As a subsidiary of the third largest solid waste services company in North America, a south-central Pennsylvania facility has served its community for over 20 years by recycling more than 180,000 tons of material annually.

The state-of-the-art facility can process over 40 tons of material per hour. Upon receipt and loading into the metering bin, the recyclable material is carried through an infeed conveyor to ensure a steady flow of product into the pre-sort station for the removal of contaminants. The material is then conveyed through a series of machines to be sorted by size, weight, color and type before undergoing quality control. Critical to the recycling process, the DRS filters product by size to direct it to the appropriate next phase. Once processed, the material is condensed, bound into 1,500 pound bales, and shipped globally for remanufacturing.

The plan traditionally relied on manual inspection and scheduled maintenance of mechanical equipment. Mounted bearing failure often occurred at the DRS due to stray material wrapping around the shaft, increasing radial load and destroying the bearing backside seal. Without insight into resulting spikes in temperature, bearing failure occurred without warning and led to machine downtime for repair– causing significant production loss.