Background
Bee Green Recycling & Supply is a green waste recycling company based in Oakland, California. Founded in 2009 by Joshua and Deborah Fookes, the company was originally called Commercial Waste & Recycling and focused on construction and demolition (C&D) waste, including bricks, concrete, electrical equipment, and wood waste.
Over the years, the Fookes expanded into different areas of the recycling and waste reduction industries. 2012 saw the establishment of the company’s landscaping branch, and in 2016, they founded their green waste branch. Today, the company provides comprehensive C&D and green waste recycling across the San Francisco Bay area.
Bee Green first encountered Rotochopper in 2009, when our West Coast sales manager, Nick Korn, traveled to Oakland to meet with Josh and discuss how Rotochopper could help their C&D recycling business. Years later in 2021, Bee Green purchased a FP-66 horizontal grinder, which allowed them to streamline their green waste recycling and produce high-quality colored mulch on-site.
Challenge
In the late 2010s, Bee Green was shipping their wood waste to a third party, who would process and return the finished mulch product. The Fookes realized that producing colored mulch on-site would not only make production more efficient and profitable, but it would also eliminate the carbon emissions produced by shipping their product to a third party.
Seeking a durable horizontal grinder that could handle large volumes of wood waste with minimal downtime, Bee Green turned to Rotochopper.
Solution
In 2021, Josh purchased a FP-66 grinder from Rotochopper and began producing colored mulch, which helped Bee Green meet the demands of their landscaping branch.
The FP-66 is one of Rotochopper’s mid-size grinders, featuring a 30” throat opening capable of efficiently processing large volumes of wood waste. Its concentric lift powerfeed system is among the most aggressive in the industry and offers unprecedented feed rate control while maintaining the crush force necessary to handle difficult feedstocks.
The FP-66 they purchased is equipped with Rotochopper’s exclusive RotoLink® technology. With RotoLink integration, Josh can stay up-to-date on the grinder’s condition and key metrics, like output rates and rotor temperature. He even receives push notifications when the grinder encounters un-grindable objects, which helps him keep his crew informed on the machine’s maintenance needs.
Most importantly, the FP-66 features Rotohcopper’s patented, built-in colorizer system, which allows Josh’s team to produce colored mulch quickly and easily—without having to run end products through an external colorizer system.
Results
Since purchasing the FP-66, Bee Green has stepped up their mulch production to meet the demands of their customers. By taking advantage of Rotochopper’s preventative maintenance program, they’ve kept their grinder in pristine condition and experienced little to no downtime during operation.
According to Josh, the team at Rotochopper is the finest Bee Green has ever worked with. “As a buyer and an operator of a Rotochopper piece of equipment, I don’t feel like they just want to sell me a piece of equipment and they’re on to the next deal,” he said. “The support is there, the care for how we are doing is there, my techs can talk to their techs and keep us supported.”