In November 2020, Pickens County in South Carolina had a problem on its hands: an overflowing landfill that was just two weeks away from closure by a regulatory agency. With a landfill exceeding its capacity by about 28,000 cubic yards, an urgent solution for mattress shredding was required.
– We didn’t have any other options, so we started hauling materials, recounts Steve Raines, Director of Solid Waste for Pickens County, as he looks back on the dire situation.
However, it wasn’t going to be nearly enough. At the landfill, they were still just barely trucking away enough materials to keep up with what was coming in. Since hauling things away wasn’t enough to meet regulatory compliance, the excess volume had to be dealt with on site. That’s when the Solid Waste Department headed by Raines started looking into shredders. They needed a machine that could handle even the more challenging materials that were coming through.
– We looked at over 700 shredders, and TANA was the only one that they told us you could put a mattress in, so that’s the one we demoed. Within three weeks we had one ordered and on its way here, Raines says.
More than up to the task
Within six months, the department began work with the TANA Shark 440DTeco shredder. It turned out to be a powerful tool. Not only did it help fix the overcapacity problem and meet regulatory compliance, it was so effective that the landfill’s impending closure was avoided after all. After six months of working with the shredder, the landfill was below capacity by 160 to 180 thousand cubic yards. What’s more, metals recovered from shredded materials helped cover the cost of the shredder and even purchase a second one.
– The great thing about the TANA shredder is it eats just about anything. We do brush, we do tires, we do mattresses. The list of things that we run through this machine is endless, Raines says.
– Our budget is not very huge, so we needed to reduce our costs. Getting that shredder here on site meant we could reduce our trucking costs by about 70 percent. We also cut costs on manpower, fuel, and maintenance, Raines adds.
Exceptional customer service
According to Raines, access to knowledgeable customer support for the machine has been a big positive with TANA North America. Any questions are answered promptly and thoroughly by experts who know the shredder inside and out.
– Their customer service is bar none the best I’ve ever dealt with in the construction industry.
Meanwhile, the scarcity of airspace for landfills is a worldwide problem. There’s just not a lot of space left, so making the most use of the available real estate is imperative. The versatile TANA shredders are excellent for freeing up capacity, as Raines can attest:
– I would encourage anybody to look at the TANA shredder as an option to help save some of that airspace. We take care of just about every product that comes through the landfill with that machine, and it changed everything for us. It was a game changer.
