German equipment company and Finland’s ZenRobotics team up on Remeo materials recovery facility.

Altshausen, Germany-based Stadler has teamed with Finland-based ZenRobotics and Finnish environmental services firm Remeo Oy to help design and equip an automated sorting and recycling plant near Finland’s capital city Helsinki.

Stadler says it designed the materials recovery facility (MRF) in collaboration with Remeo, and it was equipped in part with ZenRobotics-supplied artificial intelligence (AI)-based robotic sorting technology. The facility also stands out, say the companies, for integrating commercial and Industrial (C&I) and construction and demolition (C&D) lines in the same plant. Stadler calls this “an industry first.”

The facility was completed ahead of schedule, despite difficulties created by the Covid-19 pandemic, which Stadler calls a “testament to the successful collaboration between Remeo, Stadler and ZenRobotics.”

The new Remeo MRF was inaugurated on Feb. 14 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony hosted by Remeo CEO Johan Mild and Business Director Mauri Lielahti. The Finnish Minister of Economic Affairs, Mika Lintillä cut the ribbon, declaring the facility officially open, and referred to the “significant leap forward” the facility constitutes for the Finnish circular economy.

Design challenges tied to the MRF involved combining a C&D plant capable of processing 30 tons per hour with a C&I plant with 15 tons per hour of capacity—both with a high level of automation.

“The combination of our experience with the C&D line, Stadler’s solid familiarity with the C&I line and ZenRobotics’ impressive knowledge of robotics made this an excellent cooperation with the best results,” says Lielahti. “We appreciated Stadler’s capability to be innovative, its willingness to seek new solutions and that they were ready to listen to the customer’s needs. We have been working closely with ZenRobotics since 2014 and have a continuous development cooperation. Thanks to the knowledge we acquired on our older recycling facility, we knew what we should and should not do. It has been easy to work with them.”

The result of this collaboration is a design that “combines ballistic separators, screening drums, three-dimensional drums, optical sorters, air separators, sorting robots, magnets, eddy currents as well as the ZenRobotics robots, making it the most advanced [recyclable materials] sorting facility in the European Union,” says Nikolaus Hofmann, a sales engineer at Stadler.

Juha Mieskonen, head of sales at ZenRobotics, says, “The Remeo facility is equipped with 12 robot arms that pick objects from bulky C&D waste that weigh up to 30 kilograms [66 pounds], and together perform up to 24,000 picks per hour. In other words, the robots do all the heavy lifting that’s neither safe nor feasible for humans. They sort multiple fractions on the spot, including different qualities of wood, metals, stone and plastic. The robots can be trained to recognize new fractions if needed, thanks to various sensors and AI.”

He continues, “The facility integrates two different processing lines and features two consecutive robot systems on each line. It’s the largest fully roboticized MRF of its kind, which brought new operations and safety aspects to take into consideration in the design.”

“The most innovative aspects of the design can be described with the ‘form from function’ principle,” says Hofmann. “The layout is designed for easy maintenance, with almost every motor being accessible from walkways and maintenance platforms. The layout groups similar equipment together where possible and allows future possibility of extension. The dedusting system with multiple suction points across the whole plant and two large filter units installed outside the building further adds to the plant’s cleanliness.”

The construction process was complicated by the pandemic, starting from getting the assembly team on site. Remarks Hofmann, “We had to improvise a lot and focus all our efforts to keep to the schedule.”

In spite of these difficulties, the project was completed three and a half months ahead of schedule. “This was a great achievement, particularly in the time of the pandemic,” says Mieskonen.

The annual processing capacity of the facility is 120,000 metric tons of construction materials and 60,000 metric tons of materials generated from C&D sources. The Remeo MRF will take in more than 30 percent of all scrap materials generated in the Helsinki region, say the companies. Its efficient recycling capabilities also will help Remeo’s customers meet a minimum 70 percent recycling rate required by law in Finland.

Waste Management's Crossroads Landfill in Norridgewock, Maine, is expected to add up to 17 years of capacity.

A Maine landfill owned by Waste Management, Houston, will continue an expansion project despite pushback from local environmental groups. Last month, the Maine Board of Environmental Protection denied an appeal filed by the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) that would stop or change the 48-acre expansion.

"WM is pleased that after hearing oral arguments and reviewing the comprehensive permitting record, the Main Board of Environmental Protection unanimously affirmed the decision by the Main Department of Environmental Protection to grant the solid wast approvals necessary for the continued operation of the Crossroads landfill," WM says in a statement to Recycling Today.

The Law Foundation had asked the board to reverse the final licensing decision of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, which approved the expansion last May, or modify it to include several requirements, reports The Maine Monitor.

The CFL requested that the landfill, located in Norridgewock, Maine, cap the amount of out-of-state waste being buried in the expansion area each year or set aside a specific amount for in-state waste. The group also wanted Waste Management to be required to pretreat leachate for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and expand its recycling and composting programs.

