Life plays strange tricks on us, doesn’t it? Throughout those early formative years, my ambition was to be a designer of Ferrari sports cars. Instead, I ended up with a job at a small UK manufacturer of specialist trucks where my passion for product design was, if not encouraged, then at least tolerated. Projects at the time included low-entry crew cabs, an articulated refuse collection vehicle (RCV) and later, ideas for a multi-modal demountable body waste handling system that enabled the collection truck to continue to work ‘on station’ for the maximum period of time, while the loaded waste container units were transported to landfill, or waste incinerator sites by road, rail, or even by canal barge in multiples.
My point? That was more than 20 years ago. Yet some of those ‘innovations’ have yet to gain widespread acceptance. With waste and recycling now at the heart of any domestic political agenda, surely it’s time ‘design’ was given a new priority? While we do indeed now have low-entry crew cabs to improve the safety of operatives, the very process of creating a new specialized truck, or item of plant, is under increasing threat from ever more complex industry legislation. And to make matters worse, the mergers of once competing brands caused by the effects of globalization isn’t helping.
If that sounds rather depressing, there is some good news. As Germany, Switzerland and Sweden have shown us, it is possible to push for ever greater recycled materials percentages, establish waste-to-energy facilities (that do not cause rebellion by local residents) and perhaps the aspect that should energize the rest of us, to keep on doing it better. But should the way forward be by small, incremental improvements? Or are some ‘giant leaps for mankind’ called for?
Looking for running cost reductions
Holding that thought, let’s just check on the current price of oil. At a guess, it’s probably double the price that applied at the time when the majority of the units in your current fleet were purchased. At the same time, there haven’t been any major upward changes to vehicle weights – pressure from the environmental lobby has seen to that – recently. But waste volumes continue to rise. In addition, traffic levels (especially in urban areas) have now got to such a level that the specialist trucks our society relies on to keep the environment clean are being held up, causing them to do less work while burning more diesel. I’m telling you something you already know? Of course I am, but finding new products that have been designed to offset these pressures is the name of the game here.
Having recently spent three days at the Recycling and Waste Management Show (RWM), at Birmingham, UK, it’s interesting to note that these concerns are finally coming to the fore – although the expected announcement of expected new diesel/electric ‘hybrid’ truck chassis suitable for RCV operations will probably not happen until early 2009. The trouble is – in the UK at least – previous problems with using natural gas as a fuel source, have blunted enthusiasm for the use of landfill gas as a fuel.
 The RWM event takes place at the NEC Birmingham and combines an internal exhibition with outdoor displays |
The UK no longer has a major manufacturing base of its own – which might suggest little value in visiting a UK tradeshow from an ‘innovation’ perspective. But that is not the case. For a start, the RWM event differs from most other trade shows in putting on a ‘live’ machinery and equipment demonstration, where crushers, shredders and screens from a number of global manufacturers, are fed with real-life waste materials. This facility is undertaken by a fleet of JCB machines, operated by the highly-respected factory demonstration team.
While hazardous waste and domestic garbage are not included (for obvious health-related reasons), hundreds of tonnes of material are trucked into the exhibition site overnight by a fleet of hooklift demount and articulated walking floor bulkers operated by commercial waste contractor Jack Moody & Sons. And even though your author played a part in the creation and planning of this concept some years ago, seeing the whole logistical process in action never fails to impress. Now the leading UK-based brand of global stature, JCB has always marketed its products with style. And as any would-be Ferrari designer can tell you, survival, good design and marketing panache, go hand-in-hand.
Unfortunately, it’s also true that the UK doesn’t feature especially well in any global recycling league table either. Although in many ways the UK market is entirely typical in having both government-induced problems, of which a politically-inspired split between ‘collection’ and ‘disposal’ is the most harmful, together with all the pressures of over population and traffic congestion. These pressures are demanding innovative solutions – so the pressure is on.
There’s also another difference between the UK market and just about any developed world market aside from North America: the involvement of the hire/rental sector. Discussions with leading RCV suppliers exhibiting at RWM now indicate that the percentage of products now sold via a third party (a hire partner) have now reached the 50% mark for the first time. With both a well-developed spot and contract hire market in respect of vehicles and plant, meeting the interests of hirers (and those providing the finance and after-sales service back-up, which is also often sub-contracted in the UK) has to be taken into account by manufacturers and dealers.
All this rolls together into a scenario that suggests if a particular brand is successful in the UK waste industry, it will probably be able to succeed just about anywhere else.
