Wipes Aren’t Going Away

Even with the warnings and publicity, people are still flushing wipes, so your best defense is to protect your plant against the inevitable incoming

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Wipes Aren’t Going Away

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Despite lawsuits and damage to wastewater treatment plants, and newspaper articles warning everyone that “flushable” can be a misleading term, the directive to “stop flushing wipes” is clearly falling on deaf ears. 

Even with the warnings and publicity, people are still going to flush wipes down the toilet, probably forever. And that’s not all. If you have time to kill and need a laugh, Google “weird stuff people flush.” Things like cigarettes, tampons and condoms are mentioned, but so are pets and false teeth, and a host of other odd items that are going to make their way to your facility.

Feel free to continue informing consumers that flushable wipes are mislabeled and show them pictures of clogs in your system that look like Chewbacca. It’s a smart thing to do for your community. But your best defense is to protect yourself against the inevitable incoming.

Yes, you’re using some kind of solids reduction equipment (we hope). But what are you using? Clearly, screens don’t help. The wipes are going to either get through them and mess with your pipes, or clog the screen and cost you many man-hours in cleanup.

When “chopping” isn’t enough

Chopper pumps seem like a good two-in-one solution, but chopper pumps are limited in terms of percent solids. High solids content causes clogging, and it’s time-intensive to remove, access and clean the chopper pumps — oftentimes wet wells have to be shut down and drained to access. They don’t always feature easy-to-replace wear parts that can be changed when worn, and chopper pumps aren’t as flexible when it comes to blade width options and particle size.

Not your standard twin-shaft grinder

Many wastewater treatment plants have installed twin-shaft grinders to combat the wipes problem. It’s by far the best idea yet, but all twin-shaft grinders are not created equal. Vogelsang took the traditional twin-shaft grinder design, found the flaws, and engineered a better solution: the XRipper.

The XRipper has two wider, monolithic ripper rotors that are each CNC-cut and precision-machined from single blocks of specially processed steel with an incredibly hard surface. Departing from the traditional stacked cutters, XRipper eliminates gaps between cutters and spacers for better performance and less maintenance. Smaller tolerances are achieved with monolithic rotors. 

The design enables high throughput and massive power to achieve large-volume waste reduction, while requiring low drive power, using a smaller motor for higher torque and lower speed. Vogelsang also tested various blade tip designs, finding that their curved tips produce the smallest particles, while being able to hold up over time. The rotor and cutter design also enables a more precise cutting/tearing action to produce smaller and more consistent particle sizes.

Counter blade design

XRipper also includes high-flow housing and wear plates with counter blades to eliminate the gaps on the top and bottom of the cutter stack while still allowing maximum flow.  

Easy, on-site maintenance

Maintenance of the XRipper is quick and easy. Fewer parts on the wet end shorten the duration of repair and lower repair cost. The XRipper's ripper rotors are quick and easy to service and repair. The monolithic rotor gives maintenance personnel only two major parts to replace versus 50 or more parts that are common on other grinders with stacked cutters and spacers. This keeps downtime and cost at a minimum, taking a fraction of the time it takes to service traditional twin-shaft grinders. The XRipper can be serviced in-house and in-line by service staff. There is no need to ship the unit out for factory rebuilds. 

Drop-in replacement design

The XRipper is the ideal drop-in replacement for most other twin-shaft grinders. It has been designed to allow for easy and fast replacement of common grinders in the market. Simply unbolt the old unit and install a new XRipper in its place, utilizing the same controls. It can be integrated into an existing system or it can be ordered as a new complete system with a custom hopper, frame, motor and control panel.



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