Seamless Upgrade to Community Waste Sortation |
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Industrial Conveying (Aust) Pty Ltd
PO Box 106
Victoria, 3552
Australia
Press release date: November 2, 2010
A regional recycling specialist has geared up to process more materials, more efficiently by sourcing a second upgrade through its ongoing materials handling technology supplier.
Challenge Recycling, operating in the NSW regional centre of Tamworth, has expanded it Material Recovery Facility (MRF) to sort more co-mingled waste than ever before.
This project, the company's second strategic upgrade in the last 10 years, was commissioned in September 2010 from Industrial Conveying (Aust) Pty Ltd and this time most of the additions were to the 'front end' of the automated operation.
Chief Executive Officer of Challenge Recycling, Mr Barry Murphy, says dealing with an Australia-based technology supplier such as Industrial Conveying has streamlined what normally could be a very difficult project
"The MRF upgrade this time around was exactly like the first installation - totally seamless," said Mr Murphy.
"Just like the first one, we simply turned it on and it worked at full capacity without skipping a beat.
"We only lost about five days work during this extensive upgrade, but we have been stockpiling the recyclables in a super bunker which was packed solid by the end of that short period!"
As an organisation, Challenge has been recycling community waste for 45 years and was founded to provide jobs and direction to disability services. Under the current management, Challenge turned to a good degree of automated processes at the MRF but retained some manual input at certain stages of its processing because of the disability services factor.
"About 12 years ago we entered into a long term contract to provide recycling to the (formerly known) Tamworth City Council," said Mr Murphy.
"When we began, we were running two different sortation tubs - the paper and cardboard went into one, while glass and plastic went into the other.
"But now we have moved into co-mingled processing to be more efficient with time and energy so we had to build a whole new front end unit which runs on Industrial Conveying's 'Trommel' technology.
"Before we went into automation we were processing 4 kg of recyclable material per household. But since the first stage of automation we immediately went up to 7 kg per household and with the latest upgrade for co-mingled sortation we are up to 11 kg per household.
"Overall, processing at the MRF has risen from one 1tp/h to 5tp/h and we are now moving two full semitrailers of recycled material a day to appropriate depots around Australia.
"This second upgrade is all about refining our processes. For Industrial conveying it was far more complicated because the first time around they had more room to manoeuvre. This time it was like fitting a Meccano set and the upgrade just fits into the space - but it looks magnificent."
Industrial Conveying's Trommel is a two-stage self contained customisable technology responsible for automated primary sortation of the co-mingled product. Using the Trommel can, in many cases, all but eliminate the system of manual sortation at the primary stage, which for a long time has been the solution of choice by most councils and waste handling authorities around Australia.
Used for primary sortation of co-mingled products, the Trommel sorts beverage containers such as plastic, glass and ferrous items (aluminium cans and steel cans). It has two grades of screens and is 10 m long x 2m diameter. Its two stages of processing involve different screening processes and work as follows:
Stage 1 - fines separation: Using small diameter holes in the screens, stage 1 takes fines out of the system - items such as tiny bits of broken glass and bottle tops - and allows the recyclables to continue on to stage 2.
Stage 2 - separating beverage containers and paper - has larger diameter holes in its screen which allows these beverage products to drop through whereas any paper/cardboard product in the mix is conveyed away to a secondary sorting system. This includes paper-based product such as newspapers, magazines and catalogues as well as some cardboard.
Challenge Recycling has 35 employees in Tamworth. The organisation has been in recycling 45 years and started by collecting 44 gallon drums filled with glass bottles which were smashed and sent to recycling.
The MRF has been operated at this Tamworth site by Challenge Recycling since 1992. Paper, cardboard, container glass, plastics, steel and aluminium cans are collected sorted and packaged, and forwarded to recycling companies such as Amcor, Visy and Impact Recycling.
The MRF sorts and packages materials received from the kerbside collection contractor and Tamworth Regional Council's rural landfill sites. Materials are also sourced from local business houses, and environmentally conscious residents from outside the kerbside collection area can use the drop off area at the MRF en-route to the landfill.
For more information, please contact
Mr Don Erskine,
Industrial Conveying (Aust) Pty Ltd.
145-147 Howard Street,
Epsom, Victoria 3551,
Australia.
Ph: (03) 5440 5100,
web: www.icaust.com.au
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