A Belfast waste recycler has become the first UK company to use a TITECH optical sorting system to extract wood from a mixed commercial and industrial waste stream.
TITECH estimates the system provides Wastebeater with at least 98% purity of recovered wood.
In addition to providing Wastebeater with increased levels of saleable products, the technology has helped the plant to make significant cost savings, while processing up to six times as much waste per hour.
Wastebeater’s waste-sorting requirement was so advanced that there was no optical sorting model to follow in the UK, so it worked with TITECH to develop a solution.
The first installation phase involved four TITECH systems installed to sort the 2D fraction of the plant’s waste stream and target plastic film and paper.
The second phase saw three further sorting systems supplied, with one focusing on heavy paper, one unit targeting wood and the third unit providing a clean-up on the wood line while also extracting plastics.
Targeting wood from the 3D fraction was a new application for TITECH in the UK.
Twin NIR sensing technology gathers greater amounts of information about what is on the waste belt, providing an even more accurate assessment of materials passing through.
“The twin sensor system is particularly good at identifying materials that are traditionally difficult to sort because they are very similar to one another, such as wood and paper,” the company said.
