I discussed the company's philosophy, origins, and overall operations with Balcones' VP of Sales and Marketing.

 

Operations Overview  

Balcones Resources specializes in sorting and finding markets for the resources we call recyclable materials. Their corporate headquarters and newest sorting facility is located in Austin, but they also have operations in Dallas/Fort Worth and Little Rock, AR. They began with paper recycling in the late 1970's and have expanded over the years to become a multi-material recycling company with 135 employees. Their main game is gathering and sorting recyclables materials: paper, cardboard, plastic containers, metal containers and glass containers. Beyond gathering and sorting discarded resources, they also produce fuel cubes as an energy-dense coal substitute in Little Rock. The primary feedstock for these fuel cubes comes from fibrous personal hygiene products (diapers, feminine products, wet wipes, etc.).

 

Type of Customers and Services

As of Oct. 1, 2012, the City of Austin is one of Balcones' biggest customers. Balcones sorts about 60% of the City's residential, single-stream recycling. Balcones basically processes recycling for residences north of the river. Texas Disposal Systems processes residential recycling from south of the river.  The City of Austin is Balcones only residential program.

 

Balcones offers recycling education for a customer's employees and janitorial contractors to make recycling programs more effective. Recycling works best when people know exactly what materials can be recycled. The classes can be in English, Spanish, or other languages, like Burmese, if there's a need.

 

Unique Features of this Business

Balcones Resources is solely focused on finding the best markets for all of the material they collect. They do not own, or operate a landfill nor do they have a special agreement with any such disposal site.

 

In 1987 they were the first company to provide multiple material recycling services to an entire office building. The office building was the Renaissance Tower in Dallas

 

Trends and Goals

Two main factors are driving Balcones' business growth: consumer pressures and government programs. Consumer pressures have moved manufacturers to make more recyclable products. The primary government affecting Balcones is, of course, the City of Austin. Both the City's residential, single-stream recycling program and the recently effective ordinance requiring large commercial and multi-family properties to provide single-stream recycling have dramatically increased their business.

 

Currently a major goal for Balcones is energy self-sufficiency for each of its facilities. This includes utilizing renewable energy sources like solar and wind, plus seeking ways to extract energy from the materials they gather from their customers.

 

Favorite environmental impact factoid(s).

Balcones helps each of its customers gain a sense of their monthly reduction in environmental impact. Each customer receives a “world of difference” report with their monthly invoice. The report summarizes not only that customer's total tons of material recycled, but also an estimate of the  trees, water, oil, electricity and landfill space saved by the customer's recycling efforts.

 

Community Involvement

Balcones Resources gives back to the community trough community events and education programs. They provide people and equipment for community document shredding and recycling events. They work with non-profits providing staff and funding for school/youth recycling education. An English/Spanish recycling education video is also in the works.

 

At their corporate headquarters, they've been holding free seminars for any business, or property owner affected by the City of Austin's commercial/multi-family recycling ordinance. The seminars cover the reporting and recycling plan documentation requirements.

 

Balcones' Small Business Sustainability Solutions program director took me on a tour of their new materials recycling facility (MRF) in Austin.

 

MRF Tour

Their new Austin sorting facility was completed in July 2012. The equipment from Bulk Handling Systems processes 25 ton per hour. This is four times Balcones' previous processing rate, but with this state-of-the-art system they can do it without an increase in human power. The 18 people working the MRF perform quality checks and operate equipment like forklifts or front-end loaders. On-site vehicles run on propane, compressed natural gas (CNG) or electricity. A solar array provides about 50% of the MRF's electricity.

 

We began the tour outside by the dedicated City of Austin entrance. The incoming City of Austin recycling trucks have their own gate and weighing station. All other trucks use a separate entrance. From outside you can clearly see how the MRF building was designed with openings for  natural lighting and air circulation. At one end of the main MRF were truck bays for their document destruction (paper shredding) operations. Once shredded, the paper from confidential records goes into the MRF's sorting system.

 

We entered the MRF itself through a very tall, wide garage door leading to the tipping floor. It smelled a bit like a garbage truck, but not too strongly. Recycling trucks dump their loads in great piles right on the concrete floor in this area. A front-end loader then scoops the stuff into a "metering bunker". The dumpster-like bunker has an auger that regulates the rate and depth of materials entering the sorting system. Though it is dangerous to haulers to have glass shards in your recycling bin, I could heard that the glass is definitely very shattered by the time it leaves the metering bunker. 

 

Leaving the tipping floor, we climbed stairs up to the pre-sorting area. In the pre-sort step a handful of people were removing large, non-recyclable items, such as car seats and sink-drain garbage disposals, from a conveyor belt. 

Materials are sorted first by size and then by type. Size sorting is accomplished through a series of slotted, conveying screens that  move larger materials across, while smaller pieces fall through. The size sorting equipment separates the incoming material into large (cardboard), medium (mixed paper, metal/plastic containers) and small (shredded paper and glass shards) streams.

 

Magnets and optical sorters separate metal and plastics by type. A magnetic conveyor belt removes ferrous metals from the sorting stream. An electromagnetic system distinguishes aluminum cans from  plastic containers. A visible light optical sorter blasts air at #1 (PET) plastics to divert them from a mixed plastic stream. An IR optical sorter also armed with air jets separates #3 to #7 plastics. The #2 (HDPE) plastic is hand-sorted by pigmented vs. "natural" color. 

 

Once thoroughly sorted the materials at last head for the balers. They have two square-balers: one for cardboard and paper,  the other for plastics and metals. Forklifts stack the bales to await shipping. All the glass shards are, of course, not baled but put in bins or bunkers to be shipped out.

 

Stacks of outgoing inventory on-site are relatively small , because most of their materials ship out within 48 hours. All outgoing materials are stored in covered areas to prevent contamination or UV degradation. Currently everything goes out on trucks, but they'll have their own rail spur ready for action in December.