UPM debunks commingled myth

Paper manufacturing giant UPM has become the latest company in its sector to cross over into sorting a wide-range of dry recyclables by opening a 270,000 tonne-a-year capacity materials recycling facility in North Wales.

The Finnish-owned company developed the 17 million materials recycling facility (MRF) in order to complement the existing paper-making operations at its Shotton site; a vast industrial complex which processes 650,000 tonnes of waste paper into newsprint each year.

The companys drive to develop the plant was supported by the Welsh Assembly Government, which issued UPM with a 1.7 million grant in January 2010 to help finance construction of the plant on Deeside.

And, while paper collected from the material sorting process will supply 20% of input to its 650,000 tonnes-a-year paper mill, UPM is aware that the questions still lingers why should a paper company build a MRF?

When we started buying [recovered] paper back in 2002, there werent a lot of MRFs around, explains Craig Robinson, head of recovered paper sourcing at UPM.

All of the collection schemes were in their infancy but what we have seen over several years was a move away from source separated towards commingled collections and increased range of materials collected.

Mr Robinson explains that what subsequently developed was a commingled myth that source separated collections inherently lead to a better quality of paper. He said that the company had been using MRF-sorted paper feedstock for several years and this held them in good stead for developing their own plant.

Glass

One area that UPM had to tackle was glass. And, with its increasing inclusion in commingled collections, there was a need to assess how the material usually the bane of the paper-maker would be addressed in the MRF design.

To most paper makers, glass is a serious contamination, says Mr Robinson. We wanted to have a way of dealing with glass effectively. I was cautious as a significant proportion of the commingled collection schemes included glass and I didnt want to find myself out of that commingled with glass market and we wanted to be involved in every market if we could.

This led UPM, in conjunction with Canadian MRF builders Machinex and optical sorting specialist TiTech, to create an intricate web of conveyors, sorting stations and separators to ensure that the paper coming out of the plant is sorted as a priority material. This involves glass being removed at a very early stage of the process.

Mr Robinson says: When we originally intended this innovation, we looked at various versions of the plant and now we have got two commingled lines with glass and it is interesting change from the original proposal two years ago.

Completion

Construction of the framework of the plant was completed in December 2010, with the first material trials taking place in March 2011. And, at the end of April 2011, UPM was able to turn the switch for the first proper material runs of its 17 million plant.

The building work for the plant was carried out by Eric Wright Construction, which helped UPM achieve the BREEAM excellence standard. This was aided by civil engineering firm Christal, which was project manager on the MRF build, and civil engineering consultant Wilde.

Upon completion, the plant was said to have achieved 73.05% BREEAM accreditation due measures such as recycled content in the steel framework, increased natural daylight and water recycling techniques used at the plant.

At the core of the plant is an ambition to achieve a 99% recycled rate for material said to be currently around 95% in the early days of operations and over 90% of materials sorted for resale are sent to companies within 30 miles of the Shotton plant.

In addition, the material that cannot be recycled will be recovered to make energy under an agreement with renewable energy specialist Orchid Environmental, which runs a mechanical thermal treatment plant on Merseyside.

Inputs

Material inputs for the Shotton plant come from slightly further afield, however, with Rochford district council Essex supplying 9,000 tonnes-a-year of commingled dry recyclables to the site. Other local authority contracts are currently held with nearby Cheshire East council and Denbighshire county borough council.

UPM said it is currently discussing other contracts with the aim of securing more council contracts. Although, it has not ruled out taking commingled material supplied by private waste management companies.

The [paper-making] process we have at Shotton starts with the customer first and it is continuing to produce high quality outputs. And, the MRF operations complement that effectively and we want to source the recovered materials as close to us as possible, explains Mr Robinson.

And, while the start of operations at the MRF marks a key milestone in UPMs UK operations, Mr Robinson says that the company does not intend to rest on its laurels.
He says: With just five or six weeks of processing we are already tweaking what we are doing here, what we are trying there, and how can we do it any better.