A facility that will recycle pots, tubs and trays from materials recycling facilities is being planned by Monarch International Solutions.
According to a submission made to the Environment Agency for consultation on it receiving its environmental permit, the company aims to remove PET from this stream and provide a recycled PET flake directly into the plastics manufacturing industry.
It will also extract PP that will be forwarded to a specialist reprocessor.
This facility will be situated in Peterlee in County Durham and will have a capacity to treat 26,400 tonnes per year.
The submission notes that Monarch International Solutions has a test facility in Washington, where it has developed its understanding of the most efficient way to recover the separate plastic fractions from pots, tubs and trays. The company has developed a process here to create a PET flake from this stream.
In the submission, the process is described as: “The process of recovering the PET can be split down into a number of stages which is shown in the process map for the operation. Waste arrives at the site direct from dry mixed recyclable MRF’s. The bails are inspected on arrival and then stored prior to starting the recycling process.
“The start of the process sees the waste bails split and pass under an NIR optical pre sort
remove and any ferrous metals (eg baling wire, steel cans etc) via an overband magnet. The
remaining plastic material is fed, via a vibrating perforated screen (to remove any dirt /
fines) onto an accelerator belt which passes under the Near Infra Red (NIR) optical sorter
where the PET element will be ‘picked’ / ejected from the remaining plastic stream and this
PET will then be baled and sold to other reprocessors.
“The remaining plastic material (concentrated PP at this point) then drops into a bay prior to
shredding. The PP / PTT is shredded down to 50mm (approx) and is stored in a bay prior to
the wash / final sortation process. The shredded PTT / PP is fed into a feed hopper which
regulates the flow of material through the plant.
“The material passes through a friction wash which removes any residue from the containers
and any labels etc. The washed shred then passes through the sink/ float separator where
any sink fraction (glass, metals, pvc, pet etc) is separated out from the float fraction (PP).
The sink fraction is then either disposed of via landfill or further processed (eg eddy current
separation of the non-ferrous metals). The float fraction (PP) is then dried and granulated
before passing through a density separator (zigzag) to remove any remaining film material
before bagging.
“The bagged PP and the LDPE film materials are then sold, separately to plastic
manufacturers.”
A consultation opened on 15 February and lasts until 15 March. More information is available here.
