The City of Conway, Arkansas selected Marathon Equipment Company’s NEXGEN brand
to equip their new state-of-the-art Material Recovery Facility (MRF) for residential
recycling.
The City has elected to expand their single-stream recycling capabilities to better
service community residents. This requires adding automation capabilities to their
current manual sorting system for recyclables. The City purchased a NEXGEN brand
Galaxy 2R 310 two-ram baler from Marathon in 2007 and has been impressed with its
reliable performance. Based on this experience, they chose to work with the Marathon
and the NEXGEN brand to automate their processes.
Upgrading their current manual approach means accommodating new equipment, so the
City modified an existing 35,000 square foot building to add 16 conveyors, an old
corrugated containers (OCC) screen, a bag breaker, a fiber screen, an eddy current,
a cross belt magnet, an optical sorter, and a bottle perforator, all supplied and
installed by Marathon. Adding this automation will enable the City to increase their
system volume by 300% over current levels, with room for additional growth.
“Thanks to the implementation of the Marathon equipment to outfit Conway's newly
automated Material Recovery Facility, our community takes pride in the revitalization
of our co-mingled recycling program,” said Cheryl Harrington, Director of the Conway
Sanitation Department. “The City of Conway, which has entered into an inter-local
agreement with the Faulkner County Solid Waste Management District, has seen a tremendous
growth in the volume of recyclables which are processed at Conway's Recycling Center.”
The recycling service area includes approximately 100,000 residents within the City
of Conway and Faulkner County. Today, residents are not charged for their once per
week pickup, and the City processes and markets the recyclable material to fund
the single-stream program. By automating the MRF, the City will be able to extensively
increase its marketing efforts at no cost to the residents.
“The City came to us with three basic goals in mind,” said Matt Harris, Regional
Sales Manager for NEXGEN baling systems. “They want to reduce manual labor, increase
capacity, and achieve higher sorting efficiency. With the implementation of this
cutting-edge automated system, we have accomplished all three. This is a truly a
win-win situation for both the community and the environment.”
A grand opening ceremony for the new MRF was held on Tuesday, April 27, 2010. Attendees
included representatives from surrounding municipalities, the Arkansas Department
of Environmental Quality, the Conway City Council, and Marathon.