Rydell Industrial (Belting) Co is experiencing a surge in demand for power transmission belts and conveyors with more environmental benefits compared to many older belt types designed in an era prior to the growing awareness of global warming issues.
Industrial belt customers are no longer passively waiting on belt suppliers for these innovations but are now showing much more interest in belt drives with better energy efficiency.
The marketing and advertising concept known as 'green washing' is being overtaken by clients themselves actually demanding more environmental benefits.
Older, traditional style drives such as roller chain which use more energy, require ongoing lubrication (carbon based) and contribute to environmental noise pollution are attracting the attention of plant engineers and maintenance personnel without any prompting from green washed suppliers.
Some of the emerging trends involve older style, traditional fabric/elastomeric conveyor belt applications in the food and beverage processing industry being replaced with thermoweldable synchronous or so-called 'sprocket driven' conveyor belts.
The environmental benefit of homogeneous thermoplastic polyurethane belting is due to the huge reduction in water use during cleaning.
It has no plies of fabric to harbour bacteria and can be cleaned in a fraction of the time. This type of belt is also manufactured in standard timing belt configurations such as T10 and HTD enabling it to run on sprockets without slippage (energy wastage).
The use of these newer style food grade, timing belts in conveyor applications is a fast growing trend which appears to be a clear sign of end-user demand for cleaner, greener belt features driving supply.
Another fast growing area of environmentally driven retro-fits is in the area of roller chain drives. The high weight (inertia) and backlash of roller chain drives reduce the mechanical efficiency of this form of power transmission.
Roller chain drives are also restricted in their productive capacity by RPM limitations. But according to Doug White, one of Rydell’s belt drive application specialists, the most common reason given by clients for roller chain drive upgrades is the elimination of lubricants.
Of course, the price of carbon based lubricants is a factor and the ability of newer belt types like PolyChain® to transmit much more power within the same diameter and width are key benefits.
But these tend to be simple matters of commercial, cost-benefit whereas increasing numbers of clients are looking at the bigger environmental picture— reduction of noise pollution, lower carbon footprints (energy usage) and any potential water saving features of belt-related engineering upgrades.
And it’s no coincidence that this trend represents value for shareholders. The link between thinking green and saving money is no surprise to those of us who understand that waste is linked directly to profitability and staying competitive.
Earlier generations may have simply accepted 'those 35 kilograms of rusted, worn out chains and sprockets' going into landfill and '600 litres of diluted caustic water' going down the drain after washing an old fabric or chain type conveyor.
Nowadays, however, getting longer product life, from your belt drives for example, is more likely to appeal to clients on an environmental level and the “throw-it-away and buy-another-one” disposable mentality is becoming an anathema.
As a national supplier of a broad range of conveyor and industrial belt types and brand names, Rydell Industrial (Belting) Co has seen 35 years of customer buying trends in the belt industry.
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