Rising Costs Incentivize Waste Reduction, Repurposing
Waste Reprocessing: Processors accept a given level of waste as insignificant but recent advances in size reduction machinery are allowing a wide range of thick, chunky materials to be captured and reprocessed that used be considered too difficult and costly to bother. A dietary supplement manufacturer, for example, is using a new, inline lump breaker called the Nibbler that automatically cuts off-spec waste down to 1mm then returns it for mixing with virgin material. Reprocessing has yielded $148,000.00 in new revenue annually and cut material and housekeeping costs.
Waste Repurposing: When waste material differs too greatly from the input material to be reprocessed, repurposing the waste as a stand-alone product offers a new revenue stream. A brewery, for example, evaluated its waste stream and concluded the yeast mixed with proteins and other solids generated in fermentation could be repurposed as animal feed. Instead of discarding it, the foam is dried, fed through a lump breaker and discharged as a uniform particle size ready for bagging.
Process Improvement: Rather than think of lump breakers solely in terms of particle size reduction, processors can save energy and improve process efficiency by thinking in terms of bulk density. Cutting whole almonds into slivers, for example, reduces the bulk density. Lighter bulk densities reduce the energy needed for pneumatic conveying, mixing, feeding, and other steps downstream for cost savings and improved efficiency.
