Rugged Truck Scale/Weighbridge – A Reliable Solution for the Recycling Industry

When Polk County Recycling Center in St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin, USA decided to install a truck scale/weighbridge to weigh recyclable materials, they determined that the scale would be shared with the Polk County Highway Department. The Highway Department needed this scale to monitor the inventory and usage of road materials, stored in a road salt , stored in a road salt shed at the Recycling Center site. However, the Highway Department needed its information to travel to their office’s computer database, located 15 miles away.

The truck scale/weighbridge at the Recycling Center needed to be able to gather and process a multitude of information for both the Highway Department and the Recycling Center. To deliver a practical solution, the two services teamed up with Weigh-Rite Scale Co., Inc. of Somerset, Wisconsin.

Dual purpose solution

“The Recycling Center weighs trucks carrying their recyclable materials, and they needed a way  to do this accurately and efficiently,” said Steve Pitschneider, sales engineer at Weigh-Rite Scale. “The Highway Department had several other categories of information to gather pertaining to their materials stored on site. They had to keep track of inventory, the amount of materials distributed, and on which road segments the materials were used. They are more than happy with the solution that we provided.”

This solution included the help of a rugged BridgeMont Concrete weighbridge and a Model 1310 Indicator/ Controller, both by Avery Weigh-Tronix. The system was placed in service at the Polk County Recycling in late 2005.

Outstanding performance

The BridgeMont weighbridge is extremely durable and designed to provide a long service life. It features a fiber mesh concrete deck that is fully supported by a  steel substructure so the concrete is always in compression and very resistant to cracking. It employs the widely respected Avery Weigh-Tronix Weigh Bar® weight sensor technology, which offers outstanding performance and a very low failure rate for a high degree of dependability.

The Polk County Highway Department selected a scale featuring a 21.3 x 3.7m concrete deck with high-strength, welded-on guide rails, allowing for the weighing of large lorries and snow ploughs. The scale was installed on an above ground pier-type foundation, which is low to the ground for easy, safe vehicle access – despite snowy, icy conditions in Wisconsin winters.

“We needed something that could weigh long and wide trucks, as well as trucks with plows attached, and this met our needs,” said Kathy Bohn, supervisor of highway administration in Polk County. “Plus, truck drivers don’t have to worry about driving up the scale, even when the ground is slippery.”

Unattended terminal for driver operation

Meanwhile the unattended scale console Model 1310 facilitates accurate weighing at the push of a button. It offers a convenient solution which allows drivers to remain in their vehicles while entering necessary information into the console. This innovation saves time – and therefore money – for drivers, and it also solves several safety concerns. In addition, the 1310 saves the Recycling Center the extra cost of keeping an attendant on-hand to operate the scale.

The 1310 indicator is configurable to meet industry specific standards and protocols, allowing for easy storage and transmission of data. To solve this application, the 1310 collects information for both Polk County institutions through a configuration that integrates with the department’s specific network requirements, with two independent programs to track this information.

“The best feature of the 1310 is that if we have computer or RF problems, it can store the  transactions in the system until they are working,” Bohn said. “And it can store quite a large number of transactions.”

Time is money!

Pitschneider said reliability is key to the popularity of these models – and Bohn and her co-workers aren’t the only ones to reap the benefits.

“Providing cost saving solutions for my customers is a high priority of mine and using my 25 years of experience I can recommend the best solution for their needs.” Pitschneider said. “We have installed approximately 50 scales in the last 10 years and 10 of these 50 have unattended  consoles because they really save time, and time is money.”