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Ask the Expert

Put your question to someone who builds the machine.

Fourteen named specialists in shredding, sorting, baling and material handling. You describe the problem; we route it to the person whose technology zone it belongs to. Free, and with no sales call attached.

Every answer carries the expert’s name and employer, so you can weigh it for yourself. Expect a reply within seven days.

14
Experts on call
9
Technology zones
18
Material streams
Free
No obligation, ever
How it works

One question, three steps, a published answer

You do not need to know which expert to ask. Describe the problem and we route it to the specialist whose zone it belongs to.

Describe the problem

Material, throughput, what goes wrong. Pick a technology zone, or leave it to us if you are not sure which one applies.

We route it

Our editors pass it to the expert in that zone. No sales team in between, and no obligation on your side.

The answer is published

You get the reply, and it joins the public archive under the expert’s name. Tell us first if anything should stay out.

Our experts

Find the specialist for your material

Filter by the stream you process. Every expert works at a manufacturer that builds equipment for it.

Technology zone

Material stream

Tom Jansen

VP, Head of Segments

TOMRA Recycling
  • Separation and Sorting Technology
  • Metals & aluminium
  • Plastics
  • Paper & board
  • MSW & RDF
  • E-waste
  • Glass
  • C&D waste
  • Tyres & rubber
  • Wood
  • Textiles
  • Choosing between XRF, XRT and NIR for a given fraction
  • Plastics upgrading: purity targets and what they cost
  • Where sensor-based sorting pays off in metals recovery
About Tom

With more than 20 years of experience in sensor-based sorting technologies, Tom Jansen is VP, Head of Segments at TOMRA Recycling, where he is responsible for the company's global segment strategies. After studying Chemical Engineering at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, he began his career at Innov-X Systems and played a key role in the early development of automated XRF sensor technology. Since joining TOMRA in 2011, Tom has held a variety of leadership roles. Today, he focuses on driving strategic development and growth across TOMRA Recycling's plastics upgrading and metals recycling segments.

Dave Fleming

Vice President of Sales and Marketing

SSI Shredding Systems
  • Size Reduction
  • Volume Reduction Technology
  • Metals & aluminium
  • E-waste
  • Tyres & rubber
  • Starting from material analysis instead of a machine catalogue
  • Matching shredder type to a difficult input stream
  • Target particle size and screen selection
About Dave

Dave Fleming is the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at SSI Shredding Systems, Inc., bringing over 30 years of dedicated experience and leadership to the industrial recycling and waste reduction sectors. Having progressed through key roles including System Sales and Director of Sales and Marketing, Dave is a recognized industry expert who champions a consultative, customer-first approach to solving complex material reduction challenges. He specializes in guiding clients from initial material analysis to custom system design, ensuring facilities receive tailored, high-productivity solutions rather than off-the-shelf technology. As a prominent voice for SSI, Dave frequently represents the company in major industry publications and technical demonstrations, consistently driving SSI’s mission to engineer innovative equipment and cultivate loyal, long-term customer partnerships.

Daniel Wresnik

Head of Sales and Business Development, Waste & Recycling DACH

UNTHA shredding technology
  • Conveying and Feeding
  • Size Reduction
  • Metals & aluminium
  • C&D waste
  • Paper & board
  • Plastics
  • Tyres & rubber
  • Wood
  • High-throughput shredders for mixed commercial and municipal waste
  • Producing alternative fuels: RDF and SRF specifications
  • Sizing a shredding line for a specific input material
About Daniel

Daniel Wresnik, Head of Sales and Business Development BU Waste & Recycling in the DACH region at UNTHA, is a proven expert with extensive experience in waste recovery and recycling. Since joining UNTHA in 2009, he has developed numerous tailor-made shredding solutions for clients across Europe – including in Austria, Germany, Italy, France, Greece, Switzerland, and the Benelux countries. His core expertise lies in high-throughput industrial shredders for a wide range of input materials – from municipal and commercial waste to the production of alternative fuels (RDF/SRF). Together with his team, he develops high-quality, efficient, and economically viable system solutions – always with a strong focus on customer benefit. His guiding principle: “There are no problems – only solutions.”

