Single-stage and fully automatic – the latest technology in electronic waste recycling
In the electronic waste recycling plant which was recently put into operation in Daventry, Northamptonshire, MeWa Recycling Maschinen und Anlagenbau GmbH has integrated fully automatic sorting. In conjunction with the patented Querstromzerspaner, the one-stage preparation process sets the benchmark in cost-efficiency throughout Europe. For the British recycler, Wincanton, the new WEEE plant means outstanding competitiveness.
Many member states have developed an effective recycling system for old electrical appliances since 2003, when the WEEE Directive came into force in the EU. In England, the EU Directive was not implemented in na-tional law until July 2007. The British have been all the more rigorous since then. Old electrical and electronic appliances account for the waste stream with the highest growth rates. An estimated 1.8 million tonnes are generated in the UK every year.
The UK´s recycling companies reacted even before the WEEE Directive came into force and invested in new plant technology. Wincanton, one of the leading suppliers of logistics and transport services in Europe, has now taken the next step. In Daventry, Northamptonshire, the company recently put a highly modern plant designed for fully automatic sorting into opera-tion.
The entire recycling facility was designed and built by the plant engineering company MeWa Recycling Maschinen und Anlagenbau GmbH, based in Gechingen, Germany. The particular advantages of its forward-looking operation are to be found in the combination of favourable cost structure and improved output quality. Personnel are now only required for loading, handling the input and output fractions and for the sorting of fractions that cannot be separated mechanically. ‘The entire opening up of the material, the crushing process as well as the complete sorting of the individual fractions, however, are fully automatic,' says MeWa managing director Helmut Oberguggenberger, describing the plant which is unique in Europe.
Metal detector equipment such as iron and non-ferrous metal separators, plastic sorting devices, printed circuit board separators, near infra red (NIR) devices as well as pneumatic separators divide the material into various material streams. In the three sorting lines for iron, non-ferrous metals and plastics, only individual fractions such as balls of cable or bat-teries and condensers then have to be removed by hand.
The plant accepts white and brown goods, small household appliances, consumer electronics and IT equipment and in future will process at least ten tonnes an hour. Monitors and refrigerators contained in the waste will be sorted out beforehand and forwarded to the Wincanton site at Billingham, where MeWa built one of the first environmentally friendly, turnkey recycling plants for refrigerators in the UK back in 2002.
The remaining old appliances are fed into the MeWa Querstromzerspaner QZ 2500 HD without being dismantled beforehand. The patented machine breaks the electrical appliances down into their individual parts in just one operational process. These are then separated from one another by the fully automatic technology. In this process, the modern separation technology delivers substantially better output results than with the hand sorting lines that were usual up to now. Primarily in view of the currently low prices for secondary raw materials, pure-grade quality is becoming increasingly important. Wincanton, the British recycling sector provider is also benefiting from the highly modern plant with regard to costs. The one-stage processing by the Querstromzerspaner uses considerably less energy and costs substantially less for wear-and-tear and operation compared to plant technologies with several shredding stages.
Only four or five employees per shift are now required to ensure that the MeWa plant operates efficiently. The Daventry site is already the third recycling plant that MeWa has developed for the international corporation. With regard to efficiency, the plant sets an outstanding example for the implementation of the WEEE Directive throughout Europe.