26 September 2011
Smash Boom Bang celebrates premiere in France
The ultra-modern recycling facility of Environnement Recycling in Montluçon/France is specialised in the recycling of computers, small household appliances, monitors and cathode ray tubes. It has a pilot character across Europe. For the first time in France, the dismantling work is being performed by the MeWa Smash Boom Bang (SB²).
About ten years ago Environnement Recycling started recycling disused electrical devices. Now the company has invested in the future. With their new facility at the company headquarters in the Auvergne region of France, entrepreneurs Jérôme Auclair and Emmanuel Petit have advanced into a new dimension of electrical scrap recycling.
They were able to extend the 10 ports of the old facility, at which computers, monitors and televisions were checked for their recyclability, into 720 ports in a unique Europe-wide pilot project. Devices, which are no longer serviceable, are directed into the newly created and extended recycling lines.
The company has forged a new path for monitors, computers, printers and other small household appliances. To do this, entrepreneurs Jérôme Auclair and Emmanuel Petit invested in the latest generation of the Smash Boom Bang (SB²) by MeWa. Only cathode ray tubes are processed separately. In a special procedure, Environnement Recycling cleans, granulates and pulverises the components and produces calibrated and reusable glass granulate from them.
For other devices, however, it's a case of being sent straight into the Smash Boom Bang, with its première in France. MeWa developed the SB² specifically for small to medium-sized electrical and electronic scrap. The machine's task is to separate the integral components and materials in as undamaged a state as possible. Time-consuming manual work for preliminary dismantling is therefore largely superfluous.
The SB² gathers the computers, printers, HiFi systems, mobile phones, coffee machines or vacuum cleaners in a slowly revolving drum. Flippers, which are fitted to a shaft inside the tank throw the material against the walls of the drum. This process is repeated several times until the plastic trims break off and, at the same time, the electric motors, PCBs, plug connections, copper coils or batteries separate from each other without damage. The components leave the Smash Boom Bang as whole parts, and plastic parts remain in large pieces. The material is then sorted automatically and manually and is finally ready for sale as class 1 scrap.
Up to 12,500 tons of material per year can be processed by the SB² per shift. The machine is impressive due to its extremely low wear and very low operating costs. The few fines which accumulate during processing with the SB2 are collected by a suction system, which also serves the purpose of explosion protection.
Only a manual sorting platform with four workstations is connected upstream of the SB². This platform is used to remove toner cartridges and vacuum cleaner bags, for example, i.e. basically all undesired materials. But easily removable recyclable materials are also removed here.
For this project, the two associates deliberately decided on the Montluçon site in the Auvergne. Situated with good transport links next to a motorway junction of the French north-south and east-west routes, over 65,000 tons of electrical scrap per year can now be processed on an area of 45,000 m². Jérôme Auclair and Emmanuel Petit have been able to create 92 jobs in their native region ten years after the foundation of the company.