Patrick Henzler

Sales Director

WEIMA Maschinenbau
  • Size Reduction
  • Volume Reduction Technology
  • Plastics
  • Wood
  • Paper & board
  • Shredding and briquetting for the plastics industry
  • Recovering value from production scrap and offcuts
  • Setting up recycling equipment in emerging markets
About Patrick

WEIMA Sales Director Patrick Henzler is a proud and experienced member of the WEIMA family since 2007, after he graduated from the University of Essen, Germany as B.A in Economics three years earlier. Patrick is a business expert for all kinds of shredding and recycling solutions, especially for the plastics and waste markets. His successes include tapping into the Indian recycling market, where WEIMA founded a joint venture with regional partner company Kiron in 2019. Over the past decades, Patrick has worked with a large number of well-known customers worldwide - e.g. Veolia, RKW, Remondis, Plastika Kritis, Jindal Polyfilms, CEDO, Geocycle.

Angelo Minoldi

Project engineering, HSM Germany

HSM GmbH + Co. KG
  • Size Reduction
  • Volume Reduction Technology
  • Paper & board
  • Plastics
  • MSW & RDF
  • Choosing a baling press for your material and tonnage
  • Combining balers, shredders and sorting in one plant
  • Moving from machine selection to a full plant layout
About Angelo

Angelo Minoldi is working in the environmental technology sector for almost 25 years, 20 years of that in the baling presses sector. His experience ranges from machinery development to project manager and head of the technical department. He is specialised in baling presses, shredders and recycling solid waste sorting plants. Since 2014 he is part of the project engineering team at HSM Germany and creates customized solution for the waste recycling area all over the world.

Hannes Tschirpke

Baling specialist

Presona AB
  • Volume Reduction Technology
  • Paper & board
  • Plastics
  • MSW & RDF
  • Sizing a high-capacity horizontal baler to your tonnage
  • Pre-press technology and bale density
  • Combining a baler with the equipment around it
About Hannes

Hannes is a leading expert in high-capacity horizontal balers, which are designed for a wide range of industrial applications. With over 13 years of international experience, he has shared his in-depth knowledge of volume reduction technology and the efficient use of balers in combination with other equipment.

Charles Daridon

Director Global Sales

Bollegraaf Group
  • Conveying and Feeding
  • Separation and Sorting Technology
  • Volume Reduction Technology
  • MSW & RDF
  • Paper & board
  • Plastics
  • Designing a sorting plant around your input stream
  • Turnkey projects: from layout to commissioning
  • Where automation pays off in a MRF, and where it does not
About Charles

Charles Daridon is the Director Global Sales of the Bollegraaf Group. Charles was born in Bretagne but has been living in the Netherlands for several years now (since 2018). After a BSC in Chemistry, Charles attended a business school INSEEC in Paris. For more than 25 years, Charles has worked in the waste industry (soil remediation engineering, landfills, wastewater treatment, biogas plant) and, in the last 15 years, he became an expert in waste sorting solutions. His environmental commitment is not only professional but also personal.

Mario Vazquez

Sales & Marketing Director

CM Shredders
  • Separation and Sorting Technology
  • Size Reduction
  • Metals & aluminium
  • E-waste
  • Glass
  • Paper & board
  • Plastics
  • Tyres & rubber
  • Routes for end-of-life tyres: TDF, granulate or steel recovery
  • Capacity planning and return on investment
  • Improving throughput and product quality on an existing line
About Mario

Mario Vazquez is the Sales & Marketing Director at CM Shredders and a specialist in tire recycling, industrial size reduction, and alternative-fuel systems. He advises recyclers, cement producers, municipalities, and industrial operators on process design, equipment selection, capacity planning, and project economics. Supporting complex projects across global markets, Mario combines technical application expertise with commercial strategy to help operators improve throughput, product quality, operating efficiency, and return on investment.

Dan Fairest

UK & ROI Sales Manager

M&J Recycling
  • Size Reduction
  • Metals & aluminium
  • C&D waste
  • E-waste
  • MSW & RDF
  • Paper & board
  • Plastics
  • Tyres & rubber
  • Textiles
  • Wood
  • Matching a shredder to your operational objectives
  • Shredding solutions for mixed waste and recycling streams
  • Getting from a difficult material to a working specification
About Dan

At M&J Recycling, my role as the UK & ROI Sales Manager centres on providing top-tier shredding solutions tailored to the waste and recycling sector's dynamic needs. My competencies lie in ensuring each solution aligns perfectly with our client's operational objectives.

Capitalising on my 20-plus years of experience in the industry, my mission is to deliver reliable and innovative shredding technology that meets the rigorous demands of materials processing. My professional career is driven by the satisfaction of resolving complex waste management challenges, fostering long-term client relationships, and steering projects to completion with efficiency and precision.

