Gain an understanding of the economics and ROI of purchasing and operating plastic size reduction equipment.
Today’s increasingly competitive marketplace makes recycling scrap materials an attractive alternative to sending them out for reprocessing. By closing the loop in your manufacturing facility, and utilizing more regrind, you can increase your profitability. Your initial equipment investment payback will be significant even within the first month of ownership.
EXAMPLE: ADDING A CENTRAL GRANULATION SYSTEM
Not all plastics processors have size reduction equipment to reprocess material back into their workflow. This real world return on investment (ROI) calculation is based on not having any scrap reclaim in house currently and adding a central granulation system.
This facility operates only one 8 hour shift, 5 days a week.They purchased a Cumberland T50120 granulator with a blower evacuation system to process 2000 pounds an hour on average. Based on annual raw material savings alone, the initial granulator investment paid for itself in less than 22 days!
This ROI example is based on not having any scrap reclaim in house currently and adding a central granulation system.
EXAMPLE: HYPODERMIC NEEDLES
Cumberland recently ran a test with a FX700 series beside the press granulator for a customer looking to mitigate disposal costs for a pharmaceutical hypodermic needle manufacturing application. The customer currently pays $13,000 - $15,000 in annual disposal cost since the parts must be treated as medical supplies disposal.
By adding a Cumberland grinder for size reduction, the needles can be ground into small particles and disposed of free or separated and repurposed, ultimately saving the customer thousands of dollars in disposal fees annually.
How do you assess the value of a shredder to your operation? While no calculations are perfect or guaranteed, a well utilized shredder can increase down-stream equipment performance, such as a granulator, from 25% to 75%, depending on the materials an application. It will also reduce the labor and danger of manually cutting up scrap. Consider these other benefits:
Adding a 50 HP shredder to provide balanced loading can provide energy savings from 20 to 50% compared to a typical manual size reduction process with large, bulky, or dense materials.
Shredding reduces the power and size requirements of secondary operations, such as granulation, while increasing output by providing consistent input material size.
Though individual results will vary, ongoing studies indicate that adding a shredder can result in:
Each of these benefits add to your bottom line. Integrating a shredder into your size reduction system can also:
Technical questions and answers to troubleshoot your plastic size reduction process using granulators.
Before purchasing a shredder for your facility, it is important to consider key components including rotors, cutters, infeed hoppers and drive types, along with the material to be cut.
Real examples of how plastic size reduction processes can yield big results for plastic processors.
