Taskmaster® Shredders Play Critical Role In E-Waste Recycling Operation

A major e-waste recycler which handles massive quantities of electronics received from many states wanted to make improvements. Their installed 4-shaft shredders were causing excessive maintenance expense and downtime. The company processes all types of e-waste from the smallest electronic components, such as flash cards and circuit boards, to the largest, such as mainframe computers - and everything in between. Their process is design to reclaim valuable metals found in the waste components such as silver, gold, and copper which can only be reclaimed after a shredding process.

The company has only one production line which is at work shredding 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In order to extract
the precious metals, the e-waste must go through a multi-stage size reduction sequence to get down to the required output size.

The company processes a one-line system which is at work shredding 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  In order to extract the precious metals, the e-waste must go through a multi-stage size reduction sequence to get down to the required output size.

The company stated they weren’t satisfied with the 4-shaft shredders they were using and were looking for a better solution. Those units were taking too much time to repair. Repair costs were excessive and cleaning was required between every production lot, resulting in far too much overall effort, money, and time. That’s when they turned to Franklin Miller for a solution.

The company purchased four Franklin Miller TASKMASTER® Shredders to address vital stages of their shredding process. They have two dual-stage size reduction lines running simultaneously, with a dual TASKMASTER TM3000 and
a dual TASKMASTER TM1600 in each line.

The e-waste first goes through the larger shredder, a TM3000 with fine, multi-tooth cutters. “The TASKMASTER 3000 is our first step of shredding for our
e-waste line,” said the technical engineer.

The heavy duty TASKMASTER TM3000 industrial shredder reduces high volumes of solids with low speed, high torque, dual shaft design. This shredder is suitable for a variety of shredding applications that demand high power, large throat openings and extra heavy-duty construction. The design of this unit provides effective operation with low noise, sparking, dust or heat rise. The unit can rip, tear and shred through a variety of tough solids, reducing the volume for further processing or economical disposal.

After the e-waste is processed by the TM3000, the material next goes through a dual stage Franklin Miller TASKMASTER Model TM1600. These machines have very fine cutters to achieve the final output size required. The TASKMASTER TM1600 shredder, though smaller, is still a powerful workhorse that can shred heavy solids in both gravity and liquid systems. Once the Franklin Miller shredders have finely reduced the e-waste, the material is ready for the final processes.

Due to the intensive, high volume nature of the operation, up-time on the shredders is highly critical. The e-waste includes some very tough materials that can challenge the strongest shredders. Finding the right cutter alloy that was tough and resistant to the heavy wear played a big role in the success of the TASKMASTER shredders. It was doubly important here because TASKMASTER  Shredders play a critical role in this 24/7 e-waste recycling operation.