Equipment Focus: Container Loaders and Tilters

May/June 2014

Manufacturers continue to produce and refine equipment designed for faster and safer loading of scrap metal into export shipping containers.

BY KENNETH A. HOOKER

Although the overseas demand for scrap commodities fluctuates from month to month and year to year, recyclers in the United States are eager to meet it when they can do so at a reasonable profit. The prevalence of closed shipping containers has made it easier for recyclers to enter the overseas market even if they’re not near a port.

Exports play a significant role in the U.S. scrap recycling industry. According to the U.S. Census Bureau (Suitland, Md.) and U.S. International Trade Commission (Washington, D.C.), the United States exported more than 47 million mt of scrap materials in 2012, valued at $27.8 billion. Iron and steel scrap alone were more than 20 million mt and $8 billion of that total.

Standard shipping containers are either 20 or 40 feet long and open only at one end. Without special equipment, recyclers typically back the truck carrying a container up to a ramp or dock and then drive a small skid-steer or forklift into the container to load material. This is a slower and more laborious operation than loading an open-top container: It can take several workers an hour or more to load a single container. It puts a lot of wear and tear on the vehicles doing the loading, and it’s impossible to fill the container to its maximum volume using this process.

From about 2002 to mid-2008, rising overseas demand for scrap metals drove interest in equipment that would facilitate containerized shipping. Several manufacturers developed machines to do just that. The equipment falls into two general categories: container tilters and horizontal loaders. Tilters raise containers to an angle of 45 degrees or more so that the open end can be loaded from above. Loader systems keep the container horizontal. They typically feature an open-topped chamber which receives material and moves it into the container. “Loaders have really changed our industry by making it possible for smaller yards to use containers and send material overseas,” says Arthur Weinstein, director of Allied Salvage in Richmond, British Columbia.

Scrap first published a report on container-loading equipment in May/June 2009, in the middle of the recession. At the time there was some concern about a decline in export demand but also the hope that the market would regain strength over the long term. Indeed, exports of many scrap commodities fell in 2009 and 2010, but they rallied in 2011, hitting new heights before falling slightly in 2012 and again in 2013 for aluminum, copper, and ferrous metal. The uncertain export markets and swings in scrap commodity value in the past few years have taken their toll. Some producers of container loaders and tilters featured in the 2009 story are no longer active in this market. Others have seen their sales to the scrap industry slow to a trickle, but they continue to sell the equipment for loading containers with grain and other commodities.

Phelps Industries (Little Rock, Ark.) is one company that says its container-tilter business has declined over the past five years. The company has manufactured material-handling equipment since 1927, and it began making truck dumpers and other hydraulically operated equipment in the early 1970s. Phelps created a container tilter in 2006 or 2007 in response to interest from the scrap industry, says Sales Engineer Daniel Darcey. “Using the proven technology from our truck dumpers, we were able to design a hydraulic container tilter that could accommodate the increasing weight of the container as it is loaded in the tilted position.” Unlike other tilters, the Phelps product can tilt the container while the trailer chassis is still attached. When the product first entered the market, “construction activity in China had led to high demand and high prices for scrap exports,” Darcey explains. “That softened after the [2008] Beijing Olympics, and as demand and price for exporting scrap [have] decreased over the years, the demand for container tilters has similarly declined.”

Despite Phelps’ experience, some tilter and loader manufacturers have managed to endure and even thrive in the challenging economic conditions, and others are entering—or about to enter—the U.S. market.

The Stalwarts

A-Ward Attachments, whose U.S. headquarters is in Savannah, Ga., produced its first container tilter in 2006 and introduced its MiSlide horizontal container loader in 2011. It’s one of the only companies to make both types of container-loading equipment.

A-Ward’s MiTilt container tilter accommodates both 20- and 40-foot containers, tilting them 90 degrees to enable filling them to 100-percent capacity. Users can insert a container into A-Ward’s tilters either directly with a standard trailer or from above with a forklift, crane, or stacker. An integrated scale monitors the total weight of the container and material, ensuring it remains within the regulatory limits for truck or road capacity and allowing users to avoid double-handling material. Options include remote-control operation, hydraulic arms to open and close the container doors, a rear container support, and an access ladder and platform for safe access to the top of the tilted container. Recent improvements to the equipment, the company says, include upgraded scales and the choice of either an electric- or diesel-powered system.

