BioCycle December 2014
This contract created an immediate need for the company to find a piece of equipment that could reduce the material so it would be small enough to pump through the digester. Napoleon Biogas was looking for a unit that ideally could mount to its existing JCB 520 Telehandler in order to get maximum use of its current equipment. After seeing ALLU Group at the BioCycle Conference in San Diego, California, Napoleon Biogas worked with a local dealer to arrange a demonstration of an ALLU DL Screener Crusher, putting it to the test on a pile of expired organic material. “It processed each bucket load of material in about 90 seconds, regardless of what type of produce was fed to it,” recalls Chad Richer, Plant Manager for Napoleon Biogas. “And it was easy to hook up, which was important because we use our telehandler for multiple functions throughout the day.”
The facility purchased an ALLU unit, which is able to pick up organic material, carry the load to the digester’s feeder and size the material down to five-eighth-inch or less, he adds. Napoleon Biogas also has been using the screener crusher bucket to depackage canned liquids that have expired, or have been frozen or otherwise compromised and are unfit for consumption. The depackaged organic material is fed into the digester and Napoleon Biogas recycles the aluminum as an additional income stream. “We have a RUNI (screw compactor), which we were using to separate all of the cans from the organic material.,” explains Richer. “It worked really well on medium to large cans, but when we started processing smaller, 7-ounce aluminum cans, we found it was just too aggressive.” During the original demonstration of the Screener Crusher, an operator scooped approximately 300 of these smaller cans into the attachment to see how it would perform. “Within 40 seconds, all but about five of the cans were torn, twisted or punctured so that the organic material could drain out, leaving the metal to be recycled,” he adds.