State of the art, Low Carbon sustainable manufacturing

MASTEC’s has designed its two and four wheeled mobile garbage bins to be manufactured from a special grade of plastic – a high density polyethylene raw material, that can be fully recycled back in to a new mobile garbage bin, even after decades of use by residential householders or commercial users.

Indeed, MASTEC demonstrates a tangible commitment to producer responsibility in its product stewardship and eco-based manufacturing techniques, with the company turning the concept of a Circular Economy in to a practical reality in its product range. This cyclical cradle to grave ‘metabolism’ reflects a process in which the materials are treated as resources and flow perpetually in a cyclical metabolism without losing their quality. In order to achieve this MASTEC has selected manufacturing materials and processes to maintain their material’s status as resources and maintain their inherent value over time.

Not surprisingly, MASTEC’s commitment to bringing real world practicality to tangibly ‘closing the loop’ on its products extends beyond its unique ability to recycle its own plastic raw material back into itself. It was also a key consideration when it came to designing its new multimillion-dollar manufacturing plant. Located in suburban Adelaide, the new state-of-the-art Low Carbon Manufacturing facility uses leading edge technology to minimise the use of energy, water and other finite consumable materials.

MASTEC are an end-to-end manufacturer and supplier of mobile waste and recycling containers – for large council requirements, using the unique MASTrac system, MASTEC will

review the stated requirement of the scope of works and the requirements of the council’s specification. MASTEC pride themselves as the only bin manufacturer who can offer an in-house end – to – end service to its customers – manufacture through to delivery to households, with accurate and timely provision of a reliable electronic data base using the proprietary MAStrac system. MASTEC do not subcontract the assembly and delivery of new bins or the retrieval of old bins to third parties with dubious adherence to safe procedures, WHS requirements and procedures. MASTEC are committed to achieving a quality result for all stakeholders i.e. rate paying residents, Councillors, administrators and the chosen waste collection contractor. MASTEC believe that Council can benefit from the very extensive in-house expertise MASTEC possesses with regard to the delivery and retrieval process by avoiding unrealistic objectives and focussing on proven modus operandi. MASTEC are very aware of the fact that a Council area will contain a variety of topography and residential locations, which will need to be given special consideration as to delivery and retrieval methodology, such as a significant concentration of MUDs in a higher density area, challenging traffic area in some areas and other special access locations. MASTEC work closely with Council’s chosen waste collection contractor to ensure a significant preliminary understanding of requirements is achieved so that delivery and retrieval methodology can be tailored to some specific requirements to achieve the required outcomes. MASTEC have extensive experience in working with councils immediately after the award of a contract with regard to finalizing data base information in order to achieve the best possible outcome.

For more information go to SERVICES

Over the past 5 years MASTEC have collected more than two million old used wheelie bins from residences in Council areas across Australia. All of these bins have been reprocessed and moulded back into the very same products and re-delivered back to residential households in a variety of Council areas as completely new bins -a positive recoupling of the relationship between economy and ecology.

Most importantly, ongoing recycling challenges are an important reminder that recycling must be able to deliver worthwhile and practical outcomes.

With that in mind, Local Government officers and contractors can rest assured of MASTEC’s unique commitment that its range of mobile garbage bins can not only be recycled into other plastic products, but more importantly, can be easily be recycled and reprocessed back into new bins. A tangible benefit of focusing on the ‘circular economy’ – one that also considers the practical usability of the collected recyclable materials.

As general summary the retrieval of bins is the reverse procedure to delivery, less the scanning of delivery addresses, fitting of labels and supply of brochures.

In addition to the new bin induction and safety requirements, employees are required to comply with:

• Compulsory use of safety glasses when hammering or drilling
• Mandatory use of gloves

Collection Procedure

For Old Bin collection is assumed that all employees have been trained, inducted and successfully delivered new bins. New employees will be trained and inducted on all items associated with the Old Bin Collection Process.

• Truck crews will be allocated designated streets per day; this will be reflected in the agreed Council plan.
• The nominated truck crew will collect all Old bins from each street.
• Trucks will start the day empty, to commence the bin collection.
• Once at the kerbside empty bins will begin to be collected, a bin with a wheel and axel will form the base of the first row of bins. If there are several sizes of bins at the kerbside there will be several rows started on the truck by bin type. Reverse of the delivery process.
• The wheel and axel will be removed by use of a battery drill retracting the retaining pin.
• Heavily corroded axels where the wheel hub is “frozen” onto the axels will require a different removal method.
• “Frozen” on axels will be removed by cutting the axel hub area of the bin body to allow the axel to be removed. This is by use of a hammer a chisel; this method has been used in many coastal areas where bin axel corrosion is an issue on historical bin removal programs.

• The crews continue down the street until the truck is full with stacks of bins.
• Removed wheels and axels are stowed in the open end of the bin stack row as per the new bin-loading guide.
• Bins are restrained with appropriate tie downs and the crew returns to the depot to unload the bins.
• Bins are store in groups by bin type and size and body colour.

• The second wheel is removed from the axel, generally when unloading at the yard, this allows the steel axel to be recycled.
• Stacks returned to the yard are then loaded onto semi trailers of B doubles for transport to the plastic recycler by body colour type.

• Only bins free of waste are collected from the Kerbside, as collection crew are not trained or licensed to transport waste material.

Management Bin Numbers Collected

• On return to the depot the admin Coordinator records the number and type of bins collected per truck.
• This entered into a running excel spreadsheet by date and or designated area.
• Collection of old bin by area can provide a measure of the percentage success rate of the recovery process. This is then used to monitor progress and effectiveness of the collection process.
• Bins dispatched form site is added to the excel spreadsheet to provide a running total of bins in the yard vs bins shipped.
• Passive GPS tracking is generally used in each of the collection vehicles to ensure all designated routes have been completed. This allows provides a historical record of time, location and speed of the collection vehicle.
• Waste and recycling of steel is managed through a local provided depending on the region of operation.

For more information go to SERVICES

After collection bins that have reached the end of their useful life are transported to MASTEC’s reprocessing facility in Adelaide where they are shredded and granulated following which the material is thoroughly washed to remove all contaminates. The material is then reprocessed into granulate where some additives may be mixed into the material, before the recycled resin is ready for re-manufacture.

For more information go to Sustainable Manufacturing.