Sorting is key

Costello Dismantling has recently completed the demolition of the 55,742 m2 (600,000 ft2) Quaker Fabrics textile mill in Fall River in Massachusetts, USA. The demolition resulted in the generation of 100,000 tonnes of mixed waste, with Costello recycling all but 2,000 tonnes that had to be sent to landfill.

Costello used a recently acquired Sennebogen 821 material handler equipped with a magnet grapple to feed two mobile shredders, also recently acquired, to process the timber waste. According to president Dan Costello: “We look very carefully at each job to identify those materials that are most easily handled and recyclable; the highest and best use opportunities for each type of material. We have tailored our equipment fleet and our personnel training to be disciplined between the different markets for materials.”

“The thing we learned early on was the need to meticulously manage the infeed,” Costello explained. “That mainly involves picking out any heavy metals before the load goes into the shredder. This will minimise damage and minimise downtime on that side of the operation. The mag‑grapple gives us the capability to pull steel out of the wood, then load the wood into the grinder with the same grapple.”