Plastics Recycling Plant Upgrade
Integration of new shredder machine
Heavy Industrial
What was required:
A Hornby plastics recycling plant had imported $500,000 worth of kit from Germany. A new shredder machine would mulch old milk bottles and produce plastic balls, which would then be remoulded back into milk bottles again. Fitzwilliam Electrical was called upon to integrate the machine into the existing operation.
What we did:
- We commissioned the new shredder ourselves, as the machine agents were unable to enter the country during the global pandemic.
- We integrated the operations of the shredder, so it could be controlled by the MCC (Motor Control Centre) panel.
- The shredder’s motor was large at 140 kW. More commonly a large motor is considered 30 or 40kW.
Its role is to shred the compacted plastic bottles into plastic chips, which are washed and dried and put through an extrusion machine and formed into marble-sized balls. These can then be returned back into the milk bottle manufacturing process to make new bottles.
- Fitzwilliam’s also added four conveyors to the process.
- Key to the automation set-up was the use of interlocks. This allows the entire processing operation to be shut down in an orderly sequence.
- Fitzwilliam’s also upgraded the emergency start/stop system from 230 volts and installed an entire Category 3 safety system.
How it helped:
The integration project took around three weeks to complete. The recycling plant reported a more consistent production process with fewer downtime and stoppages. The recycling plant was thrilled with the improved safety measures which protected people, plants and products more effectively than their previous process.
