Simpson Skip Hire use wash-bear® from Orba Group to ensure 100% recycling
Slough headquartered Simpson Skip Hire provides highly efficient waste management and recycling services throughout Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, and the Home Counties. The company, through its leading skip hire and container business provides a key service to local government, businesses, and domestic residents, placing an emphasis on ensuring that all waste material is recycled with what is sent to landfill drastically reduced. The recent acquisition of a wash-bear® from the Orba Group is now further aiding the company through the use of highly efficient technology for separating lightweight materials from building rubble and waste.
Simpson Skip Hire provides a fast-reliable skip hire service throughout Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, delivering skips of all sizes from 3 to 16 yard for domestic and commercial purposes as well as 20- and 40-yard containers. With a fast and reliable service, the company also places an enviable emphasis on ensuring that all materials it handles are recycled. Additionally, the company provides all the services that are expected from a professional waste management company including arranging permits, wait and load, same day delivery and grab hire.
Efficient waste recycling
Simpsons operates a large, covered transfer station that is fully licensed by the Environment Agency. Here the company processes and sorts all forms of domestic and commercial waste which is sorted, screened, hand-picked, and remotely segregated to ensure that the amount of material sent to landfill is minimised. At the site waste is split into different categories for recycling, comprising of metal, wood, plasterboard, inert hardcore and soil, hard and soft plastics, and cardboard. Additionally, at its waste transfer station, Simpsons can also provide containers for the direct disposal of hazardous materials such asbestos, tyres, paints, and oils. The ultra-modern facility ensures that there is a limited requirement for visits to landfill sites and the resulting damage to a company’s transport fleet which can result in a loss of revenue when the vehicles are off the road. In fact, the Simpson recycling centre is recognised as a major contributor to the reduction of waste disposal, with 100% of waste being processed, with all wood and timber waste being sent to a waste-to-energy plant.
As well as dealing with domestic and commercial waste, at the very heart of its business Simpsons proudly supports the government’s environmental policy of promoting recycled aggregates as a cost effective alternative to quarried aggregates (which also reduces the amount of waste going to landfill). Materials for recycling are selected at the waste transfer station, or at demolition sites and other groundwork projects. The materials are then separated, crushed, screened, and stockpiled on site for sale.
The recycled aggregates can be delivered or smaller amounts collected at site, and consist of 6F5 crushed hardcore, MOT type 1, crushed concrete types 2 and 3, road planings, screened / unscreened top soil, recycled sand, building and rockery stone, bio-mass woodchip and wood chip as well as other recyclable materials. In addition to waste and aggregates, Simpsons has developed a specialism in the handling, processing and recycling metal, which along with its other services, is provided to customers in and around the M25 and Home Counties with full compliance with the Environmental Protection Act and hold both COTC and WAMITAB status.
New solution delivers more recycling
As part of Simpsons’ drive to recycle more material, produce a cleaner recycled aggregate and ensure the very minimum of waste is sent to landfill, the company sought a new solution that would enable the more efficient breaking down of materials into separate (and re-saleable) fractions. To this end, Simpsons approached Barry O’Regan of the Orba Group Ltd. London head quartered, but covering the whole of the UK and Ireland, Orba Group Ltd specialises in the supply of machinery solutions for recycling, construction, demolition, and waste management as well as providing bespoke solutions for these industries. The company is also the official UK/Ireland dealer for wash-bear® machinery, manufactured by Moerschen GmbH, with the equipment being German designed and engineered and built to the highest quality.
The wash-bear® was seen as the ideal solution for Simpsons’ requirements as it has been designed to service businesses through the use of highly efficient technology for separating lightweight materials from building rubble and other material. The wash-bear® works according to the proven floating-sinking principle, reliably and cleanly separating light materials such as wood, artificial and insulating materials from the minerals. This means that all mineral substances can be cleaned, but vitally all RCL building materials.
Virtually 100% material separation
In addition to its process efficiency, which ensures almost 100% separation of contaminants and mineral fractions, the wash-bear® also scores thanks to its high levels of process effectiveness. This results from the economical handling of the resources to be used through the robust, maintenance-free design of the system technology. The closed system consumes whatever water adheres to the discharged mineral meaning that in a 10-hour shift, 4-8m3 is used in practice, whereby the inlet is controlled automatically by floats. This technique avoids the build-up of chemicals in the eluate. Any water used is absorbed into the basic moisture of the RC material with what comes out, with regard to the chemical composition, being at most, what was discarded by the rubble in the system.
Economy of the system continues with energy expenditure, which at 8-15kW/h during operation is significantly lower than an air sieve with a similar performance. Nevertheless, the drive power is enough to start the wash-bear® in full load. Thanks to its compact dimensions, the wash-bear® can be easily integrated into the overall process chain even on narrow sites. By using (the optional) ‘clean extension’, the wash-bear® becomes a powerful wet-processing system for the removal of fine fractions, e.g. when washing track ballast. The current generation of systems is available as wash-bear® 2.0 in three models, which are designated as ‘S, L, XL’ depending on size. Their hourly throughput rates range between 100 t/h and 190 t/h - depending on the input. All types are designed with a mobile lift hook for easy transport.
More separation means more for resale
Despite only being recently installed at Simpsons waste transfer station, the wash-bear® has already proved to be a highly efficient mobile piece of equipment for separating lightweight materials from building rubble and waste with extremely low operating and maintenance costs. This has resulted in Simpsons continuing to ensure that where possible all materials are recycled, more recycled aggregates being available for resale, and vitally, as little as possible is landfilled. “Simpsons came to us wanting to ensure that they continue recycle all the commercial and domestic waste they handle. The wash-bear® has fitted in seamlessly with Simpsons’ recycling system and I am proud of the part it is playing in maintaining Simpsons’ pledge to its customers that where possible, all materials’ handled are recycled, with the bare minimum being sent to landfill,” commented Orba Group managing director Barry O’Regan.