Polystyrene Plant Dismantlement Project Completed

Phoenix Equipment Corporation uses its ability to purchase and resale our clients’ equipment, processes and plants to maximize savings for our clients on complex dismantlement and demolition projects. We just completed an eight (8) month plant removal project outside of Pittsburgh, PA which highlighted our various abilities to perform complex projects. Prior to dismantling the plant and several other small items within the larger remaining operational site, our company had to abate asbestos in various areas (work was subcontracted to a licensed abatement company); line break and remove Maleic Anhydride and Styrene from piping after developing safe and cost efficient methodologies to accomplish the removals, and removal and packaging of “Universal Waste” (i.e. fluorescent tubes, ballast, transformer and equipment oils, etc.). Besides some of the routine challenges encountered while performing dismantlement and demolition operations within active remaining plants, we had two major areas of concern that required extensive planning and expertise. The first area involved taking down a 110’0” high main process building which had a party wall with a remaining one (1) story warehouse. The process building’s elevator was located within the remaining warehouse, passing thru the warehouse’s roof to service the process building. Our personnel used a 150 Ton crane to lift off the elevator structure and the upper portions of the process building, utilizing a manlift with a 125’0” high working platform for our personnel to make cuts for the removals. The second major challenge entailed the removal of a deteriorated 135’0” high steel water tower. The tower was located near two elevated pipe and an active office building, leaving only a 60’0” wide corridor for the tower’s removal. Our crew first had to cable portions of the weakened tower together prior to using a 300 Ton crane for the actual lift. Our crew utilized a manlift with a 162’0” working platform. The remainder of the plant was spread over 2acres and crew of 12 man crew utilizing a 450 Daewoo excavator equipped with a grapple, a Komatsu PC300 excavator equipped with a shear, three (3) 843 Bobcats, a forklift and a lull demolished the site without an incident. We further crushed the masonry materials created by our work to 2” minus and spread the material over the site, which alleviated the need to import gravel and saved our client substantial amount of money.