Recycling Equipment

Conveyors move plastic bottles, metal scrap, newspaper, cardboard or mixtures of all of these items from receiving stations to sorting stations. Sorting stations are often built in to recycling facility conveyor systems with the help of manual sorting, magnets and non-shearing mixers.

Vibratory conveyors and feeding troughs are an alternative to belt conveyors and are specifically designed to handle bulk materials. Vibratory conveyors can not only move recyclable materials along towards their destination, but they can also sort and clean through vibration, causing smaller, lighter particles to fall to the bottom. Vibrating screens, trommel screens and rotary trommels may be integrated into conveyor systems as a means of sorting materials.

Magnets, magnetic grates and other magnetic assemblies are incorporated into metal recovery systems in order to separate metals from other materials and to separate ferrous metals from non-ferrous metals. This is often called an “induction sorting system”. Rare earth, alnico and ceramic magnets are used in lifting magnets, magnetic sweepers and eddy current separators during sorting processes and for lifting scrap metal bales.

Size reduction equipment is used between the sorting and refining stages of the recycling process. Once properly sorted by material and, as with glass, by color, materials must be broken down into small fragments to be melted or pulped, refined and remanufactured. Shredders can reduce paper, cardboard, metal and textiles, while grinders and pulverizers handle friable materials such as glass.

Because material reclamation is seldom performed at receiving and sorting facilities, sorted materials must be baled and compacted into manageable units before they are shipped from sorting facilities to reclamation facilities. Baled materials are often further sorted once they have reached material recovery facilities; bales of polyethylene may be sorted into HDPE and PET, or bales of metal may be sorted into tin, aluminum and steel. Baling and compacting materials for transportation is essential for lowering material transportation costs, as well as for handling within facilities.

A large part of the recycling process involves material handling. Heavy bales and loads of loose materials must be transported to and from sorting and recycling facilities; forklift trucks, overhead cranes and gantry cranes of a variety of sizes and load capacities are used to transport materials to and from collection areas, sorting facilities, recycling facilities and remanufacturing facilities. Grapples and grapple cranes, or loaders, manage large material handling in scrapyards, mines and other outdoor facilities with long, hydraulic arms. Grapple attachments are designed differently depending on what type of scrap material is being handled.

Hydraulic power is one of the strongest power sources available, for which reason hydraulic power applications are commonly found in industrial manufacturing and recycling. Metal scrap, cardboard bales, plastic briquettes and other heavy mass quantities of materials are moved from receiving to sorting, from sorting to shredding and/or baling and from baling to reprocessing with the help of hydraulic lifts and hydraulic equipment. The heavy equipment used to transport and load recycling scrap materials typically use hydraulic power; types of lifts may include bulldozers, loaders, scissor lifts, aerial lifts and rotary lifts.

Small amounts of materials which cannot be reclaimed nor disposed of sustainably are usually incinerated. Air pollution control equipment remove volatile organic compounds that may have been released during incineration with fixed bed or fluid bed systems. Heat exchangers are commonly used to reclaim the energy which is released during incineration; this energy may be re-used as thermal heat energy or electricity. This is a process known as waste heat recovery.

Plastic, paper and cardboard must be mixed and heated with refining chemicals and/or water after shredding in order to be reduced back into raw materials. Large industrial mixers play an important role in this process by refining materials through heating and mixing. Mixers are especially essential for pulp and paper recycling, as all recycled printed papers must undergo a “deinking” process, during which fibers must be mixed and kneaded with chemicals and water for the removal of contaminating inks.

Steel holding, mixing and decontaminating chambers are used during the reclamation process of nearly every type of material. As excellent heat conductors, steel tanks and stainless steel tanks are more heat and chemical resistant than plastic tanks, and steel tank manufacturers can fabricate customized capacities and shapes to fit individual facilities.