Italian success
This might explain why several manufacturers have chosen to launch new products, or are currently working hard to get them establish in the UK market in recent months. In no particular order, Italian sweeper manufacturer Dulevo has redesigned it’s ‘5000 Veloce’ mechanical sweeper to left-hand steering to enable the driver to be positioned on the kerbside in markets like the UK, conventional vehicles have the driver’s controls on the right. In gaining UK Type Approval (expensive and time-consuming), Dulevo has demonstrated that it will do whatever it takes to win business in wider global markets – the left-hand steering option makes the range ideally suited to the Australian and Japanese markets of course. ‘Alternative fuel’ options, and additional new models, will be part of the 2009 production programme.
Italian manufacturers seem to form an increasing force amongst waste industry suppliers, with Solmec 360-degree waste handlers and Bonfiglioli scrap crushers and balers attracting interest this year. Italian manufacturers (and others from southern Europe) have a particularly tough job convincing UK operators that ‘after sales service’ and warranty issues mean the same thing once they’ve been translated – a factor made worse by physical distance and some spectacular ‘breakdowns in communications’ in the past. But still, other Italian manufacturers line-up to compete in the UK market – often using experiences gained in the UK as a springboard to other export markets.
Specialists doing strong business
An indication of the effort manufacturers put into finding new markets outside Italy can be drawn from the activities of Iride, the expanding Italian manufacturer of waste and recyclable materials collection vehicles. Having made a modest start producing satellite units suitable for track chassis up to 12/13 tonnes gross weight, company designers have been working on not only a new range of compaction RCVs, but were keen to offer customers a ‘one stop shop’, right up to suitable ‘mother ship’ units to work with it’s satellite units.
 Is there a place for more compact RCVs in crowded urban areas, above current 7-10 tonne gross weight solutions? Certainly NTM things so. This Volvo FL was especially neat |
That product line, the ‘Eco-Maxi’ 44 tonne gross weight semi-trailer compaction model, has already been produced in small numbers for operation in the city of Rome and to meet operational demands in North Africa. But the importer of Iride products into Britain, EcoFar UK, wanted to demonstrate the advantages of an articulated RCV to potential buyers in the UK. The solution? Borrow a unit already in service in Rome, refurbish it, then send it to the UK. The policy worked, Spanish-based waste contractor Focsa, with several waste contracts in the UK, placed an order before the RWM event was over!
While the mainstream manufacturers of construction plant are obviously feeling the effects of the global ‘credit crunch’, it’s interesting to note that both Solmec and German-based Sennebogen currently have bulging order books at present. Both have been a little quiet on new product launches in recent months, but both these ‘quality’ waste handling equipment brands have a good excuse – they’ve both been building brand new production facilities. Work on a new Solmec facility is underway, but its German rival, Sennebogen, has actually opened its new facility.
 The JCB demonstration team provides the mechanical muscle to service the shredders, crushers and screens in the ‘live’ demo area at RWM |
The actual opening ceremony was due to take place as this issue of Waste Management World went to press, but a significant new Sennebogen model, the ‘310 Multi-Handler’ – a larger 14 tonne machine-weight telescopic raised-cab telehandler, based on the same design as the 11 tonne 305 machine – is now scheduled for launch early in 2009, I understand. Sadly, the prototype didn’t make it to RWM, but its launch is sure to add to the ‘wheeled loader versus telehandler’ debate when it comes to compost and recycled materials handling.
Cost-cutting breakthrough
So what of the chances of finding new products that reflect on the continuing upward spiral of fuel costs? Here’s one. The brand new ‘Raptor XL’ twin-blade slow-speed shredder from German manufacturer Arjes. If fuel costs have doubled during the lifetime of the equipment you currently have in use, as they almost certainly have, wouldn’t it help if the manufacturers offered new products that halved fuel consumption? Amazingly, that’s exactly what Gerhard Buhl, sales manager at Arjes is claiming for the XL.
 The Raptor ‘XL’ is a brand new machine from Arjes that it is claimed, can cut fuel costs by half, with added environmental benefits such as reduced noise. |
Even though the machines still uses a big CAT diesel engine as a power source like many other competitive machines (electric options are available), the XL not only achieves running costs of around 22 litres an hour while producing an honest 40 tonnes throughput an hour – that’s just 0.5 litres of fuel for each tonne processed – it does so at 85 dbA. How? By dispensing with hydraulics and instead using a full-load reversible direct drive gearbox transmission. New twin rotary ‘chopper’ blades are designed to give a more even size of product. This new 16 tonne operating weight machine, that makes it ideal for urban sites, has one other feature in it’s favour – it was designed by Norbert Hammel.
