Scottish fuel preparation plant projects 98 percent diversion

The material recovery facility (MRF) provided by Plessisville, Quebec-based Machinex for the energy-from-waste (EFW) plant for Levenseat Renewable Energy Ltd. in Lanark, Scotland, has been fully operational since the end of 2017. Of the 200,000 metric tons of commercial and industrial material and all of the municipal solid waste expected to be delivered to the plant annually, 98 percent is expected to be diverted from landfill, according to a news release from Machinex.

“Our new waste treatment facility is an important part of Levenseat’s ongoing plans to provide the most innovative and economical solutions to managing waste,” Angus Hamilton, director at Levenseat Ltd., says. “The material recycling facility will allow us to maximize recovery of valuable material from municipal solid waste and prepare the remaining waste into a fuel for our energy-from-waste facility. The ultimate goal is to achieve a 98 percent diversion from landfill; Machinex has been key to helping us achieve this, and we are happy to be working with them again on the design and installation of our container recycling facility.”

“What we achieved for Levenseat at their waste treatment facility represents an important part of the future of our industry,” says Jonathan Menard, executive vice president, sales and strategic positioning, Machinex. “Turning waste into energy and removing recyclables is an environmental and economical solution for many large cities and regions, not only in Europe but all around the world.”

The system is processing 42 metric tons of material per hour and it will produce a minimum of 100,000 metric tons per year of refuse-derived fuel (RDF) as a feedstock for the adjacent Levenseat Power Plant. The system also is designed to maximize the recovery of high-value recyclables (such as paper, cardboard, plastic, metal and wood), Machinex says. Additionally, it produces a solid recovered fuel (SRF) stream from the super-light and high-calorific nonrecyclables.

To meet the objectives of the plant, Machinex says it installed shredders, a trommel, air separators, Mach Ballistic separators, Mach Hyspec optical sorting units for plastic and paper, one belt dryer and two Machinex single-ram balers. One of the balers is used for recyclables, while the second baler is dedicated to handling RDF and SRF. Machinex developed this baler specifically for the waste-to-energy industry and it incorporates a plastic twine tying system and bale wrapping.

To increase and assure the quality of RDF recovered from the stream of fines, which includes wet organic material, belt drying technology from the Austrian company Andritz was selected. The continuous dryer is self-sustainable and uses heat generated by the waste-to-energy plant adjacent to the MRF, Machinex says.

Machinex also is installing a container sorting facility next to the waste treatment plant on the Levenseat waste and recycling management site that should be operational in February 2018. The 13-ton-per-hour system will treat 27,000 metric tons of containers from dual-stream collection that includes almost 50 percent glass, according to the equipment make and integrator. The main goals of the new plant are removing the glass efficiently by breaking it into small fragments and recovering the maximum amount of recyclables, including ferrous, nonferrous, aseptic and plastic containers, from the waste stream.