18 December 2009
Two QZ process e-scrap and refrigerators under one roof
MeWa creates combined plant in England
Making two into one – this statement very much characterises the new plant for processing refrigeration devices and electrical scrap in St. Helens, England. The German plant manufacturer MeWa Recycling Maschinen und Anlagenbau GmbH from Gechingen built the combined plant in a record-breaking construction time of only one year, and commissioned it recently. With this investment of 16 million Euros, the British disposal company expects to achieve high throughputs, recyclable material fractions sorted by material type, and the highest environmental standards.
Electrical and electronic scrap is the flow of waste with the highest growth rates across Europe. Viridor is one of the UK’s largest waste management companies. The company offers a nationwide collection service for WEEE materials which are processed at its treatment facilities. In the new plant near the industrial town of St. Helens, the company will simultaneously process more than 100 refrigeration devices and seven to nine metric tonnes of electrical and electronic scrap in future. The German plant manufacturer MeWa from Gechingen recently handed over the highly modern turnkey plant to the British disposal specialist.
On two separate lines, MeWa Querstromzerspaners open up the defunct cooling units, computers, vacuum cleaners, hi-fi systems and other electronic waste. "The motives for the total investment of 16 million euro lay in the quality of the output. Only fractions that have been perfectly sorted by material type can be sold at good prices these days," says MeWa-Area Sales Manager Piet Gilbos, explaining why the British disposal company decided in favour of MeWa from Gechingen.
How efficiently the MeWa QZ works is something that Viridor has been aware of at least since its merger with the largest electrical scrap processor in Scotland. Viridor took over the MeWa customer Shore two years ago and, in doing so, also acquired a highly economical disposal plant that reliably processes 500,000 refrigeration devices in a 24/7 frequency per year.
In the new plant in the north-west of England, MeWa has now created two complete turnkey lines. The refrigeration devices are processed in the front area of the hall.
MeWa has implemented a new concept in the electrical scrap line that works separately. The mixture of automatic sorting and manual pollutant extraction ensures the highest standards in accordance with the WEEE Directive of the European Union are met. First of all, components containing pollutants are removed from the devices. Then the MeWa Querstromzerspaner gently opens up the electrical appliances with its chain principle. The parts containing recyclable materials leave the machine in large pieces, meaning they are then perfectly ready for automatic sorting. Especially the components containing recyclable materials, such as processor boards and metals, can be separated using special units in the subsequent course of the process. The advantage of the patented MeWa Querstromzerspaner is particularly clear to see when it comes to processor boards. Whereby cutting tools produce many small individual parts or time-consuming pre-dismantling is required, the QZ patent with its flexible acceleration tools delivers results with complete parts. The processor boards can be resold to specialised companies as a Class 1 fraction, where the precious metals are then stripped and recovered.
The different plastic fractions are also already separated when they are made available at the end of the process. The automatic process in the new plant is followed by a manual sorting during which the remaining parts containing pollutants, such as batteries and capacitors, and the recoverable composites, such as electric motors, are filtered out of the material flow.
The new combined plant also convinces with an efficient plant design. Despite limited hall space, the planners have fitted both lines under a single roof. The result is an extremely compact configuration which still provides the required space for the logistics, and works highly efficiently with the short distances: a new standard in WEEE processing.