CBI annihilator helps Alabama company weather the storm: Sunbelt Environmental and CBI team up to process hurricane debris

Construction & Demolition Recycling, May-June, 2005

When thousands of cubic yards of mixed construction and demolition debris began pouring into his landfill properties in the wake of September 2004's Hurricane Ivan, Jeff Claunch, owner of Sunbelt Environmental Inc., says he knew he needed a machine that could do some serious processing.

After the hurricane, Claunch found that his five-year-old company with facilities in Gulf Shores, Ala., and Pensacola and Panama City, Fla., was serving the debris disposal needs in some of the areas hardest hit by the year's heavy hurricane season.

"We were taking in 15,000 cubic yards of C&D every day right after the hurricane," Claunch says.

In an effort to conserve space at Sunbelt's Gulf Shores, landfill, Claunch says he started looking into primary shredders. "We looked for a machine that could handle the large amount of material and provide a significant volume reduction," he says.

Claunch says he also needed a machine that could process the material left over by Sunbelt's contracted wood grinders and concrete recycling plant.

After consulting with some friends and colleagues in the industry, Claunch says he purchased a CBI Annihilator with an 8 foot-by-10.5 foot feed opening and a 20,000-pound rotor. The machine from the Newton, N.H.-based manufacturer was put to work immediately processing the hurricane debris.

"Once we had the machine for a week, we were convinced it was the machine we needed," he says. Claunch estimates that the Annihilator processes an average of about 300-375 cubic yards of material per hour. By running it 10 or 11 hours per day, Claunch says the machine is going through nearly 3,500 cubic yards of C&D per day, providing his Gulf Shores landfill the significant volume reduction he was looking for.

The machine has also proven to be low-maintenance-another reason Claunch says he would recommend the Annihilator to other operators.

"The maintenance on it has been less than anticipated," he says. "We've run everything from fiberglass to cross ties through it, and it's been relatively trouble-free since we bought it."

And now that many cities have finished the initial post-hurricane clean up, the Annihilator has a fresh supply of material coming through with demolition projects on buildings that were damaged by the storms.

Claunch says he's been pleasantly surprised by the Annihilator's performance. "It's more than met my expectations," he says.