Seven mistakes when buying a shredder

Manufacturer UNTHA shares some tips and concerns to
keep in mind when seeking the right shredding technology
Starting a new electronics processing recycling business
can be fraught with problems – from siting and OSHA regulations
to environmental concerns. The keystone of any
processing operation, the shredder, does not have to be
one of the problems. The people at UNTHA Shredding Technology
have come up with the seven things a business
owner should avoid when buying a shredder. “We can help
you make an informed choice and hopefully avoid making
an error that you will have to live with for a long time,” said
Peter Dion, Regional Sales Manager.

According to Charles Hildebrand, Regional Sales Manager,
UNTHA has been designing and manufacturing shredding
machines for over 30 years. The company has accumulated
a vast storehouse of knowledge, and by tapping into this
expertise, business owners can hopefully make the right
choice. “I think that by going through the decision making
process with the customer, there are no surprises when the
machine is put in service. We are always up front about the
fact that if we don’t have the equipment you need, we’ll
point you in the right direction,” said Hildebrand.
So, he listed seven things a business owner should avoid
when purchasing a shredding machine.


7. Buying the wrong shredder technology due to lack
of product and technical knowledge.

There are a number of different types of shredders on the
market and for a given application, some perform better
than others.

“They all work well with one or more specific materials, but
no one machine is ideal for everything. For example, a single
shaft shredder is ideal for plastics, wood and some paper.
However, it is not suitable for e-scrap. I was at a computer
de-manufacturing facility and they had already purchased
a single-shaft shredder,” Hildebrand said. “a single
shaft relies on rotor speed and a ram to rip the material
apart. This is great for plastics and wood, but if you’re trying
to shred metal objects like tower frames, you will destroy
the machine fairly rapidly and this is precisely what happened.”
The bottom line is that a misapplied machine will have a shorter life
and will be less reliable, he said.

6. Wanting a “One-Size-Fits-All” solution.

“Understanding that there may not be one machine that
will do absolutely everything you want can be difficult for
some business owners to accept. But the consequences of
trying to get a machine to do something it is not designed
for can be profound. Having the proper shredder technology
also translates to the most efficient deployment of personnel,”
said Dion.

“We have a customer that makes catalogs and circulars,
and they need to shred and bale different kinds of waste
paper – dense paper that was cut off cardboard rolls, or
cores, wrinkled or balled up paper, and finally the cores
themselves; and they bought a very inexpensive singleshaft
shredder to do all of that.” The shredder wasn’t appropriate
for the application, Dion said. “In order to make
this work and do all three things, they set up a ladder next
to the shredder, and a guy stood on the ladder with an
eight-foot long piece of 2x4 pressing down the light paper
into the shredder. For the cores, a garden hoe was required
to get them into place. If somebody from OSHA came along
and saw this, they’d have a heart attack!” Dion said.

Aside from the safety issue, this system was designed to
run automatically, with the workers putting the paper in the
automatic loader and walking away. Instead, the company
is paying an extra person to risk injury versus having them
doing their regular job. Thus, a shredder which may have
been inexpensive to buy is actually very costly to operate
and live with, he said.

5. Cutting specifications to fit a less-expensive piece
of equipment into a perceived budget.

“Let’s say you have a material and a throughput in mind
based on a business model and you also have some other
things you’d potentially want to do with your shredder. And
then you find out that the shredder that will meet these
requirements will cost much more than you thought it did,”
said Hildebrand. Reducing your goals and choosing a less
capable shredder can be a mistake. “We call this
“budgefication,” which means that the specification
(throughput, particle size, etc.) is adjusted downward to
meet an arbitrary budget number with little or no thought
given to the implications,” he said.

“What generally ends up happening is that the customer
has a shredder that will just get by and may be running at
its stress limit and/or is overloaded most of the time. The
bottom line is that the machine will not last as long and will
require more frequent repairs and maintenance, he said.

4. Under-sizing a machine without considering future
growth.

This is important considering the considerable growth in the
e-waste industry, Dion said. In a survey commissioned by
the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, the International
Data Corporation estimated the market value of the
industry is currently $4 to $5 billion and will grow to $8 to
$10 billion in the next few years.