Laetitia Paveau

Marketing and Communications Director

Pellenc ST
  • Conveying and Feeding
  • Separation and Sorting Technology
  • Metals & aluminium
  • C&D waste
  • E-waste
  • Glass
  • MSW & RDF
  • Paper & board
  • Plastics
  • Tyres & rubber
  • Textiles
  • Wood
  • Where optical sorting fits in a circular-economy strategy
  • Using sorting data as an operational asset
  • Digital transformation on the sorting line
About Laetitia

Laetitia is the Marketing and Communications Director at Pellenc ST. An engineer by training, she has spent over 20 years driving innovation and transformation across multiple roles within the company,. This extensive experience has given her a broad perspective on both technological transformation and environmental challenges. Further strengthened by an Executive MBA, she now focuses on business strategy, innovation leadership, and digital transformation, leveraging data as a strategic asset to improve performance and support the transition toward a circular economy.

Eric van Looy

Technical engineer

Sense2Sort – Toratecnica
  • Separation and Sorting Technology
  • Metals & aluminium
  • LIBS and XRF for elemental metal identification
  • Multi-fraction sorting up to six outputs
  • Cutting compressed-air use on a sorting line — savings up to 50%
About Eric

Eric van Looy has been active in the recycling industry for over three decades and is regarded as a pioneer in the development of sensor-based sorting technologies. As a technical engineer, he has played a key role in shaping advanced sorting solutions aimed at making recycling more sustainable, efficient, and accurate.

Since 2006, he has been deeply involved in the use of automated spectroscopic methods such as X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), collaborating early on with Tom Jansen. Today, the second generation of LIBS sorters from Sense2Sort enables high-throughput, multi-fraction sorting (up to six fractions) with precise identification of the elemental composition of each individual metal piece.

Sense2Sort–Toratecnica focuses on the development of future-ready, resource-efficient, and industrially robust sorting technologies. Eric is currently participating in several EU-funded projects, including the development of novel sensor-based sorting systems and a groundbreaking compressed air management solution that can achieve up to 50% savings in air and energy use.

A significant new development is the renewed collaboration with Andreas Weingart and his team—trusted partners from previous successful ventures. Together, they are combining their expertise and technological strength under the to be established Sense2Sort GmbH.

In addition to his development work, Eric continues to consult on the design and implementation of advanced sorting plants worldwide, always striving to combine ecological responsibility with economic performance.

Maximilian Gutmayr

International sales manager

Erdwich Zerkleinerungs-Systeme
  • Separation and Sorting Technology
  • Size Reduction
  • Volume Reduction Technology
  • E-waste
  • Metals & aluminium
  • Paper & board
  • Shredding electronic scrap and refrigerators safely
  • Hammer mills versus multi-shaft shredders
  • Turnkey lines for metal swarf and cardboard processing
About Maximilian

Maximilian Gutmayr, international sales manager at Erdwich Zerkleinerungs-Systeme GmbH since 2017, is an expert for shredding systems, hammer mills as well as complete recycling solutions.

After studying Economics at University of Augsburg and different stations abroad, e.g. Japan, Switzerland, etc. he joined the company Erdwich Zerkleinerungs-Systeme GmbH and is now responsible for worldwide projects and the constant business development.

The company Erdwich Zerkleinerungs-Systeme GmbH has experience in the recycling branch since more than 40 years and delivers shredding solutions and turn-key recycling plants to customers all over the world, e.g. electronic scrap treatment plants, refrigerator recycling plants, solutions for metal swarf treatment, cardboard processing, and many more applications.

The worldwide demand for recycling solutions in the environmental branch and of course the changing material mixtures increased over the last years drastically especially in Asian countries where Mr. Gutmayr is an expert in.

Ivan Hondekyn

Sales, horizontal balers

Valvan nv
  • Material Handling Technology
  • Separation and Sorting Technology
  • Size Reduction
  • Volume Reduction Technology
  • Metals & aluminium
  • Paper & board
  • Plastics
  • Tyres & rubber
  • Textiles
  • Choosing a horizontal baler for your line
  • Optimising one process step versus a full turnkey installation
  • What the design and after-sales side teaches you about specifying
About Ivan

Ivan Hondekyn has been part of the Valvan team for over 25 years, bringing a rare depth of expertise across design, project engineering, after-sales service, and sales. Starting his career in the design of baling presses and sorting installations, he gradually expanded his role to cover production planning, service coordination, and project delivery. Since 2023, Ivan has been responsible for the sales of horizontal balers — a role in which he draws on his hands-on technical background to offer customers the right solution for every recycling challenge or production line. His cross-functional experience makes him a trusted partner for companies looking to optimise a single process step or implement a complete turnkey installation.

