TOMRA Sorting’s technology chosen to boost recovery and recycling at five new UK MSW plants
TOMRA Sorting Recycling has been selected as the technology partner of choice for five new MSW plants operated by leading UK waste management companies. TOMRA’s customers have chosen to invest in the sensor-based sorting specialist’s industry-leading technology in order to divert material from landfill and maximise the recovery of valuable end fractions from municipal solid waste (MSW). The new contracts will see 23 of TOMRA´s AUTOSORT units and one X-TRACT, TOMRA´s X-ray transmission unit installed, across the five new plants to recover high purity films, plastics, paper, inert material and create a fuel from non-recyclable residual materials.
One of TOMRA’s latest projects is FCC’s 55tph mechanical biological treatment (MBT) plant in Wrexham, North Wales. The plant was built by Eggersmann and is operated by FCC on behalf of Wrexham Council. Four AUTOSORT units have been installed, with three recovering mixed films, mixed paper and card, mixed plastics from the larger fraction (80 - 300mm). A fourth unit will recover plastics from the 20-80mm material after the material has been processed through bio drying tunnels. Thanks to TOMRA’s technology, prior to final quality control FCC is able to recover up to c. 65% of recyclables at a purity rate of between c. 80% - 98% depending on the recyclables.
David Napier, General Manager PFI at FFC’s 55tph MBT plant in Wrexham, comments: “We’ve been very impressed with the experts at TOMRA Sorting, who in conjunction with Eggersmann, designed a bespoke solution for our new plant. As the equipment can be programmed to identify and separate each individual fraction, we can target exactly the material we want, maximising the value of the end fractions and increasing the volume of materials we recover for re-sale. TOMRA’s systems also give us the flexibility to target and recover other materials in the future should we wish to.”
TOMRA’s technology has also been chosen by a number of other leading UK waste management companies on plants throughout the UK including a new 90tph MSW plant in the south of England, where five AUTOSORT units are now in place, enabling the recovery of 90% of the infeed material for further processing and RDF for use as fuel. Also in Southern England, five AUTOSORT units will be installed to recover PET, PE, mixed plastics and paper at a new 30tph MSW plant.
Later this year, four AUTOSORT units will also be installed in a new MSW plant in North England, where the technology will be used to maximise specific material recovery for fuel in a specialist energy-from-waste (EfW) gasification process. And later this year, six AUTOSORT units will be installed to recover PET, PE, mixed plastics and paper at a new 70tph MSW plant in the North East. TOMRA´s XRT technology will also be incorporated at the plant in order to recover the inert fraction.
Steve Almond, Sales Engineer at TOMRA Sorting UK, adds: “As a nation we’re currently landfilling around 10.5 million tonnes of MSW annually, which is simply unacceptable when you consider the vast volumes of valuable, recyclable materials it contains – from mixed plastics, PET/HDPE/PP and mixed paper, to cardboard, film and metals. Market demand for some of these materials is already strong and as the Circular Economy infrastructure becomes more deeply embedded, demand for recycled materials is likely to continue to rise. Our customers are certainly embracing the benefits that sensor-based sorting technology offers when used in MSW plants. With the EfW sector facing pressure to build more cost-effective and energy efficient plants, we believe fuel preparation using residual material will be a significant growth area.”