In addition to being The Fruitcake Capital of The World, Claxton, Ga., also is the home of Continental Cable Recycling (CCR), a recycling center and its sister company Custom Waste Rolloff Services, a container roll-off service.
The family owned businesses were founded by Forrest Conder, first CCR in 1982, followed by Custom Waste in 2008.
Working as one company, CCR-Custom Waste rents roll-off containers and swaps them out as needed and the company also handles complete waste and metal recycling needs for industrial customers on a regular basis. Products are separated and processed down for delivery straight to end users without needing another recycler. Plastics are run through an SSI shredder and a granulator on site and are shipped out in a regrind form to an end user.
CCR-Custom Waste also works with the Evans County waste transfer station, in which CCR-Custom Waste has the contractual agreement to run the transfer station.
At the transfer station, CCR-Custom Waste oversees separating garbage from the wood and metal recyclables. The wood products are processed at the transfer station with the use of a Morbark 1000 tub grinder.
The metal, cardboard, plastics and all other recyclables are then transported three miles to the CCR-Custom Waste scrap yard. Roll-off containers from construction and clearing projects come directly to the yard and wood waste can be stockpiled for grinding, because the mobile tub grinder is transported back and forth between the transfer station and the scrap yard.
The effectiveness of the day-to-day production of CCR-Custom Waste is completely dependent on the reliability of their machine fleet. At the end of 2011 Conder knew his skid steer loaders were getting to the point that they needed to be replaced. He had never owned a JCB product and had always updated his units with the same machine brand for many years. Then he got a visit from his local JCB salesman, Chris Shea, who discussed the advantages of the JCB skid steer line with him.
At that point, Conder stated, “We thought that maybe we needed to at least take a look at this machine. We were hesitant, but we called back and we drove over to Savannah to JCB of Georgia and met Chris (Shea), and Tony (Reardon) and took a really good look at what they had to offer. We met the whole team including Doug Ramsey in the service department. We also took a tour of the JCB manufacturing plant and we were quite impressed.
“So we decided that we needed to try this out. We traded one of our older machines for a new JCB 225 skid steer loader as we needed a new one anyway. My biggest concern in the beginning with the JCB skid steer was that one arm (single boom). I had never operated one. My thoughts centered on would it flex, or would it be as strong as two, or would it hold up? The lifetime warranty on the single arm gave me the assurance I needed,” Condor said.
Still, he and his team wanted to see for themselves how this would work so, “after delivery, the first week we had the machine we put it through all kinds of tests, anything imaginable, from picking up the back of our truck tractors to hoisting 4,000 pound pallets of batteries. We did everything we could think of to bring it down. But that boom never flexed and never failed” added Conder.
Soon after the success of his company’s very first JCB purchase, Conder needed to upgrade his other skid steer loader. He figured he had already bought one JCB machine that impressed him, so he bought another, this time a JCB 330 model.
The new machine needed to have waste handling tires mounted and a LaBounty 7R shear taken from the iron Condor had traded in and placed on the new 330. The shear requires a high flow hydraulic system, which worked out great as it is standard on the JCB 330.
Conder stated that they didn’t have to do anything but hook it up and go to work. He also said the LaBounty shear matched perfectly with this machine and also can be used on the JCB 225 skid steer loader.
Conder said, “Other machines in our fleet that had the LaBounty breaker mounted on them, seemed to be off balance and not overly stable. Mounted on either the 330 or 225 the shear and machine stay perfectly balanced. And a big bonus for our operators are the climate- controlled comfortable enclosed cabs with radios — something that our guys weren’t used to.”
An OSHA inspection at CCR-Custom Waste that occurred after the company purchased the first JCB skid steer loader also boosted Conder’s confidence about his choice.
“When OSHA came in and inspected us, we had just purchased the 225 and the 330 was on order. When OSHA saw the side entrance into the JCB skid steer machines, they were extremely impressed with that and other safety features of the machine. Hey, if OSHA is happy, we’re happy,” Conder said.
On the machines Conder owned before, which did not have side entry, entering and exiting with the shear mounted proved to be difficult for the operators.
Conder said, “The side entry was the big thing that drew us to the machine.”
CCR-Custom Waste’s JCB buying spree didn’t stop after two skid steer loaders. The company needed to upgrade its aging excavator (another brand of excavator). The skid steer purchases had worked out so well, the thought process was to stick with the same product line and the same JCB team. So the company traded its excavator for a JCB JS160 excavator last summer.
For CCR-Custom Waste’s application, the excavator, was equipped with a FLECO demo grapple and an interchangeable Canmag scrap magnet, which were removed from the old machine and installed by JCB of Georgia prior to delivery. The swap of the magnet was coordinated with the manufacturer, Canmag, to ensure everything was working perfectly. JCB of Georgia even had two of their service representatives attend the delivery of the machine to make sure the magnet was working as well on the 160 as it did on the unit that was traded.
The most recent machine purchased by the company is a new JCB 406 wheel loader equipped with solid landfill tires (which were mounted at the dealership prior to delivery). Conder said they needed a new loader for the transfer station, so he traded the old wheel loader too.
Conder went on to say, “We originally were running three different manufacturers’ products, which meant three different dealers for parts, service or anything we needed. We wanted to simplify. So now, we dial one phone number if we need something. Which, fortunately, we haven’t had to dial because we haven’t needed anything at all. We do our own regular maintenance on the machines and JCB of Georgia has sent their service guys to make sure we’re familiar with properly servicing each of the machines. It’s been good for us.”
The company is already making its machine purchase strategy for next year, which includes the purchase of another JS160 excavator and another wheel loader. The plan for the wheel loader is to go two loader sizes larger than their recently purchased 406 model (the JCB 411 model).
“So, in the last 11 months, we’ve taken delivery of four pieces of JCB equipment, because we were impressed with the manufacturer, the dealer and the very first machine purchase. Every machine seemed to make us more productive, so it seemed natural to continue swapping out everything we run to the JCB brand. JCB of Georgia makes trade-ins easy to handle and we have a JCB service person who is close to our location and avails himself 24 hours a day for any need we may have” explained Conder.
“The biggest thing about the dealer and the manufacturer, they want us to work and they want our machines to be up and running. Our JCB salesman, Chris (Shea) periodically stops in and looks at our application, and what machine(s) will meet our needs. Like for the excavator, he recommended the perfect sized machine that will allow us to go from loading the wood grinder to using the magnet for handling steel rather than suggesting a smaller machine that might not do the job or a larger over- powered machine. His knowledge of what will suit us best has been very helpful. The wheel loader was the smallest size they have, but it was perfect for our application. We needed a grapple and solid tires, Chris made that happen. So when the machine was delivered to us, it was ready to go to work. I think just the knowledge of the staff makes the difference to us and JCB of Georgia are the easiest folks to talk to, the easiest to understand our needs and they don’t try to oversell us,” said Conder. “It’s a good relationship.”
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