Willshee’s invest in Blue

Willshee’s is a leading independent domestic, industrial and commercial waste management company located in Burton-on-Trent. Family owned and operated, the company has over 30 years’ waste management expertise, providing a total service for the reduction, reuse, recycling, recovery and disposal of waste. The business offers a wide range of services from wheeled bin collections, skips, RELs, roll on/off containers for general waste and all types of recycling they also offer equipment rental with full maintenance.

What strikes you most about Willshee’s however is its forward thinking philosophy, across the entire business. Not only its innovative plans on how to deal with waste, but also how it develops its staff to ensure continuous growth and a solid future. The management team in place are clearly looking to take waste management to a highly professional level, investing not only in the latest plant equipment and fleet vehicles, but also new offices and the latest technology particularly to ensure the safety of all staff and visitors. A further aspect that stands out is how immaculately the site is maintained, with each and every member of staff in clean uniform.

The Challenge
The company was taking wood waste across the spectrum of grades from local commercial customers, and shredding the material for biomass, using a mobile Doppstadt DW 3060 slow speed that would be tracked over to the wood shed from another part of the site twice per week. The volume of material however was continually increasing and was becoming too great for the part-time mobile shredder. Clearly something had to be done with the 10,000 tonnes of waste wood they were getting in.

Furthermore, the company had taken the decision to install a 999kW biomass boiler system directly next to the new 720 sq.m purpose build wood shed, which now houses the plant. The challenge was to create a high enough quality biomass chip from the wood waste coming through the gate to feed the boiler.

Another aspect of the challenge was that the mobile slow speed shredder was not achieving a consistent enough fraction size to achieve the maximum potential price for their biomass material. The business needed to achieve an exact 70mm spec. As with any business, this challenge had to be solved whilst minimising fines and wastage, and within a specified budget. – Due to the current throughput it would not be a cost effective solution to purchase two pieces of heavy equipment.

The Solution
Managing Director Dean Willshee approached long standing supplier Blue Machinery at the very beginning, who, after careful consideration and numerous visits to the site proposed a Doppstadt static DW256 Ceron shredder with BlueMAC conveyor system incorporating overband magnet and a Doppstadt Star Screen.

The Process
The wood is initially separated into different qualities by a material handler. Although both qualities go through the same process, the final chip is used for differing purposes.
• Wood is loaded into the Ceron 256 which shreds the material to around the desired 70mm without creating the level of fines which would be generated through a high speed shredder.

  • Material is taken via front conveyor under the over-band magnet to extract any ferrous metal.
  • Remaining chip is then fed onto a Doppstadt HS 401 Selector Star Screen. 
  • Any -70mm material falls through the gaps in the star screen and is extracted from the process via conveyor; this is the final high spec material.
  • Any +70mm oversized is taken backwards via the star screen and onto a conveyor at the rear of the machine.
  • This conveyor containing the +70mm is then taken up the conveyor and back into the Ceron 256 for re-shredding. The process continues until it reaches the desired size at which point it is extracted from the process.


How the final material is used:
A Grade
The 3,000 tonnes of grade A which is shredded over a 12-month period is fed into the Boiler hopper with walking floor. This heats the water which is then fed through to an inverter. The inverter sucks air in which is heated by the water to around 90 degrees. It is then blown under the two 90 sq. m drying floors where it dries virgin wood for local customers. Pre-drying the wood is 50% moisture, which is reduced to approximately 15% in around 10-12 hours before it is taken away by the customer. As this boiler is clearly creating a commercial benefit for Willshee’s it means the company is entitled to claim a tariff via the government’s Non-Domestic Renewable Heat Initiative (RHI). Furthermore, due to the exceptionally high specification and build quality of the boiler system, the business has been issued with a Part B permit which is required to run the boiler on A grade wood. Willshee’s is one of the first company’s in the UK to be issued with a Part B permit in a smokeless zone, which is due to the boiler design and exceptionally clean emissions.

B&C Grade
The B&C goes to UK biomass plants, such as Blackburn Meadows. Currently there is a gate fee/charge per tonne to Willshee’s for this chip to be disposed at such facilities, but the quality ensures consistent supply. Plus, with more biomass power stations being built in the UK, demand for the estimated 4.5 million tonnes of waste wood created annually in the UK is likely to increase over the coming years, meaning the disposal price is likely to reduce as the power stations demand increases.

Commenting on the plant Dean Willshee said, “The kit is just so well made. And having been to Calbe last year as part of the Doppstadt 50th year celebrations, it is clear to see they have a philosophy of solving any business challenges through their equipment that a company such as ours may have.”

Director Malcolm Lawson also went on to talk about the benefits of working the Blue Group, “The account management is really important for us, because they have such in-depth industry knowledge through visiting other sites, seeing what works well and potentially demonstrating how it can be adapted to help us.”

Associated Businesses

  • Warrington, WA4 4SN
  • Wolfurt