Tom Wetor, the borough's public works director, said staff has been finding and fixing problems with the trash bailer, keeping the new equipment working so that Wrangell can meet the fire safety requirements for shipping its garbage out of town.
A trash masher installed inside the garage at the borough's garbage transfer station has had some teething issues.
The baler, which the borough started up in late October, began having problems after one of its sensors got smacked. After troubleshooting over the phone didn't work, the public works department added Wi-Fi to the machine to try and get the manufacturer to gain access to its computerized controls, Jeff Good, borough manager, said in a report to the borough assembly Feb. 8.
"AP&T was able to access the baler computer from Wasilla but the manufacturer in Georgia stated they were able to see the mainframe but did not have access to the five individual computers on the machine," Good wrote.
As a result, the baler had to run in manual mode, which required extra staff to operate the $350,000 machine. Once the bales - blocks of compacted trash - were ready, an operator had to manually eject the bale, then stop in order to start the wire-tying operation, then go back and continue to eject the bale, stopping again to finish the wire tying that holds the bale together.
Five wire ties are needed on each bale, and the process had to be repeated for each tie on each bale.
Next, the wire-tie apparatus started to experience other issues with not tying correctly, so about every five times the tying machine would not work. Each time, wire needed to be pulled through the machine and the track needed to be cleaned before being able to proceed.
The wire unit, which is made by a different company than the trash compactor, continues to have issues, Public Works Director Tom Wetor said Friday. Staff worked with the technician to fabricate pieces out of polyethylene as replacements for the metal pieces that came with the machine. The speed of the wire was reduced and the wire was given extra cleanings and oil.
All that seems to have improved the operation. A new wire stand will be installed this month, and keeping it clean will be key to it working properly, Wetor said.
Public works staff use an excavator to scoop trash off the floor of the warehouse and into the hopper of the baler, which then gets shoved by a hydraulic press on one side, then the other side as it is compacted into a rectangular block and pushed out of the machine. Another staff member on a forklift catches the block as it's pressed out and loads it into a closed container for shipment out of state.
Wetor said due to trash fires aboard barges, Republic Services, which handles trash for the borough, and Alaska Marine Lines, which carries the garbage aboard its barges, stopped accepting loose trash in open containers to avoid fire risk.
The compacted bales inside closed containers are less exposed to oxygen for fire.
Reader Comments(0)