With a heritage in paper recycling, UK-based recovered paper company SCA Recycling is now moving into the multi-material processing business with the introduction of its new £15 million MRF. Here, Kevin Thomas presents an in-depth look at its business, technology and plant.
 3D artist"s impression of SCA Recycling's new plant |
Traditionally a market leader in the commercial paper processing field, SCA Recycling operates nine recovered paper facilities nationwide, in the UK and employs over 230 people. It will be adding to this capacity when its new 6.7 acre (2.7 hectares) Materials Recycling Facility (MRF) opens in Totton, Southampton in October 2009. This MRF will be SCA Recycling's first to process a range of dry mixed recyclables including:
- paper
- plastics
- glass
- ferrous metals
- non-ferrous metals
With an annual turnover in excess of £9 billion (?10 billion), Swedish based parent company SCA provides SCA Recycling with the financial stability to continually develop its business and embrace the latest technology, as in the case of its new MRF.
The new Southampton MRF
The new plant has opened the doors to a widened client base for SCA Recycling with an overall facility capacity of 200,000 tonnes (220,000 tons) per year. This state-of-the-art facility is SCA Recycling"s first to process a range of dry mixed recyclables from local authority, industrial and commercial customers.
The MRF itself is designed to sort, separate and screen the recyclables into individual material streams. The processed materials are then marketed to domestic and international reprocessors for the production of new products such as newspaper and print, paper and glass based packaging and building materials. The complete recycling system for the mixed materials that SCA Recycling processes can be divided into these categories:
- material preparation and pre-sorting
- post-sorting of material
- optical sortation of plastics
- residue waste management
- material storage and baling.
Separation and sorting
Screening technology is at the heart of SCA Recycling's MRF system. Effective material separation is the critical step in achieving maximum recovery rates of high quality end products, while minimizing post-sorting. By effectively separating material streams at the screens, all downstream sorters and optical equipment can work far more efficiently.
The patented BHS Inline Compound Design results in a consistent screen interface opening, or IFO, compared to traditional "offset" disc and star screens. This ensures consistent product quality and reduces the amount of residue lost through the screen deck.
The unique trishaped disc provides superior material agitation and separation since the entire surface area of the disc is working to push and pull material (unlike star discs). This allows the screen to be run at lower RPM which reduces wear on parts (shafts, bearings, sprockets, chain, etc.) and reduces energy consumption.
 SCA Recycling's new MRF is based in Totton, near Southampton |
After being fed into the system, the material travels to the presort area. This presort area acts as a protection for the rest of the system and means any unwanted items can be removed from the process.
From here, material passes through a series of screens which separate out the paper grades, glass and container packaging. Glass is removed early in this separation phase and is cleaned with a series of dedicated screens, magnetic extraction and air separation to produce high quality material for the glass container market.
Paper grades are further screened and quality checked in dedicated post-sort cabins to ensure their quality meets market specifications.
The final separation is of the containers. Firstly, ferrous cans and metals are removed, via an overband magnet, and conveyed to a dedicated gravity bunker.
The plastic containers travel on through the system and are optically sorted into three grades of plastic. Near infrared optical sorting units, designed and manufactured by US-based company NRT, are employed to do this work. The NRT units will be the first of their kind used in any MRF in the UK. The NRT optical units will separate the various plastics streams at very high efficiency rates requiring minimal manual post sorting, cutting costs and reducing turnaround time significantly.
The remaining material then passes through an Eddy Current Separator which removes the aluminium containers. This material is then pneumatically transported to its dedicated storage bunker.
The MRF also has an effective residue management system with both automatic and manual separation of residue waste items, which are conveyed to dedicated waste bays before their final disposal.
Finally, the material is stored in various upright and walking floor bunkers which, when they are full, are discharged into one of two baling presses that produce 1.75 m3 bales. The bales are stored in a dedicated storage area in readiness for dispatch to the market.
SCA Recycling's MRF has been designed to a high standard and configured to maximize material recovery at the same time ensuring that end product material quality meets reprocessor quality specifications worldwide.
Business matters
A newly strengthened SCA Recycling commercial team, led by Peter McCann and Kevin Thomas, accompanies the new MRF and is tasked with leading the company"s expansion into the multi-material recycling market.
Through the MRF and its existing network of UK facilities SCA Recycling is able to collect, process, bulk and bale both dry mixed recyclables and source-segregated material efficiently and flexibly using the many innovative and new technologies which have been taken on board for this project.
Through continual investment in its infrastructure and technology, SCA Recycling now operates in nine locations throughout the UK and provides a service to some of the country"s well-known retailers, printers, newspaper groups and waste management companies.
Kevin Thomas, Business Development Director, SCA Recycling
e-mail: kevin.thomas@sca.com
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