Its MiSlide horizontal loader for 20- or 40-foot containers has a chamber that users load with scrap from the top. To fill a shipping container, the truck driver backs the container around the chamber, locks the two together, then drives forward. The transfer of material from the chamber to the container takes less than five minutes, the company reports. The loader hydraulically aligns itself with the shipping container, automatically locks and unlocks the two together, and offers one-person, remote-control operation for greater safety. Like the tilter, the loader has an integrated scale. A-Ward also offers the MiSlide compactor, which combines the horizontal loader with a compaction chamber to bale light-gauge scrap. Purchasers of the horizontal loader can retrofit it with the compactor, the company adds.

A-Ward has sold about 150 machines, mostly tilters, in the United States to date, says Mike Ganier, A-Ward’s general manager of U.S. operations. Due to a “soft scrap metal export market,” equipment sales to U.S. recycling operations have declined since about 2012, though they have started to pick up recently, Ganier says. The MiSlide horizontal loader has proved popular with scrap recyclers in Japan, he says, because customers there value being able to load containers without damaging them; A-Ward’s sales in that market have not slowed down as others have, Ganier says.

Henry A. Wiltschek (Stoney Creek, Ontario) offers a tilter manufactured by TEME (Caledonia, Ontario) that handles either 20- or 40-foot containers. Once the user unlocks the container from the trailer and locks it to the tilter, it tilts 20-foot containers to 90 degrees and 40-foot containers to 45 degrees in about 90 seconds, according to news reports. A mechanism automatically opens and closes the container doors and holds them shut while the container tilts back to horizontal. Other features include remote-control operation, a gasoline or diesel engine, and hydraulic locks to hold the container to the tilter. Optional load cells in the base of the tilter monitor the total weight.

Advanced Steel Recovery (Fontana, Calif.) does not sell a container tilter or loader. Instead, it offers its proprietary FASTek horizontal loader to companies that supply it with scrap. The supplier pays only a one-time delivery fee for the equipment. Users fill the FASTek loader from overhead using standard scrapyard equipment. The diesel-powered loader, which has an integrated scale, moves material from the loader into a container still attached to its truck or chassis in less than three minutes, ASR says. The company delivers and installs the system, which requires no electricity and only basic preventive maintenance.

The Newcomers

In an industry that’s always looking for a better mousetrap, it should be no surprise that additional companies are now selling equipment to U.S. recyclers interested in shipping containerized scrap. Both X-Body Equipment (Rocklin, Calif.), a 2010 startup, and the U.K.-based Bulk Handling Solutions manufacture container loaders and are beginning to establish a foothold in the U.S. scrap industry.

X-Body became involved in the recycling industry as a designer of scales for container tilters in 2006, explains Greg Bushong, the company’s owner. “Tilters were all the rage in 2006-2007, but [I think] they were really only capable of loading 20-foot containers,” he says. He concluded that existing tilter designs were “OK for [shredded steel], aluminum, and other lighter materials, but heavier materials too easily damage the containers.”

Bushong set out to develop a horizontal container loader that could handle heavy melting steel and other heavy materials more effectively, coming up with the Acculoader. Users back the truck and container up to the Acculoader and load its heavy-duty, 1,300-cubic-foot chamber from the top with scrap metal or other materials. When the integrated scale shows the load has reached its desired weight, the operator activates a hydraulic cylinder that pushes the chamber into the container and releases the material.

Loading a 40-foot container without such equipment generally takes three workers 1.5 hours to place 21 to 22 tons of material, Bushong says. With the Acculoader, one worker can load 23 to 24 tons in 30 minutes, he says, reducing the production cost from $70 a ton to between $12 and $15 per ton. This results in a quick return on customers’ investment in the equipment, he adds, which sells for about $250,000. Since 2010, the company has sold 65 units worldwide, 22 of which are in the United States, he says.

Bulk Handling Solutions was established about four years ago, with offices and manufacturing facilities in Wales and Yorkshire, England. Since then, the company says it has sold its container tilters across Europe, as well as in Russia and South Africa. The company has set up agents in North and South America with the intention of selling equipment on those continents later this year.

