Finlay Hire install glass-recycling plant at Yorkshire quarry

A new glass-reprocessing plant has been set up in a quarry site near Doncaster using machinery supplied by Finlay Hire.

Bank End Quarry, a 135-acre site in Blaxton, South Yorkshire, has been operating for 35 years. Moss Construction Aggregates and Recycling Ltd have been running the site, which produces high-quality red building sand, for five years. The installation of the new reprocessing plant adds a new dimension to the company’s business.

Waste glass is ground to -50mm in a Tesab RK623 impact crusher before passing via a Terex Finlay 390 feeder to a Terex Finlay MP300 16ft x 6ft, triple-deck, horizontal washing screen.  

Any lightweight material, such as paper or plastic, is floated off through a Mogensen trash screen, while the -6mm glass fines enter a Terex Finlay TC15 Sandmaster.

Twin cyclones on the Sandmaster separate the washing water from the clean glass fines, which are stockpiled before being sold for use in concrete block and pipe construction.

Ean Noble, director of Moss Construction and Aggregates Recycling, said: ‘It’s all about thinking outside the box  – we needed to diversify, but we couldn’t have made the huge initial outlay that would have been necessary to purchase all this machinery outright.  

‘Finlay Hire gave us the opportunity to set up the system, which can process between 80 to 100 tonnes of waste per hour. Of the material processed as much as 90 per cent will be reused, which is a significant reduction in waste going to landfill.

‘All the plant operating here has been supplied by Finlay Hire and it is superb.’

The versatility of the plant at Bank End Quarry means that it is not limited to processing glass. Construction and demolition waste can also be put through the system, which is fitted with a magnetic belt to remove ferrous metal prior to feeding into the MP300.

The -6 mm sand fraction is fed into the Sandmaster to produce washed recycled sand for utility fill. The +6 mm is then processed through a Finlay 206 Logwasher for further removal of clay and rinsing, before grading in a Finlay 683 Supertrak into 40mm x 20mm, 20mm x 10mm and -10mm clean secondary aggregate.