Crushtec Chronicle – Sandco puts recycling onto a professional footing

The role of recycling in the South African economy remains relatively insignificant in comparison with the part it plays in converting waste back into usable raw materials in Europe and North America.

Apart from being regarded as both environmentally and socially responsible, it is a major industry in its own right – something that has not gone unnoticed by wide awake local entrepreneurs.

A case in point is Sandco Pty Ltd, which specialises in land rehabilitation and the large-scale recycling of building waste. Partners Fred Sprenzel and Clint Rodwell have combined their individual areas of expertise to motivate an operation which now has 30 employees as well as three state-of-the-art products, supplied by Pilot Crushtec International.

The fleet currently extends to a Metso Lokotrack®2.8™ mobile scalper, a Metso Lokotrack™3.5 ® mobile screen and a Rubble Master RM70 GO! tracked impact crusher.

The East Rand-based operation has already processed tens of thousands tonnes of rubble from its own site as well as incoming truckloads of waste material supplied by building contractors operating east of Johannesburg.

Clint, who trained as a horticulturalist before gravitating to demolition, site clearance and plant hire, runs a tight ship ensuring that all aspects of the operation run smoothly. Not only the internal crushing,  screening and materials handling processes, but the flow of traffic, trucks coming in with material for dumping and outgoing loads en route to builders and hardware merchants carrying a variety of freshly processed materials.

“Transport costs are a big factor in the building and civils industries and it is vital that we provide our customers and suppliers with rapid turnaround times as an extra load a day can make a very big difference to their operation. It is not unusual for us to work extra shifts to keep customers supplied with uninterrupted flows of material,” says Clint.

Current products on offer, and very much in demand, include G5, G6, G7, G8 and G9 material, varieties of building sand and builder’s blend mix of aggregate and fines. All grades are laboratory checked to ensure that they fully conform to legal specifications.

When it came to selecting plant for the new enterprise, Clint explains that for Sandco, Sandro Scherf was the logical person to talk to.

“Fred and Sandro go back a long way from the days when Fred started Benoni Sand. Sandro recommended the most suitable equipment for the applications we had in mind, and his guidance has been faultless. Our experience has shown the Metso reputation for quality and reliability to be fully deserved and the Rubble Master is the perfect machine to produce saleable recycled material.”