ESR International LLC

The centerpiece of ESR technology is a unique bi-directional dense medium barrel that is, undoubtedly, the most accurate dense medium separator on the market today. In this revolutionary sorting process, the suspension fines needed to change the density of water for all separations below a density of 1.6 are obtained nowhere else but from the ultra-fine inorganic metals and glass generated in abundance by hammer-mill shredding. Normally these fines simply report to landfill, but now they compete head-on with some of the finest suspension-creating materials on the market today. Paradoxically this shredder dust of absolutely no value whatsoever totally transformed the economics of recycling waste. 

What happens when we take the logic of a large mineral separation facility and apply it to the recycling of automobile, industrial, electronic and municipal waste? Over 20 years ago, ESR International posed this question and got some fairly amazing answers. What was once considered waste, what once demanded a great deal of money to landfill, suddenly transforms itself into multiple streams of metals and plastics worth at times thousands of dollars per ton. When someone is able to extract, from materials destined for landfill, over 40 tons per hour of non-ferrous metals at an average value of over $1,000 per ton, then we begin to realize that in landfilling waste we are often throwing away some of the most valuable resources our planet has to offer. 

ESR International LLC is a research and development company dedicated to the total elimination of landfill. 

The centerpiece of ESR technology is a unique bi-directional dense medium barrel that is, undoubtedly, the most accurate dense medium separator on the market today. In this revolutionary sorting process, the suspension fines needed to change the density of water for all separations below a density of 1.6 are obtained nowhere else but from the ultra-fine inorganic metals and glass generated in abundance by hammer-mill shredding. Normally these fines simply report to landfill, but now they compete head-on with some of the finest suspension-creating materials on the market today. Paradoxically this shredder dust of absolutely no value whatsoever totally transformed the economics of recycling waste. 

Deriving Value from Waste 

What happens when we take the logic of a large mineral separation facility and apply it to the recycling of automobile, industrial, electronic and municipal waste? Over 20 years ago, ESR International posed this question and got some fairly amazing answers. What was once considered waste, what once demanded a great deal of money to landfill, suddenly transforms itself into multiple streams of metals and plastics worth at times thousands of dollars per ton. When someone is able to extract, from materials destined for landfill, over 40 tons per hour of non-ferrous metals at an average value of over $1,000 per ton, then we begin to realize that in landfilling waste we are often throwing away some of the most valuable resources our planet has to offer. 

Agriculture 

What happens when we take the same dense medium logic and apply it to the processing of root vegetables such as carrots, potatoes, salsifies, red beets and sugar beets? Over twenty years ago, ESR found an answer. It may be easy is to separate out stones and other extraneous material, but it is an entirely different matter to separate good vegetables from bad vegetables when the difference in density between the two is just a few points to the third decimal place. How easy it is to reject an entire load of potatoes or sugar beets and consign them to waste simply because of few of them have gone bad in storage. But with this new dense medium process, we can keep what is good and reject only what is bad, and once again, the suspension fines needed to change the density of water are obtained nowhere else but from the dirt that mechanical harvesters extract along with the root vegetables. Paradoxically this ultra-fine dirt which no body wanted totally transformed the economics of sorting root vegetables. 

Food Waste 

But there is a limit to the logic of dense medium separation, especially with regard to the recycling of food waste. Here ESR had to step totally outside its field of expertise and turn to the wisdom of nature. The reflection here was truly simple. What happens when the natural world is presented all at once with an abundance of putrescent waste? Hundreds of millions of years ago nature solved this problem with the fly and the larvae that they leave behind. But ESR discovered that not just any fly will do, since many flies carry diseases and their life cycles are hard to regulate and control. After 7 years of research, ESR focused on the amazing digestive powers of the larvae of the black soldier fly, and devised and patented a bioconversion device that allows this creature to complete its life cycle in an efficient and controlled manner. With this amazing creature we witness a 95% reduction in the weight and volume of food waste within a matter of just a few hours, and after self-harvesting into a collection bin, these tiny creatures represent a bundle of nutrients that rivals in commercial value the finest fish meal.