Glass Crusher Process Improvement

Our MSD project is focused on developing and improving the process for operating a glass crusher at the Goodwill Finger Lakes Regional Facility. All unsold glass from Goodwill stores in the region is sent to this facility to be disposed of. Goodwill purchased the Andela GP-MegaMini glass pulverizer for this purpose and plans to sell crushed glass sand to concrete companies as a way to recycle the glass into building materials. The facility had no operating process for this machine and no safety adjustments for indoor use of the equipment, which is where our team comes in! Our team had three major focuses for this project. The first focus was on operator safety. The equipment hopper is loaded manually by dumping totes of glass. The hopper is 5 feet high, making this task ergonomically unsafe for the operator. Our solution was to implement an operator platform with a pneumatic pallet riser next to it that brings totes within comfortable reach of the operator. Additionally, glass occasionally falls back along the conveyor and bounces out towards the operator - a huge safety hazard. To combat this, we installed cover doors that both protect the operator and can be opened for any maintenance activities. Our second focus was on output material handling. Previously, glass sand would fall from a chute into a bin. A forklift would retrieve this bin and dump the sand into an open gaylord. This method both generated a lot of dust in the air and the gaylords were difficult to ship out. Our solution here was to implement a filler frame that attaches to the output chute and allows easy setup of a super sack to catch the sand in. The filler frame clamps to a super sack to mitigate dust accumulation in the air. The super sacks can be easily removed using a forklift and sealed for shipment to the construction-industry customers. The final focus was on dust mitigation. Operators throughout the Goodwill facility would be impacted by breathing in the glass dust that accumulates from the glass crusher. Implementing super sacks was the first step in preventing dust in the air. The second step was to improve the water misting system of the equipment. Glass dust is hydrophilic and wetting it prevents it from spreading into the air. There was a misting system in place, however the nozzle did not atomize water effectively and the control valve required inconsistent adjustments to maintain a steady flow. Our solution improved the nozzle and allowed for a single-touch water flow setting when starting up the equipment. To complete the project, we wrote up standard operating procedures for the entire process. This ensured that Goodwill employees unfamiliar with the equipment could read step-by-step instructions and operate the equipment safely and efficiently, and machine operation would be consistent throughout each operator.