Dive Brief:

• The city of Hastings, NE has invested just over $500,000 in a solid waste shredder, which officials say will reduce the volume of landfilled trash by 75%, as reported by NBC Nebraska.
• The waste reduction, resulting from condensing materials, will open up the landfill capacity to accommodate six counties for a minimum of 16 to 60 years.
• While the shredder will be paid for over an extended time, the city projects cost savings in the long run.

Dive Insight:

While solid waste shredders may be a novel idea for the Midwest, the equipment has been around for a while, and the technology and their applications vary. There are single-shaft and dual-shaft rotary shredders with functions such as recycling, secure destruction of documents, tire re-shredding, medical waste disposal, and composting. They have features to control particle output size and to handle volumes of bulky waste.

Sims Recycling Solutions has been shredding volumes of computer hard drives daily for years. But this will be a brand new concept for Hastings, one that the solid waste division believes will be worth the investment.

"Just one cell of this landfill is $2 million, and it lasts between five and six years. So if we can spend $500,000 and make something last for 60 years, it's a no-brainer," Hastings Solid Waste Superintendent Jack Newlun said to NBC Nebraska.