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Across the Lynx portfolio, teams are working to innovate within their respective industries. Most advances are incremental. Every so often, one redefines an industry entirely.
For decades the shredding industry operated the same way: a shredding truck pulled up curbside and then it shredded. Alpine Shredding Trucks set out to change that. The result was MAXDRIVE, the first patent-pending shredding truck that shreds while in motion.
Rethinking Speed
The focus had always been on shredding faster. Trucks went from shredding 1,000 pounds per hour to 7,000 pounds per hour. Then 9,000. Then 13,000.
As Joe Roberto, Alpine's President and 30-year industry veteran, put it: "The industry hadn't changed in years. Trucks were all starting to look the same”. Same specs. Same coat of white paint. The industry had run out of road on the only dimension it had ever thought to measure.
Joe decided that faster shredder throughput wasn't the right focus anymore. During a strategic planning session, the team looked surprised when he asked a question nobody had asked before: what if a shredding truck could shred while driving?
A week later, Pete Viveen, Alpine's Technical Director and co-founder, confirmed it could be done.
Engineering the Impossible
What followed was ten months of re-engineering.
The challenge wasn't just to build a truck that could shred while moving. It was doing so safely, seamlessly, and without compromising what Alpine has always been known for — trucks that are simple to operate and to maintain.
While Pete’s priority was to layer MAXDRIVE onto Alpine's existing control system, the engineering went further than the shredding system itself. The redesigned body, hopper, and hydraulic systems made the truck a stronger performer in every respect.
Shredding on the Fly
MAXDRIVE not only delivers more efficient operations, it also fundamentally reshapes the economics of how shredding services can be delivered.
Operators load the hopper, press a single button, and drive away. The shredding takes care of itself, even at highway speeds. Shredding on the fly eliminates idle time, on-site noise, and anti-idling fines in the process.
"There are two ways customers can benefit — by either putting more revenue into the route or by capturing savings by bringing the truck off the road an hour sooner," Joe explains.
According to Pete, these efficiencies can result in “up to $150 per day in recovered operating costs per truck and up to seven gallons of fuel saved daily”. For fleets running MAXDRIVE, those gains compound fast.
The Launch of MAXDRIVE
The i-SIGMA Conference held in San Diego last month was the perfect place to launch MAXDRIVE and build momentum. The response was immediate. "We had a customer meet us for the first time and buy a MAXDRIVE that same day," recalled Cristina Battick, Alpine's Director of Marketing.
Until MAXDRIVE, off-site shredding required a separate facility after paper was collected and transported. MAXDRIVE does it all in transit. "It's a paradigm shift in the industry," Pete said. Protected by three pending patents, it's a capability no competitor can replicate.
Every industry has its moment. For shredding, it arrived in a black truck in San Diego.
