
specify, and they negotiate contracts based upon their
specifications, which in turn may be based upon legislation
or regulatory rulings at some level of government. How
these laws and regulations are interpreted can vary
according to the inventiveness and interest of local
officials who determine what is picked up and how, and
of the public and private haulers who do the actual
picking up.
Recyclers
pay more per ton for pre-screened waste than for waste
they must separate themselves. A Toronto, ON, client
of SCL A-1 Plastics Ltd. claims to have 425,000 homeowners
sorting their recyclables.
Consumers
know very little about this selection process and often
can’t even figure out how to replace broken carts
or containers. Perhaps some places have considered imprinting
the telephone number to call for replacement on the
carts and containers themselves.
Industrial
firms, offices, and universities—a small and growing
sector of the cart and container market—produce
large quantities of discarded paper to be shredded or
just collected and recycled. They typically use carts
and containers with modifications of the designs created
for curbside refuse collection.
“Community
colleges, universities, and some municipalities are
purchasing carts with slots on top for recycling cans
and bottles,” says Cascade’s LeMieux. “Municipalities
come to us for lidded bottle and can carts with an orifice
that closes tight to keep out bugs and animals, for
use in parks and public places. They also ask about
carts that will hold discarded office paper.”
LeMieux says
some of his firm’s industrial clients use containers
to hold, organize, and transport parts.
Percentage
and Pedigree
Carts and containers are designed and tested for
use in a broad spectrum of climatic conditions. Many
of the same products are sold in both Alaska and subtropical
Florida. Carts are designed to resist cracking in especially
cold climates, says Vivian McQueen, national sales and
marketing manager for UltraCart Inc. of Washington,
PA. “The blow-molding process uses high-molecular-weight
high-density polyethylene, which produces a product
that offers the best stress crack resistance of any
molding process, especially in an outdoor environment
of temperature extremes.” Also, she says, the UltraCart
is repairable.
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PHOTO: ULTRACART
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Most carts
and containers spend their life sitting in the sun,
which can be hard on the plastics used in their manufacture.
“Carts and curbside bins are meant to take a beating,”
says A-1 Plastic’s Hill, “but the sun is a
plastic receptacle’s worst enemy. Plastics are
organic compounds; eventually they break down in the
sun.”
“Everyone
uses ultraviolet inhibitors to protect their cart plastics
from the sun’s rays,” says Knaub.
Manufacturers
often reuse their own industrial waste in making new
products. All carts and containers are recyclable, but
they vary in the type and percentage of recycled post-consumer
plastic they contain. Some states and municipalities
specify such content.
The pedigree
of the recycled content—its age and origin—also
is important. Ground-up toys 15 to 20 years old can
adversely affect the quality of the resulting products.
Poor-quality recycled content produces new plastic that
is brittle and may not endure through a manufacturer’s
warranty period. The warranty is an important competitive
point; having to make good on it with any significant
frequency can become a competitive issue.
“We
can use up to 50% post-consumer recycled materials in
our 14-gallon and 18-gallon recycle bins,” says
Maryanne Montieth, a marketing service agent at Otto
Environmental Systems LLC in Charlotte, NC, “but
we generally use about 20%. We meet customers’
requirements.”
“We
typically use 50% recycled content,” says Hill.
“Using more than 50% recycled post-consumer plastic
diminishes the life span of the boxes and their durability.”
“We
use up to 22% to 25% post-consumer recycled materials
[PCR],” says Knaub. “Higher percentages of
PCR may cause the product to lose integrity under tough
conditions.
“We
only purchase PCR material with the correct melt index
and density such as recycled detergent bottles and milk
containers.”
Mike Schwalbach,
general manager of the environmental business group
at Rehrig Pacific Co. in Los Angeles, CA, says Los Angeles
requires one of the highest percentages of post-consumer
plastic—30%. “We grind up their old containers
that have been in use for over 10 years, along with
materials including milk and detergent containers from
the recycle stream,” he says.
What a cart
or container can carry is limited by its design and
the materials used in its construction. Some liquids
can damage HDPE plastic with a high molecular weight.
Hot ash may melt them. Other chemicals may compromise
their structural integrity.
“Containers
are light in weight and maintenance-free,” says
Montieth. “Our four-wheel containers are equipped
with two drainage plugs, making them easy to clean or
to use with ice or liquids. We sell a lot on the East
and West Coasts to be used outdoors, where rust is a
concern. They are trainable—three loaded containers
can be towed behind a golf cart.”
Other
Products
All of the solid waste cart and container manufacturers
also supply products to other customers from the automotive,
food, and industrial markets.
“Our
engineers work on creating innovative products and solutions
to solve customers’ challenges,” says John
Kowalski, marketing communications manager for Cascade
Engineering. “We are primarily plastic injection
molders, but we also do a variety of other plastic processes.”
In addition,
most solid waste accessory manufacturers also produce
other HDPE products. SCL A-1 Plastics uses HDPE molds
to make special orders for clients in the automotive
and swimming pool industries. UltraCart and its sister
company, Falcon Plastics Inc., make products in the
holiday, housewares, industrial, lawn and garden, pet
care, recreational, and toy categories, as well as drums,
plastic pallets, and retail trash containers.
Miami, FL-based writer Rosalie E. Leposky specializes in development issues
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MSW
- May/June 2005
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