Industrial shredder manufacturers SSI Shredding Systems Inc. have worked with KW Plastics for over 25 years to achieve unmatched processing capacity.
Sponsored editorial on behalf of SSI Shredding Systems Inc.
For more information and to view a video about the project visit www.ssiworld.com/en/video/customer_spotlight_plastic_recycling_application
Founded in 1981 by owners Kenny Campbell and Wiley Sanders, KW Plastics boasts the world’s largest capacities to process recycled resin. Initially, the company recycled used automotive battery casings, providing a high quality polypropylene resin with tremendous cost savings back to the casing manufacturers.
As the company expanded its operations, KW Plastics began to consider other resins and the potential value of readily available packaging that was being thrown away.
In 1993, KW Plastics opened its recycling division across the street from its headquarters to recycle postconsumer high-density polyethylene (HDPE). The transition was a natural one for the company, as the processes required to recycle HDPE were similar in scope to those required to recycle polypropylene. Looking for shredders to more efficiently process its incoming waste stream, Campbell turned to Wilsonville, Oregon-based SSI Shredding Systems, Inc. to meet its growing demand.
“We have changed configurations and models over the years as KW Plastics’ needs and preferences changed,” David Wilson, technical sales at SSI, says. “As the company has expanded into some new applications, they added additional shredders as they’ve gone along.”
Three of the company’s wash lines are set up to run about 10/hr, a smaller line runs about 4 - 5t/hr, and the company also runs a woven line.
According to Campbell, the versatility of SSI’s machines and their ability to be adapted to KW Plastics’ unique applications were some of the main selling points that have led to the two companies’ longstanding partnership.
“Our wash lines are able to run very high-volume rates, very efficiently, and that’s how we’re able to keep our costs down, and our SSI equipment plays a very big role in helping us do that,” Campbell says. “We originally looked at all the shredders that were available, but we chose SSI because they offered the best shredder for our applications. They also were very open to working with us to develop the shredder that best fit our particular applications, whereas the other companies had their shredders, but they were one-size-fits-all and they weren’t capable or willing to change or modify their offerings to better meet our needs.”
One such example of this collaborative process was when KW Plastics came to SSI in 2010 looking to expand its offerings to include a super-sack-like material.
“They brought us a challenge in 2010 when they wanted to expand into material like super-sacks,” Wilson says. “Conventional off-the-shelf shredder technology would never adequately process such a challenging material at sufficient volumes to be acceptable to KW Plastics, but SSI had recently developed the patented Smart Feed Electric Drive technology which allowed us to process certain materials in new ways, without hydraulics. We combined our expertise on this new shredder technology with recommendations they had as far as the cutter configuration, and the result worked right out of the gate.”
Besides SSI’s ability to modify its line of shredders to suit KW Plastics’ needs, the overall durability of the equipment has been one of the most notable selling points of the company’s shredders, according to KW Plastics General Manager Scott Saunders.
“I like our shredders because they can handle contamination that other shredders aren’t able to handle,” Saunders says. “With recycling, you expect to buy a segregated bale, but many times, there are contaminants such as metal, or big pieces of wood and other things in the bale that aren’t supposed to be there. The SSI shredder doesn’t self-destruct, for lack of a better term, when those things hit the machine. It will reverse itself and allow us to continue our processes.”
This durability has translated into decreased downtime for the company.
Campbell says, “Other than scheduled cutter changing, the shredders run uninterrupted. I would say we enjoy an uptime greater than 99%.”
KW Plastics and SSI first partnered in 1993 with three shred lines. But through its investment in equipment and willingness to consistently fine-tune its processes, KW Plastics has been able to achieve unmatched processing capacity.
“When I started, we were a very small recycler with big dreams, and we’ve been able to grow to become the largest recycler of plastics in the U.S., and as far as I know, the world,” Saunders says.
The company currently has more than 100 million pounds of silo capacity and the equipment needed to process more than a billion pounds annually.
Today, KW Plastics processes the equivalent of 3.5 billion plastic bottles annually—that’s enough bottles to go to the moon and back again every year.
While being on the cutting edge of the recycling industry has helped KW Plastics establish itself as a world leader, Campbell says one of the most gratifying aspects of his job is helping do something good for the environment.
“It’s a lot of fun—you take something that has reached the end of its service life and has been discarded and you’re able to keep it from being disposed of in landfills and provide another alternative, which is the reclaiming of the materials and introducing it into another consumer product,” Campbell says. “It kind of closes the loop a little bit—[the material cycle] goes round and round.”
For more information and to view a video about the project visit www.ssiworld.com/en/video/customer_spotlight_plastic_recycling_application
