UK Recycler to Use PET Flake Sorting Machines
28 November 2011 from “waste management world”.
UK based Eco Plastics is to install five TITECH AutoSort Flake systems as part of a £15 million expansion at its Hemswell recycling facility in Lincolnshire.
The expansion of the facility is planned to increase the amount of food grade recycled PET produced to 40,000 tonnes, almost 70% of the UK total, and supply high quality bottle grade recycled PET to the firm's recently announced joint venture with Coca Cola.
According to sorting technology specialist, TITECH, the technology it will delivery to the facility has been developed to allow the sorting of PET flake by material and colour simultaneously.
To achieve the levels of purity and quality demanded by its customers for food grade pellet, ECO Plastics needs to sort its infeed of plastic bottles by polymer type and by colour.
The company said that for this facility particularly high levels of purity are required, so the removal of any contaminating materials early in the process is essential.
The new equipment will operate on the PET line at Hemswell, where material has been identified, shredded and then washed by the primary plant. Washed flake is then sorted by size, before the flake sorters remove any impurities at an unrivalled purity level.
According to the sorting specialist, the system is based on its bespoke spectrometer technology.
This deal follows on from the successful opening of the Hemswell processing facility in 2010, where 20 TITECH units are used to sort mixed plastics from UK MRFs.