The bridge will take about 400,000 tonnes of metal each year from the company's Regent Road site to Norton's export facilities at South Canada Dock. The company said the facility should effectively pay for itself through reduced operating costs “over three to four years”.
 The new conveyor bridge will improve efficiency at the Norton's site at Regent Road in Liverpool |
The bridge was originally commissioned back in 2002, with conveyor equipment supplied by Gloucestershire-based Redler.
Traffic flow in the immediate area should improve with the material no longer being transported by road, Norton's said, suggesting that about 20,000 heavy goods vehicle miles will be saved by the bridge.
Commenting on the project, Norton's technical director Matthew Norton said: “This innovation gives us the means to keep up a constant flow of material to the docks and frees up our vehicle fleet to do more productive work elsewhere, such as collecting raw material for processing from further afield.”
Norton's processes and exports about one million tonnes of iron and steel each year through four sites in Liverpool and one in Manchester. The company won a Queen's Award for Enterprise for the increase in exports it achieved from the year 2000 to 2002.
Norton's is currently building up to the imminent requirements of the End of Life Vehicles Directive regulations, and also has an eye on the forthcoming waste electronic equipment regulations since about 10% of the company's feedstock is white goods.
Depollution
In terms of the end of life vehicles it produces, Norton's has installed depollution equipment at its Manchester site and is currently installing systems supplied by SEDA at its Liverpool operations.
Most of the vehicles going through the company's shredding facilities are depolluted by dismantling firms, but Norton's is installing depollution equipment to handle about 1,000 vehicles a year for the “minority” of vehicles that have not been depolluted, a spokesman said.
Shredders have until November 3, 2004 to install depollution systems if they wish to process vehicles that have not already been depolluted to ELV Regulation standards. Norton's public affairs advisor David Hulse said the company would have its equipment installed in time for the Environment Agency-set November deadline.
More information on the ELV Directive can be found in the letsrecycle.com legislation section.
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