The Problem...
To Shred and Bale Returned Magazines and Paperback Books

Eleven years ago, Southeast Periodicals and Book Sales, Inc., Miami, FL, installed a BloApCo 3CAX/S-3058-BVA shredder over a horizontal baler to shred and bale returned magazines and paperback books. Some of their magazines were 8 1/2x11" and over 1" thick. At that time, Southeast Periodicals anticipated that volume would grow to 50 tons per week. Their current volume was up to 100 tons per week. They found that when they were feeding at maximum volume, some magazines were not being thoroughly shredded. Not only was the shredder having trouble keeping up, the bale quality was poor. In addition, they also needed to shred corrugated and newspapers, which require a slightly different shredder than one for books and magazines.

The Solution...
BloApCo's 50-N Narrow Extra Heavy Duty Material Handling Fans

Two approaches were considered: (1) Upgrading or replacing their shredder so that everything can be handled by one shredder, or, (2) make minor modifications to the shredder to allow it to shred newspapers and corrugated boxes and install a separate magazine destruction system utilizing an extra heavy duty BloApCo material handling fan. The latter was chosen.

A BloApCo 50-N narrow extra heavy duty material handling fan with 60-HP motor, destroys books, newspapers and magazines -- even thick phone books. This fan, which is heavier than any previous BloApCo material handling fan, was developed over the past 25 years specifically for tearing apart paper products. A special receiving hopper was designed to allow the books and magazines to drop from the 48" wide feed conveyor into an air stream feeding the 50-N fan. The books literally disintegrate upon impact with the fan blades, thus ensuring total book destruction.

Once the books have been torn apart, they are conveyed by the action of this same fan, pneumatically, to a cyclone mounted over a baler. Shredded paper is separated from the conveying air within the cyclone and deposited into an auto tie baler. The conveying air discharged from the cyclone is fed into a series of filter bags to remove any dust, thereby allowing the conditioned air to be returned to the building. A floor sweep was also added to enable the operators to easily keep the scrap room clean.

The material handling fan, cyclone, filter bags and auto tie baler were installed while the existing shredder remained in operation...ensuring no loss of production. The resultant destruction of magazines and books is excellent, actually better than that provided by the shredder, and bale quality also is excellent. Bales weigh 1,600 pounds. Most importantly, Southeast Periodicals can now process more than 5 tons per hour of books and magazines, nearly twice their current volume requirements.

Southeast Periodicals and Book Sales, Inc., Miami, Fl