Xu Xifeng

Founder of Keson; vice president, Jiangsu Low Carbon Environment Design Institute

Jiangsu Keson Environment Technology
  • Conveying and Feeding
  • Dust and odor control
  • Instrumentation and Control
  • Material Handling Technology
  • Separation and Sorting Technology
  • Size Reduction
  • C&D waste
  • E-waste
  • Metals & aluminium
  • MSW & RDF
  • Plastics
  • Tyres & rubber
  • Complete solid-waste solutions rather than single machines
  • Resource recovery and sorting system layout
  • Standardising operations across a multi-site business
About Xu

Xu Xifeng, the founder of Keson and vice president of Jiangsu Low Carbon Environment Design Institute of China. He has been engaged in solid waste recycling industry for more than 10 years, and has unique insights on solid waste overall solutions and resource recovery and sorting systems. He has visited well-known solid waste treatment companies in the Middle East, Europe, America and other regions, introducing standardized, refined and systematic management concepts of global top enterprises to his enterprises, and transforming advanced technologies and processes into productive forces. Within five years of solid waste sorting technology and waste resources in the field of rapid layout, his products are sold in 17 countries and more than 40 regions.

Not sure which zone your problem sits in? Browse the nine Technology Zones.

What an answer looks like

A real question, and the reply it got

Which technology is better for my aluminium sorting, XRF or XRT?

A reader weighing up both X-ray-based sorting technologies for an aluminium line, and wanting to understand where each one wins.

Answered by Eric van Looy

Technical engineer, Sense2Sort – Toratecnica

From the inbox

What recyclers are asking right now

A sample of the questions that come in through this page. Recognise your own problem in one of them? Put it to us and the answer comes back to you.

How do you identify plastic types during recycling?

A reader whose plant still identifies plastics by burning a sample and judging the smell, asking what equipment could replace that.

Separation & sorting

Where do we start with clean scrap wood?

An industrial facility producing short offcuts of clean timber, currently sending it to landfill at a cost, looking for a route to re-use.

Size reduction

Composting or anaerobic digestion for food waste?

A reader collecting food waste from restaurants and canteens, weighing mechanical composters against biogas production.

Thermal process

Can insulating gloves be recycled into packaging foam?

Natural latex rubber gloves, and what separation technology exists to recover the material for non-electrical use.

Material handling

Does film regrind dust affect recycled pallet quality?

A reader asking what regrind dust from film does to the quality of recycled pallets, and where it can still be used.

Dust & odour control

What software do wood recyclers use for inbound and outbound?

Whether wood recyclers run their own haulage too, and if there is a single system that covers both.

Weighing & systems

Where they work

Specialists from the manufacturers who build this equipment

TOMRA logoSSI logo Presona logoCM Shredders logo Sense2Sort logoValvan logo
For manufacturers

Your specialist, in the zone your buyers browse

An Enhanced listing includes one Technical Expert. This is the block that carries them onto the matching Technology Zone, Equipment Guide category and market pages.

Expert in this zone · Size reduction

Dave Fleming — SSI Shredding Systems

Ask him about matching a shredder to a difficult input stream, target particle size, or single-shaft versus two-shaft at your throughput.

FAQ

Good to know

What does it cost to ask?

Nothing, and it puts you under no obligation. Our experts work at manufacturers, and they answer because being useful in public is worth more to them than a cold call.

Will my question be published?

That is the intention — a published answer helps the next person with the same problem. We publish the question, not your name, and we leave out any detail that identifies you or your employer. Tell us in advance if something should stay out entirely.

Is the advice independent?

The expert’s employer is always named next to the answer, so you can weigh it accordingly. We do not edit their technical conclusions, and we do not publish everything we receive.

Can I choose which expert answers?

Yes. Use the button on an expert’s card and your question goes to that person. Ask through the general form and our editors route it for you.

Can our company supply an expert?

One expert is included with an Enhanced listing. We look for people who answer questions rather than pitch, and we are currently short of specialists in thermal treatment, weighing and instrumentation, and battery recycling.

Got a problem on the line right now?

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