Page 26 - MetalForming-Jul-2018-issue
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  FABRICATION
Plasma Cutters
Help Give New Life to Old Semi Trailers
 EcoVet’s employees, the majority of which are veterans as part of the company’s mis- sion, reclaim nearly every portion of decommissioned semi trailers to produce furniture for commercial and private buyers. Plasma cutters perform the deconstruction work, which is key to the entire enterprise.
An Arkansas company, with a mission to employ veterans, also aims to repurpose trailer bodies into furniture and other products as an alternative to landfilling.
BY LOUIS A. KREN, SENIOR EDITOR
Like anything else, trucks, and truck trailers for our purposes here, don’t live forever. In these pages we’ve discussed how truck trail- ers are made and the machinery that makes truck-trailer fabrication possi- ble, productive and profitable. But what happens when these trailers reach the end of their useful lives?
Repurpose and Reuse
Mike Hagood knows. As a former Walmart employee responsible for the company’s zero-waste network, and later in charge of sustainability efforts for Waste Management in Rogers, AR, he spent his time figuring out how to repurpose and reuse.
“Typically,” Hagood says, “truck trailers, when retired, hit the scales, then the shredders, then the landfills.”
Aluminum, steel, wood and what- ever else making up those trailers are sliced and diced, with all nonmetal components destined for an earthen eternity. The number of trailers meeting such fate is staggering. Just one com-
24 MetalForming/July 2018
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