PUHL designs and installs largest waste / scrap paper collection system of it kind in the USA for Quad Graphics

In today’s large printing operations, the efficient collection and handling of waste/scrap paper is critical to the overall operation of the plant. The country's largest waste/scrap collection and handling system, designed and installed by G.F. Puhl Company of Goodlettsville, TN, will dramatically increase waste paper handling efficiency at Quad/Graphics’ plant in Sussex, WI.

Facts about the Sussex trim waste collection facility

• When the Sussex plant’s recycling center is finished it will house a total of eight cyclones
• Each cyclone is 45 feet tall and is rated at 50,000 cubic feet of air per minute (enough air to fill one hot air balloon in less than two minutes)
• Six new cyclones were manufactured by CamCorp of Lenexa, KS and two existing cyclones were incorporated into the system
• The system is designed and installed by G.F. Puhl of Goodlettsville, Tenn
• Four new high capacity auto-tie balers from Balemaster of Crown Point, IN are being installed
• The state-of-the-art control system utilizes distributed I/O and Ethernet communications using the plant LAN to reduce installation time and cost and provide for future expansion of the control system as desired
• The complete trim collection system is expected to be completed by mid-2006 and will include a network of piping more than 2-1/4 miles in length.

  “We’ve been in nearly every printing plant in the country and we know of no other installation in the United States bigger than this.”
  - Jim Curtis, Vice President of Engineering & Manufacturing at G.F. Puhl Company

Not in Kansas Anymore: Just what happens in a giant cyclone collection system?

Imagine for a moment that you’re a scrap of paper and you’ve just been trimmed from a page at Sussex – hang on. You’re about to go on the ride of your life.By this summer, you and your fellow pieces of trim waste will be taking a thrill ride through the largest paper collection system of its kind in the United States.

Your ride begins when you get sucked out of a retaining bin at one of the Finishing lines. You rush upward at a breakneck speed of 7,500 feet per minute (85 miles per hour) through paper collection piping, propelled by large blower fans mounted on the roof or at the mezzanine level of the plant.

From there you’re whisked horizontally through piping at 6,000 feet per minute (68 miles per hour) until you reach the top of one of eight cyclones in the recycling center (now under construction). This is where your real fun begins.

Inside each 45-foot tall cyclone, your thrill ride turns into a downward spiral as your speed gradually slows to about 280 feet per minute (3 miles per hour). You and your fellow scraps of paper tumble as you continue to spin toward the bottom of the cyclone. Eventually you’re traveling so slowly that the air moving around you no longer propels you, and you fall to the bottom of the cyclone’s outer chamber.

The next thing you know, you hear a giant crunching sound and the space around you becomes very crowded. You have been compressed by a large plunger into a 1,500-pound bale of paper and then bound by wire. Soon a truck picks you up and you’re on the road, headed back to a paper mill in the United States or Canada to begin a new life as tissue, newspaper, napkins or some other recycled product.

Learn more about how the cyclone works.

Before Sussex plant’s recycling center walls were put in place, the cyclones were clearly visible. Here workers pass by the six new trim waste collection cyclones, which will eventually be joined by two more when they are moved from another part of the plant, making this the largest installation of its type in the United States.

The “business end” of each cyclone is where the balers will be installed. Each bale of compressed paper will weigh approximately 1,500 pounds.

 

LEARN MORE ABOUT HOW THE CYCLONE WORKS