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The plant is designed to take in around 100,000 metric tonnes of mixed dry recyclables each year, which may otherwise have gone to Landfill. This will be sorted in what is regarded as being the most technologically advanced MRF in the country.
The UK Recycling Director for Holmen, Charlie Thompson, said:
“The new plant marks a significant step forward for Holmen in the way we service recycling in the community. Not only, are we able to offer Local Authorities traditional paper contracts that take newspapers and magazines collected under source segregated kerbside schemes, as we have done for many years, but we can now offer the full range of sorting facilities for Councils who wish to have a co-mingled collection service for their areas.”
Nordic Recycling, one of the UK ’s leading recycling companies and who has been working with Holmen in the UK for almost 20 years, developed the plant by researching the very best practice used in MRF plants all around Europe and the United States . Managing Director, Colin Price commented:
“Holmen approached us and asked us to design a state of the art sorting facility that would not only handle large volumes of recyclables for the local community, but also achieve the very strict quality standards demanded of paper mills today. Our development team, headed by Dave Newell, have achieved just that.”
The MRF General Manager, Dave Newell said:
“The plant will sort 25 tonnes per hour of mixed dry recyclables into the various individual product groups, and we are confident that Holmen’s high quality standards will be met by the new plant.”
Dry recyclables is the modern description of waste that is free from contaminants such as construction, food or garden waste, leaving clean materials such as paper, cardboard, plastic bottles, drinks cans and glass bottles, which are then sorted into the different waste streams.
The sorting system developed by Nordic takes the material through a series of screens and filters that helps to segregate the recyclables by size, weight, or density. There is also a human element to the process too, as sorters will be on hand to supervise and/or remove any contaminants or larger objects that may need assistance whilst on their journey through the sorting process.
The new MRF has already started to receive dry recyclables from Braintree and Uttlesford District Councils, and it is hoped that many more Essex Councils will take advantage of the new plant in the coming months.
All in all, Holmen expect to gain around 50,000 tonnes of used newspapers, magazines, junk mail and directories every year from the new sorting plant; all destined to be recycled into fresh newsprint at one of the company’s four paper mills. All other sorted materials will be sent to approved re-processors in UK and Europe for recycling into fresh new and recycled products.
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