‘Globals’ seek new niches
If all this makes it sound like the only companies growing market share and introducing innovative products are the small specialist producers, then that’s perhaps that gives the wrong impression – because a few ‘globals’ have been busy too. While a slowdown in the construction sector has caused cutbacks all-round, JCB has found the time to develop a significant new ‘niche’ machine for waste handling and picking – the JZ235 in ‘Wastemaster’ specification with fixed raised cab.
Obviously, it’s desirable to include as many ‘big machine’ features in a more compact package as possible, but that does have physical limitations. The driving force for incorporating a combination of compact 360 zero-tailswing technology within a mid-range 22 tonner that can be used on picking operations normally handled by a larger machine, is operative safety on the tipping floor. Here, machines working in close proximity to roof supports, or other structures that could easily crush an operative with a protruding balance weight.
While the two metre raised-cab JZ235 wasn’t at RWM (the first had been delivered to Dorset, UK-based waste contractor Commercial Recycling a few months before) another new niche machine with waste handling potential did make it’s debut on the Terex stand. Although already well established in North America, the compact tracked loader (as opposed to a normal wheeled skidsteer loader on tracks), is winning market share away from its visually similar relation – and wheeled loaders. When it purchased American manufacturer ASV in March 2008, Terex managed to buy-in to the technology, while at the same time, adding to its corporate product range, enabling it to compete head-on with CAT and Bobcat.
There are 11 base models in what is now branded as the Terex tracked loader range, although initially only three models (a forth is due early in 2009), look set to take the concept into Europe, following their UK debut. Although construction and groundscare/landscaping operations make up a large part of the potential customer base, thanks to shock-absorbing track machine suspension, a well-balanced trackbase (offering excellent stability and traction in difficult conditions) and much-improved ground clearance when compared to existing skidsteer designs, the tracked loader concept seems to have a lot going for it – not least of which is dramatically improved loading cycle times thanks to a faster transit speed.
I was lucky enough to be able to test a PT-80 (a 80 hp, 4-cylinder Perkins-powered machine and the largest current model outside the US until the PT100 arrives in Europe in 2009) and was impressed by how stable it was while both excavating and dumping materials on a rough test site. The added ground clearance helped when trimming stockpiles, while even more significantly, the whole machine could be ‘learned’ quickly – useful attributes for any machine working in recyclable materials handling in tight spaces.
Automatically better
But need all big technical advances necessarily be physically large? One of the more interesting products that could make a major contribution to productivity and safety is the latest generation ‘Banksman’ reversing radar system from UK-based Vision Techniques. Designed originally to protect staff on foot from reversing excavators and large dump trucks in quarrying applications, the Banksman has already found use in waste industry applications – both in MRFs and crowded ‘bring sites’, as well as on RCVs where the driver cannot always see the position of the loaders, or passers-by, when reversing.
Recently however, two new ideas have surfaced – one, by working in conjunction with Iceland-based electric binlifter manufacturer, Ecoprocess, Vision Techniques designers have been looking at using a modified radar beam to both stop and restart the packing mechanism inside the RCV hopper, automatically and electronically. Why? So as to enable the binlifters to be deployed without the PTO running. When waste in the rear hopper reaches a point beyond which additional material might be in danger of overflowing from the hopper, a break in the radar beam restarts the packing cycle (provided it is save to re-engage the truck’s PTO) without the driver needing to touch any controls. While fuel consumption might not be halved, trials indicate that a conventional RCV with a hydraulic packing system and Ecoprocess electric binlifter (which doesn’t require the truck’s engine to be running at increased RPM) can already save £1800 in fuel costs per annum. Vision Techniques designers predict that by using a Banksman system to stop/start the packer automatically, fuel savings of a further 25% could be achieved.
 Vision Techniques already produces the ‘Banksman’ radar reversing vehicle warning system for RCV applications, but the latest generation has added features |
While tests continue, one significant new development is already available. The latest generation Banksman system can be configured to automatically apply the brakes to a reversing RCV, when the presence of a pedestrian is picked up in the radar beam. I was lucky enough to be invited to try the system out – both as a driver and as a pedestrian – as a reversing 26 tonne RCV and easily-damaged human tissue (mine) were put on collision course. Would this be my last assignment? Thankfully, even at a speed higher than would normally be employed, the Alison automatic transmission-equipped Dennis Eagle RCV used for the tests was brought to a controlled standstill before impact occurred. Saving time, saving fuel costs and saving lives? They could be the most sought-after attributes of any new product in 2009.
Malcolm Bates is Transport Correspondent for Waste Management World
e-mail: wmw@pennwell.com
