STADLER develops and builds new sorting systems for GAIA and IREN in Asti and Parma
The new sorting facility in the Asti waste management center
The new system for sorting plastic and metal packaging from separate waste collection, which went into operation last October, is of great importance for waste management in northern Italy. It is the result of an investment of 10 million euros and will be able to process 50,000 tons of material from separate waste collection per year.
Flaviano Fracaro, CEO of GAIA and Technical Manager of Iren Ambiente Spa, explains: “The sorting plant is like an opencast mine, the only difference being that it does not take raw materials from the planet, but recovers them. It prevents plastic from getting into the environment or that landfills are prematurely overloaded, because now they no longer have to take up any recyclable materials. “
GAIA’s plant will process material from the catchment area of the city of Asti, while the Irish Group’s plant will serve Turin, Genoa, Piacenza, Reggio Emilia, the Aosta Valley and other cities and regions that wish. After processing and cleaning, the materials are delivered to the national consortia for the recycling of packaging, which converts them into secondary raw materials and returns them to the production cycle. The plant has modern technologies that meet the goals of Industry 4.0. At the same time, the machines support the work of the employees in manual sorting, which leads to a high-quality end result.
“After a careful assessment, which took both technical and economic aspects into account, we decided on STADLER,” says Flaviano Fracaro. STADLER’s experience in this branch also played a major role: “STADLER was able to design systems that can process different types of material extremely efficiently. And as far as support is concerned, engineers and technicians were at our side in all project phases. “
The system comprises a loading area and a pre-sorting, a mechanical and an optical sorting line, a sorting cabin for the manual sorting out of bulky parts as well as a storage and bale line. A sieve drum carries out an initial sorting according to size. It separates the material into three streams. The main flow of material in the order of 50 to 350 mm is transported to the main sorting line. This consists of:
- 10 NIRs that sort out plastic products
- 1 air classifier to improve the 3D and 2D separation
- All fractions then pass through the system with the following machines.
3 NIRs for sorting according to different types of plastic
- 1 air classifier to improve the 3D and 2D separation
- 1 magnetic separator for removing ferrous metals
- 1 eddy current separator for removing non-ferrous metals
A moving conveyor belt below the first NIR unit of the paper line ensures great flexibility in the sorting process, while the second NIR can work with either the positive or negative selection of the first NIR and in this way optimizes paper recovery. The paper sorting line starts with a PPK2000_6_3H ballistic separator, which is specially designed to separate bulky cardboard from lighter paper.
The cardboard is forwarded directly to the sorting cabin, while the main flow (<300 mm) is transported to two parallel sorting lines. Each line includes a ballistic separator PPK2000_6_1, which removes the fine fractions (<50 mm) as well as two 2800 mm NIRs, which remove mixed paper and deinking goods from the main flow. The sorted material is then forwarded to the sorting booth, where it is sorted by hand.
Pietro Navarotto explains: “In addition to the change requested by the customer during the implementation phase, the second difficulty was that the paper line had to be installed after the plastic line was in place. It is precisely in such moments that the enormous experience of our engineers and fitters makes the big difference and ensures the professionalism for which we are known. “
“So far, the two plants in Parma and Asti have met our expectations,” says Flaviano Fracaro. “We hope that they will even surpass them in the future!”2 magnetic separators for removing ferrous metals
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- 1 eddy current separator for removing non-ferrous metals
- 1 fine sieve with a mesh size of 20 mm for the separation of fine residues
- 1 ballistic separator STT5000 and a ballistic separator STT2000 to improve the quality of the plastic cycle within the system
- 1 bottle perforator to process bottles that still contain liquid
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STADLER’s approach of responding to individual customer requests and taking subsequent changes into account even during the construction phase led to the successful collaboration between the two companies. All sorted plastics are stored in rotating bunkers. From there, two separate lines are fed with special baling presses for plastics.The following output material results from this process: transparent PET, colored PET, light blue PET, HDPE, PP, PE / PP mixture, LDPE / PP film, bulky plastics (four different products), residues, fine residues, Non-ferrous metals and ferrous metals.
The project brought with it numerous challenges, which STADLER was able to solve, not least thanks to its extensive experience with this type of system that it had gathered around the world. Pietro Navarotto, Director of STADLER Italy, explains: “In Asti we had to build a system with many machines and conveyors in a limited space, while also leaving room for maintenance work. A future expansion of the plant was also taken into account. And since the system sorts a large number of different materials, we had to carry out a lot of tests to check the purity of the recycled material and the recovery rates. “
The new facility from Iren Ambiente in Parma
The plant in Parma, which is due to be commissioned soon, was designed in such a way that it can process two different material flows from the separate paper and plastic collection. It is one of the most modern plants in Italy for sorting paper and cardboard. For this system, STADLER developed and built two highly integrated sorting lines which, through shared use of the press system, make optimal use of the space available.
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As Flaviano Fracaro emphasizes: “We really appreciated the professional approach of the STADLER engineers, as well as the quick reaction to a special request for the paper sorting line at the very last minute. We asked to integrate four NIRs and STADLER managed this despite the tight schedule. “
The plastic sorting line has a capacity of 9 t / h and processes bottles made of PET, HDPE and PP, PE and PP films, bulky plastics, packaging made of plastic mixtures, non-ferrous metals and ferrous metals. The paper sorting line has a capacity of 20 t / h and processes cardboard, mixed paper and deinking goods.
The two lines have separate loading areas, but a common output area and a common baling line. Each line includes a loading area, an area for mechanical and optical sorting, a sorting cabin for manual sorting of bulky material as well as a storage and bale line.
In the plastic sorting line, after removing the bulky waste in the pre-sorting, the industrial waste is fed to a shredder. A large drum sieve is used to sort the material according to size (bulky, medium and fine).
The bulky fraction is then forwarded directly to the sorting cabin. There it is sorted by hand into three different fractions. The main flow of medium-sized material (50 – 380 mm) is fed to the STT5000 ballistic separator, which divides the material into the fractions fine, 3D (heavy and / or rolling material) and 2D (flat and light material) based on its ballistic properties and weight. divided.
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