Built in 2008, Biffa’s Aldridge MRF diverted 150,000 tonnes of waste a year from landfill by turning it into saleable commodities. As well as plastic bottles and containers, the facility can process aluminium and steel cans and glass bottles and jars from a household recycling stream.
To increase its recycling capacities, Biffa partnering with Turmec decided to upgrade its bottle sorting line and to to install state of the art Pellenc Optical Sorters to sort the material to the highest of standards.
“Doubling the amount of materials, we can recycle at one of the country’s largest plastic recycling facilities (PRFs) is helping to support targets to recycle more and enable the UK circular economy.” Mick Davis, Chief Operating Officer for the Recourses and Energy Division at Biffa
4 Pellenc ST optical sorters are now in operation to recover plastic recyclates and optimise the purity of sorted materials. The, machines recover different sorted fractions:
- clear and light blue PET
- colored PET (Jazz PET)
- PP/PE/Metals
With these advanced technologies, Pellenc ST optical sorters are able to remove multilayer food trays and produce a high-grade PET plastic. All plastic grades from the Aldridge facility will be used to feed Biffa’s new and existing polymer’s facilities and particularly for for Biffa’s £27.5 million Seaham facility (plant also equipped with Pellenc ST machines).
Biffa Aldridge is the first plant in the UK to benefit from the last generation of Pellenc ST machines: The Mistral+ Connect.
Equipped with the latest generation of detection technologies, this new Mistral+ stands above other sorting machines with an unmatched sorting performance. The new “FLOW Detection” system combines a new spectrometer covering an extended NIR/VIS spectrum, as well as focused lighting. This combination enables recovery of target materials with very high levels of purity.
Another key point, this new version guarantees long term adaptability with the integration of future technologies implemented in the form of simple upgrades.
Finally, as its name suggests Pellenc ST includes a series of sensors on all the Full Package models as well as offering services that can be used remotely or on-site. These different sensors collect additional information to log and analyse equipment incidents, avoid breakages or blockages, and analyse the composition and distribution of materials processed by the equipment. This data enables operators, in collaboration with Pellenc ST experts, to better target corrective action to optimise the availability rates of sorting sites as well as the sorting quality.