One of the main requirements was that DEP requires Crossroads to use a double-liner system to line the expansion, according to the Monitor.

"The CLF is disappointed by the Board of Environmental Protection’s decision to reject our appeal," says Peter Blair, an attorney for the CLF.  "The more landfill capacity the state develops, the less likely it is that we will see real meaningful investments to reduce the amount of waste generated through efforts like recycling and composting."

In the board’s decision to reject the appeal, Robert Duchesne said that while the group had good ideas about the expansion, most of them were policy decisions the board could not consider. However, the CLF disagrees with that assessment.

"We strongly believe that the Department of Environmental Protection had the legal authority to impose commonsense safeguards on the development of this new landfill," Blair says.  "The failure to do so threatens public health and the environment."

The landfill expansion was first proposed in 2018 and has been the subject of criticism since. Residents and advocacy groups said they were concerned the expansions would create a new capacity for out-of-state waste and the increased risk of PFAS.

Waste Management’s license with the city does not require it to test or treat runoff from the landfill for the material.The expansion is expected to add an extra 15-17 years to the landfill.

While the proposal was rejected, Blair says the CLF will continue to push for more landfill regulations. Right now, the group is supporting a legislative effort that would require state-owned landfills to implement systems to address the presence of PFAS in landfill leachate. 

Lewis Dubuque served the New York State Builders Association for 11 years.

The National Waste & Recycling Association (NWRA), Arlington, Virginia, has hired Lewis Dubuque as vice president of chapter management, managing government affairs and chapter activities.

The NWRA says Dubuque will be responsible for chapters in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. 

“I am pleased that Lew will be working with our chapters on issues affecting the waste and recycling industry in the Northeast,” says Darrell Smith, NWRA president and CEO. “The chapters are the backbone of our organization. It is imperative that we have strong leadership to ensure that we represent the industry at both the state and local levels.”

Before this position, he led the New York State Builders Association (NYSBA) for 11 years. During his time at NYSBA, Dubuque advocated for the residential construction industry, pushing back against laws and regulations that could negatively impact affordable housing in New York.

“I am ready to help NWRA strongly advocate for the men and women in our industry and support our member companies,” Dubuque says.

NuCycle Energy produces its Enviro-Fuelcubes with the help of size-reduction equipment and custom densifiers.

NuCycle Energy manufactures Enviro-Fuelcubes, an engineered alternative fuel that is designed to be a cost-effective and cleaner replacement for coal and other traditional fossil fuels. The company opened its manufacturing facility in Plant City, Florida, in 2019. The 103,000-square-foot plant has the capacity to divert more than 200,000 tons of commercially generated waste from landfill annually.

To produce its Enviro-Fuelcubes, NuCycle employs a variety of size-reduction equipment to process the incoming material as well as cubers, or densifiers, that the company engineered in-house and built in partnership with a trusted fabrication shop.

Mark Barasch, CEO of NuCycle Energy, says his company addresses two societal problems: the use and proliferation of landfills and the use of coal in energy-intensive industrial processes. Its Enviro-Fuelcubes, which are made using nonhazardous industrial and commercial materials that otherwise would be considered waste, can be used in suspension burning combustion boilers, such as those used in lime and cement manufacturing and power generation.

“It’s only waste if you waste it,” he says of the material the company uses to produce its product. “If you take it to the landfill, it’s waste. If you take it to me, it’s source material to make alternative fuel.”

NuCycle is taking the paper, cardboard, wood and plastic that its commercial generators supply and combining it in such a way that it can produce a product with at least 85 percent biomass content that has a consistent Btu value of 9,500 to 10,500 per pound that allows Enviro-Fuelcubes to replace coal pound for pound. Barasch says most biomass and alternative fuels don’t have the inherent Btu value that is needed for lime and cement production.

Additionally, burning Enviro-Fuelcubes results in 1/60 the mercury, 1/60 the sulfur, 1/113 the lead and 1/174 the arsenic of coal, he says. “We are a much greener fuel than coal,” Barasch says. “It’s not just about the carbon.”

“Regarding our process, we are fortunate because the source material is very clean,” says Brandon Hagerman, NuCycle director of engineering and technology. “We control what we bring in with our sourcing model, so every material gets qualified for both chemical characteristics and physical characteristics for the process.”

This incoming material is blended before being loaded via pit conveyor into the first of two shredders to begin the production of Enviro-Fuelcubes.

The primary reducer, a Pri-Max PR4400 manufactured by SSI, Wilsonville, Oregon, combines ripping and shearing technologies “to shred, tear, pierce, chop, split, flatten, crush, break and reduce materials,” according to the manufacturer. The cutter profiles and open cutting table design help to achieve high-capacity reduction of a variety of materials. The primary reducer produces nominal 6- to 12-inch particle size.

