The County was previously loading and packing the waste as much as possible into open 40 yd. roll-off containers using a large skid-steer loader and getting at best 3 ½ to 4 tons into each container. The Sani-Tech compactor container weight has been in the range of 10 to 12 tons with this material so now our shipping weight is pushing the top end of our hauler’s maximum 15-ton load when he uses a pup trailer to tow along one of the open-tops that we still use for material we don’t want to run through the compactor such as railroad ties.
Prior to purchasing the Sani-Tech, our best load weight was not more than 8 tons, so in our case the haul cost was cut by at least one-third and close to one-half!
Even for our rather small facility and small residential population the facility serves, we’re saving nearly $10,000 annually in shipping cost to get about 200 tons on average per year of this waste to the landfill.
In addition, the auger does the work to compact the waste which saves a lot of fuel, time, and wear and tear on the loader and operator that was doing that work before. A lot of small facilities in rural areas like Clearwater County operate in many ways inefficiently because the budget doesn’t allow for good equipment, but this investment was the “low-hanging fruit”, so to speak, in the list of available ways to improve our operation.
Dan Hecht, Administrator
Clearwater County Environmental Services, MN