Handling a large amount of waste is no easy task, something which Meadow Branch Landfill Operator Luke McKinney can attest to. He says that by 4:30 a.m. every workday, employees need to be ready to head out to get the job done, and it’s nonstop from there. Without equipment like the John Deere 950K Crawler Dozer, none of it would be possible.
Meadow Branch Landfill is situated in Athens, Tennessee, and is a subsidiary of Waste Connections, the third-largest landfill company in the U.S. It was founded by four men in a bar back in 1997 and according to District Manager, Steve Keylor, it’s come a long way since then. But how has the range of equipment evolved alongside the business, and what does the future look like for the company?
Looking Back Before Looking Ahead
Keylor explains that the company’s founders jotted down their idea for the business that night at the bar on a cocktail napkin, and the rest was history.
“It’s a cool story,” Keylor says. “They’d all been displaced by other garbage companies — there was a lot of consolidation going on in the industry at the time. They started with one or two locations out west. Today the company generates almost $6 billion in revenue and employs 15,000 people in over 40 states in the U.S. and Canada.”
Keylor has been in the industry for 28 years, and he has no intent on stopping any time soon. He notes that Waste Connections is a reputable company with a willingness to try different things.
Integrating Equipment for the Job
Keylor has studied the landfill’s patterns to determine exactly what it needs in terms of equipment and staff. His approach requires 260 trucks per day, including 100 semitrailers. The landfill’s largest dozer pushes material from the pit to the slot, and then the “slot” dozer pushes that same material to the compactors.
Recently, the landfill demoed the John Deere 950K Crawler Dozer, and they were blown away by its features and capabilities. Operator Joe Chapman called it a “workhorse” that doesn’t miss a beat. Keylor said it offers what the company needs most from its dozers: Reliability.
“The landfill represents maybe the harshest conditions the dozer can be in,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything harder on equipment than trash. The machine has to stay up and running. The second thing I look at is service and how quickly we get support for a machine if it goes down. The local John Deere dealership always takes our calls early in the morning and jumps on things right away.”
If you have any questions about the John Deere 950K Crawler Dozer, you can contact your local John Deere dealer.
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