Kerbside collections of cans, plastic bottles and paper are now sorted and baled at the Cattedown site with an estimated throughput of 10,000t a year. Waste arrives nominally pre-sorted into two bags: cans and bottles in one, paper and card in another.

The installation was purpose built using three balers of Middleton’s new design, the ME70, two in-floor conveyors, an overband magnetic separator, picking conveyor and vibrating screen. Tin cans are separated from aluminium by being passed under an overband magnetic separator. Aluminium cans are then manually removed by sorters along the conveyor which are dropped into chutes that lead to each baler beneath the platform. Debris is also picked out and the plastic bottles left are passed over a vibrating screen to sift out fines before dropping into the last chute above the baler. The balers sense when the crushing chamber is full by means of a pressure switch on the hydraulic ram. The conveyors are then automatically halted, an alarm sounds warning sorters to attend to the baler.

It is then a simple matter to thread wire ties around the chamber and after automatic tying, the door can be opened and bale ejected. With an operating pressure of 70t, each bale will contain around X cans and Y plastic bottles. It measures 1530mm x 760 x 1220mm. The bales are recycled. Waste paper is handled by a separate in-floor conveyor allowing sorters to remove undesirables before reaching a compactor.
No more manual sorting

Severnside’s Regional Director Ivan Fisher says the installation is a big improvement. “We ran the contract for 18 months with the help of what we call Mr Heath and Mr Robinson by manually picking the waste, which was extremely labour intensive. We probably only retained the workforce by telling them what we planned and involving them in the design. The contract is for 6,500t a year but the plant will cope with 10,000t. The constraints are the building not the machinery. The end result is pretty much the design I came up with plus some experience from Middletons. They did a good job on the installation and the equipment has made a vast difference. Life is much better for the workforce, as well as being faster. I’m delighted the way it’s fitted in, in a difficult situation”

Ashley Middleton says he is pleased with the new design of semi-automatic baler. “Middleton’s are well known for the Presona baler but not everyone needs such a big machine. Severnside have bought the first three and more are being made. It’s designed to handle a wide variety of waste products collected by local authorities, and to produce a mill size bale. It has a simple fault diagnostic panel that shows the state of the baler at any time. In most cases the staff will be able to solve any running problems themselves.”