“What do you need a couple of years from now, or five
years from now? Have you talked to your sources as to
what they see is the growth, or do they see something
changing in the mix of materials and things of that nature?,”
said Dion. “We have a customer in the Midwest that
does circuit boards, and they bought a really nice machine
to process them. It is the right design and generally an
ideal machine for the job. But they overwhelmed it within
six months. They bought essentially, a “medium” when
they really needed an “extra-large,” and right now they’re
going through the entire specification and buying process
all over again for another machine. This is a duplication of
effort in a very short period of time.”

Also, an overworked machine also won’t last the 10 to 15
years a shredder is expected to last, Dion said.

“When you overwhelm a machine like that and you run it
up near the limits of its capacity, you’re also running the
various components -- the bearings, the shafts, everything
else -- at the limits as well. You don’t get the life out of
your cutting system that you want, and you may also do
things where the life of the screen won’t last. It’s really a
little self-defeating,” he said.

3. Purchasing a machine solely on price.

Hildebrand said buying a cheap shredder is a lot like buying
a cheap inkjet printer for your office. “You don’t pay much
for the printer, but you’re paying through the nose for the
ink,” he said. New recyclers don’t necessarily want the best
machine for the price, but the cheapest machine they can
get. “People may buy machines that are under-designed
and under-built for the application, and they run into much
higher operating and maintenance costs. One thing you
really have to bear in mind with a shredder is that the purchase
price of the machine is only a fraction of the overall
operating expense. It’s going to be the maintenance and
the replacement cutters over time that are going to cost
you.” While a pricier machine may cost more up-front,
maintenance costs over 15 years or so can be much less
than a cheaper machine, he said.

2. Buying from a company that is unable to meet obligations
for service, maintenance, and spare parts.

Before joining UNTHA, Dion, an engineer, did some research
and spoke to a number of low end shredder manufacturers
regarding spare parts and service. A spokesman
for one such company told him that they send out component
drawings to their customers so they can have them
made locally.

“I laughed, because I thought ‘If you’re in the business of
shredding hard drives, paper or e-waste, you’re not in the
business of going out and working with a job shop to have
somebody fabricate a bracket, wear plate, screen or whatever,
and having to go through catalog after catalog to find
the right bearing that you want. All the while your shredder
sits idle and you’re not making any money.” Dion said.

Trouble can also arise when companies don’t offer technical
support, he said.

“Can you get a factory technician to come out if something
major really goes bad? Can you have somebody overnight
you the spare part that you need, or give you some technical
advice over the phone regarding troubleshooting or
what to look for?,” Dion said. These are all important questions
to ask a potential shredder supplier, he said.

1. Buying used equipment.

“There are two big dangers here,” said Hildebrand. “The
people that you’re buying the equipment from do not know
the equipment or the application. In the used equipment
market, you’ve got somebody that has a shredder and
wants to sell that shredder. He does not look to sell a
shredder for an application, he’s just looking to sell the
shredder. You may not have anyone that can guide you to
make sure that the shredder is truly right for what you are
trying to accomplish. Also, while the basic design may be
correct (i.e. single shaft or multi-shaft), the design of the
rotor or the cutters may not be suitable for a given material.
It also may not be equipped with features like better
seals or wear plates which are really required for some applications.
There’s often no way to know the shape of a
used shredder, and listening to it run for 5 minutes isn’t
going to tell you anything. Hildebrand said.

“If you look at a shredder in somebody’s lot, you can’t tell if
the bearings are gone, you can’t tell if the seals are good,
you can’t really tell if the gearbox is good. You can tell that
it runs. Under the cutters, what’s there? One catastrophic
failure can eat up any savings you enjoyed by buying a
used piece of equipment. My advice is to talk to people who
know the machines and people who know your application.
That way, you can get the best machine for what you need
to do. Look down the road, look at the long-term picture,
and you’ll be sure to get a machine that’s a good fit and will
make you money.”

Learn more at www.untha-america.com