Vecoplan LLC, Archdale, North Carolina, recently installed upgrades at the NuCycle plant to increase uptime and throughput and to reduce the presence of metals that could damage the secondary shredder and cubers. This involved the installation of new conveyors and metal removal equipment between the SSI preshredder and Vecoplan reshredder and from the Vecoplan reshredder to the cubers.

“With the new configuration, we discharge out of the SSI Primax to a robust belt-over-chain conveyor, and that conveyor discharges onto a sort line that provides the opportunity to remove nonconforming/nonferrous materials prior to the metal separation process,” Hagerman says.

The sort line discharges onto another transfer conveyor that features a 4-foot-by-8-foot over-belt electromagnet manufactured by Steinert, a German company with U.S. offices in Walton, Kentucky. Hagerman says the magnet captures 70 percent to 90 percent of the ferrous metals in the material stream.

“Just downstream of that, the Vecoplan transfer conveyor has a magnetic head pulley,” he says, which allows the company to capture ferrous material that is closer to the belt’s surface before the material is fed to a single-shaft Vecoplan VEZ 2500TT, which further reduces the material to a uniform 4-inch minus size.

Following the VEZ 2500TT shredder, the material goes to another magnetic removal process that uses a second Steinert electromagnet and another magnetic head pulley, Hagerman says. “We’re seeing much greater than 90 percent efficiency of the magnets that are upstream,” he says. “The downstream magnets are capturing smaller ferrous metals, such as staples and banding. We are seeing great metal removal efficiency.”

Hagerman says NuCycle has targeted 30-ton-per-hour flow rate with its system and has already seen a significant increase in throughput.

A third shredder, a Vecoplan VAZ 1300 XL, is used to process wood and rigid plastics, including purge, in an auxiliary process, Hagerman says. “It's an important part of the process.”

He continues, “The configuration that we ended up with is due to the variety of materials that we handle. The characteristics are so different that there's no one answer to it.”

NuCycle also receives a significant amount of roll stock, which it currently must preprocess with a guillotine shear. While films and heavy roll stock are not considered unshreddable, Hagerman says they would be difficult for the Pri-Max to handle if not preprocessed.

He says NuCycle is open to exploring direct grinding or shredding equipment to process that roll stock without the help of the guillotine shear.

Following the size reduction steps, the material is delivered to NuCycle’s cubers, which use proprietary technology. They were engineered in-house and built in partnership with a trusted fabrication shop. Hagerman says, “In general, it's a rotary press … almost like a pellet mill but not quite.”

He adds, “Ultimately, it takes a 4-inch minus material and extrudes it to an inch-and-a-half or inch-and-a-quarter die opening channel.” The company's current off-take customer's application requires no postprocessing of Enviro-Fuelcubes to be ready for use.

NuCycle’s system is designed to operate with three 10-ton-per-hour cubers.

Achieving a consistent bulk density for the Enviro-Fuelcubes is as important as achieving a consistent heat value. The final particle size of its raw materials plays a critical role in that.

“When we design this plant, we started from the back end,” Hagerman says. “We are a manufacturer that makes a product, so we started with that, and we designed the plant with our finished fuel characteristics in mind.

“In order to achieve that bulk density, we had to have certain parameters, and finished shred size was one of them,” he says. “The other benefit is more efficient material handling in general. When you handle a lot of rolled labels and films and things like that, this approach is needed to make commercially significant quantities of fuel."

Depending on a fuel buyer's needs, the company’s cubers can be fitted with different tapered dies to achieve different densities, he adds. “If we wanted to increase density, we can do so without changing infeed material size. There's a lot of flexibility in what our end product can be.”

The company will design and supply waste-to-energy technology to help a power producer in Asia reduce its reliance on coal and decrease its landfilled waste.

Akron, Ohio-based Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) has announced its B&W Renewable business segment has been awarded a contract for approximately $22 million to design and supply advanced waste-to-energy technology to help a power producer in Asia reduce its reliance on coal and decrease the amount of waste sent to landfills.

B&W Renewable will design and supply a 440-ton-per-day waste-to-energy boiler, DynaGrate combustion grate and other combustion equipment, including burners and soot blowers. The plant will generate cleaner electricity for the community while processing approximately 160,000 tons of industrial waste annually.

“Decarbonization efforts are gaining momentum worldwide, especially in Asia, while the need to responsibly and sustainably manage industrial and municipal waste continues to grow,” says B&W Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Jimmy Morgan. “Waste-to-energy technologies are an ideal solution to produce renewable, baseload power while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reliance on landfills.”

“Our business in the Asia-Pacific region continues to grow, with significant opportunities for B&W’s renewable, environmental and thermal technologies,” says Nick Carter, managing director of B&W's Asia-Pacific region. “We look forward to continuing to provide solutions to help our customers throughout the region with their clean energy transition.”

B&W has more than 150 years of experience in designing, supplying and servicing efficient energy systems. B&W Renewable’s capabilities, including the state-of-the-art Vølund technology, has been used in more than 500 applications worldwide.