The standard BHS T-90 tilter can accommodate 20-foot containers up to its maximum operating load of 30 mt. Powered by an electric motor or diesel engine, it hydraulically tilts containers to any angle up to 90 degrees for loading. Variations of the equipment can accommodate 40-foot containers as well.

The BHS unit is freestanding, requires no special foundation, and has integral wheels that allow it to move easily around the yard, the company says. The entire machine also can be picked up and loaded onto a standard flatbed trailer without disassembly, making it valuable for companies with multiple yards. Other features include extended trailer wheel guides that facilitate trailer access, a rear container brace that helps prevent container bulging or damage, and a weigh system with an option to upgrade to trade-certified weighing. “Safety [is] achieved through … a four-corner hydraulic locking system, operated by remote control by one person, and through producing a robust unit designed using finite element analysis and manufactured to ISO 9001 standards,” says Managing Director David Smith.

The company’s fully hydraulic, remote-controlled version is popular in Western countries, where the cost of labor is higher and a one-person operation offers significant savings, Smith says. BHS also produces a base-model machine that requires two people to operate efficiently, which better suits developing countries with lower labor rates. The base model can be modified, however, to add four-point hydraulic locking with remote-control options, making it a one-person operation, Smith says.

Notes From the Field

Some companies say they’re exporting less, if at all, thus their tilters or loaders have seen less use lately. Lopez Scrap Metal (El Paso, Texas) has used “both types of equipment—a tilter for 20-foot containers and a leased horizontal loader for 40-foot ones,” says President Isidro Lopez. “We were able to load 1,000 tons of scrap into the large containers in two-and-a-half to three days” using such equipment, he says, “but we don’t have either one anymore.” The firm stopped exporting material in 2012, he explains, because local mills started paying higher prices for scrap. “The local mills changed their philosophy, and now we can do better selling to them.”

And others have yet to take the plunge. Perry Snider, general manager at Newell Recycling (East Point, Ga.), says he’s seen container tilters online and at shows but never used one in his business. “We looked into it when we were busiest with exports, but the advantages didn’t seem worth the investment,” he says. “Now the export mills are no longer paying more than local ones, so we’re not shipping much overseas.” At Freedom Metals (Louisville, Ky.), CEO Bruce Blue says geography is a factor. “We can’t get enough containers here in the Midwest to justify buying and using the equipment.”

But satisfied buyers say their tilters and loaders have provided a huge boost to their productivity and efficiency when filling shipping containers for export.

Calbag Metals Co. (Portland, Ore.) purchased its Acculoader in August 2010. Its operations manager, Dave Meyer, says he’s been pleased with its performance. Calbag previously loaded containers with forklifts, moving boxes of material up and down ramps. “We were able to load six to eight containers a day in two shifts with four guys, but we needed to get more modern.” Using the loader, the company has “just one guy who operates the crane by remote control and a truck driver who moves the container. They can load eight containers in an 8-hour shift, and everyone can go home tired but happy. The most we ever did was 20 containers in a 10-hour day, but that was with more people,” he says. Meyer expresses a preference for the horizontal loader design, suggesting it’s more efficient than a container tilter.

Calbag’s machine was the first diesel Acculoader that X-Body produced—Calbag requested it because the company runs its yard without electricity. The machine uses a small diesel generator to power the unit. The company has not had to invest much in maintenance for the machine so far. “The biggest thing we’ve had to do was repack the cylinder after three years, and there have been a few minor electronic things, but you can’t run any kind of equipment without doing some maintenance,” Meyer says.

Allied Salvage uses an electric Acculoader, which Weinstein says is easier to maintain and less expensive to run than a diesel. Because it’s a permanent installation, the company also saw no advantage to the mobility that the diesel would allow. Weinstein recommends leaving plenty of driveway space for truck access and having a level concrete slab as a base. “The machine is free-standing, and there’s some vibration while it operates, so be aware and plan for that,” he says. “We built some braces and bumpers around it to hold it in place.” The equipment is “working just as we expected, and we’re very satisfied with it,” he adds.