The Essential Role of Hydraulics in Solid Waste Management

Solid Waste Management (SWM) is an important, multifaceted, and largely underappreciated business that keeps our cities clean and functional. At its core is a strong and critical technology: hydraulics. There is simply no way to replicate the force required to manage, compact, and move enormous quantities of waste without hydraulics; hence, hydraulics is the quiet and tireless workhorse of the waste industry.

This blog will cover fluid power's key applications of fluid power in solid waste processing from the curb to the tip.

1. Waste Collection and Transportation

One of the more prominent applications of hydraulic systems is the machine that collects our refuse - the garbage truck, specifically designed around fluid power.

• Compactors (The Crushing Force): This is where hydraulics excels. Massive hydraulic cylinders push the compaction blade, crushing waste down to a small fraction of its initial size. The ability to generate extreme compaction levels from a very distinctive force-to-weight ratio allows trucks to collect more trash per trip, increasing efficiency, and overall working costs, while also reducing fuel use.
• Lifting Mechanisms: The lifting arms and hoists that are automated or semi-automated that lift the heavy bins and empty them into the hopper are all accomplished through skillful use of hydraulic actuators. These actuators control the lifting arms so they move slowly and in a controlled manner which is absolutely essential to the health and safety aspect of loading and unloading refuse from differing bin sizes and weights.
• Tipping and Ejecting: When it arrives at the landing site or transfer station to off-load refuse, the worker or actuator utilizes a powerful hydraulic plate that ejects the waste from the compaction container in a solid mass. In the absence of hydraulic force, the compaction of the waste which is already highly compacted would have rendered off-loading impossible.

2. Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs) 

Hydraulics provides the muscle for large-scale materials handling at recycling and sorting facilities.

• Baling Presses: After materials, such as cardboard, plastic, and metals, have been sorted, they are pressed into dense, manageable blocks referred to as bales. The hydraulic balers apply high pressure to the material to compact it for storage and shipping purposes. The denser the bale, the lower the transportation costs.   
• Shearing and Crushing:  For large, bulky waste streams such as old appliances or industrial scrap (e.g. metal drums), hydraulic shears and crushers cut and break down these objects into a size that can be further processed or recycled. 
• Loading Equipment: Front-end loaders and excavators, used for moving large piles of sorted or unsorted waste, rely entirely on hydraulic systems to control the booms, buckets, and steering of the equipment.

3. Final Disposal and Landfill Operations

Even in the very end of the waste process, hydraulics still plays a role in preparing the site and moving earth. 

• Landfill Compactors: These specialized landfill compaction machines that are likely the heaviest and toughest equipment on site use hydraulic cylinders to drive down their enormous spiked wheels which tightly pack the last layer of waste in order to make the landfill site more stable and more efficient utilizing the underlying space.
• Bulldozers and Excavators: Used to move and cover the waste with soil (daily cover), bulldozers, excavators, etc. also use their hydraulic system to provide strong digging, lifting and blade control.
• Waste-to-Energy Plants:  In these facilities, hydraulic grippers and cranes lift and feed an enormous amount of refuse into incineration chambers demonstrating dependable operations in demanding, non-stop conditions.

The Future: Converging Smart Hydraulics

SWM utilization of hydraulics is changing to - or prepping the sector to meet - smart cities and sustainability expectations.

The industry is transitioning to smart hydraulics with:

• Sensors and IoT. The timely implementation of impractical types of sensors - especially pressure and temperature sensors - into a compactor and/or pump absolute powers the process for real-time monitoring and predictive maintenance, which helps prevent equipment breakdowns on the collection route and ensures backup and scheduling inoperative time is limited and adhered to for not-waste collection daily activities.
• Energy Efficiency: Next-generation hydraulic systems - commonly associated with electric or hybrid trucks - will be designed for increased energy recovery and less heat generation to consume less fuel, power and less environmental footprint.

In SWM, therefore the fundamental equation when it comes to hydraulics is simply High Force + Reliability = Hydraulics. Halting fluid power, the powerfully controlled movement of waste would basically stop the modern efficiency we are capable of executing, instantaneously.