A paper sorting facility is to be built at SAICA Natur’s mill at Partington in Manchester.
Capable of processing 120,000 tonnes of loose paper and cardboard per year, the site will physically and mechanically sort or separate paper and card into different grades by quality.
It is intended that the depot will supply the neighbouring mill, while some material will also be transferred elsewhere for recovery.
The material source for the facility will be mainly mixed papers from segregated household collections with a maximum non-paper content of up to 15%.
SAICA Natur has applied for an Environmental Permit with the Environment Agency for the sorting facility using SLR Consultants to provide a report on the planned facility and submit the application.
The Non-Technical Summary provided as part of the submission described the process that will be used to sort the paper and cardboard.
It said: “The facility is designed to receive and process 600 tonnes per day of waste paper and cardboard. The material will be supplied loose in enclosed articulated lorries with all loading and unloading carried out within the process building.
“Incoming waste paper and card is stored in internal feed bays before being placed into the feed hopper for sorting. An initial mechanical sortation will remove any oversize material from the conveyor system. Subsequently, the material will pass through an optical sortation process which will separate the material into different streams according to quality. Each stream will then undergo a final manual picking process to maximise the product quality.
“The separated fractions are stored in autobunkers, which when full, transfer the material to a baling machine. Bales of sorted material are either immediately dispatched or stored temporarily pending transfer off-site for recovery.
“Waste will be stored within the process building and outside bays. The maximum loose waste stored at any one time will be 900 tonnes and the maximum baled waste stored at any one time will be 1,000 tonnes inside and 1,200 tonnes outside.”
It isn’t clear when SAICA Natur plans to open the proposed sorting facility.
