Lowmac open new BlueMac fines clean-up plant

Bespoke facility increases waste-processing capacity and produces high-quality recycled materials 

LOWMAC Waste & Recycling have invested in a new versatile, tailor-made recycling plant to further increase their waste-processing capacity and, specifically, enhance the cleanliness and quality of the end-products created during the recycling process.

Turning to equipment distributors Blue Machinery Scotland and their sister company BlueMAC Manufacturing for a suitable solution, Lowmac have reported excellent results from their new materials remediation system which has been installed at the company’s North Ayrshire site. 

Currently processing a wide variety of incoming waste streams at around 1,000 tonnes per week at a rate of 25-30 tonnes/h, the BlueMAC plant is more than capable of delivering greater volumes should future needs arise.

The facility – designed and built to combine a series of compatible processors and conveyor arrays in a convenient and compact undercover configuration – treats a broad range of mixed wastes and provides material remediation to a very high quality. 

The specially designed, multitasking plant is currently recycling wood waste and trommel fines, as well as C&D, C&I and ash waste materials. As a result, clean fines, secondary aggregates and biomass, among other saleable materials, are all being produced from the recycling facility.

Wood waste is successfully processed by removing tramp metals and reducing the incoming stream to –10mm for animal bedding, while larger woodchips, which are put through a wash plant for further processing, produce biomass.

Fines generated during recycling processes can include materials such as wood, aggregates, glass and ceramics, all of which have traditionally found their way into landfill sites. However, with continually increasing landfill regulations and taxes, recycling contractors are providing a more efficient and effective fines clean-up operation.

The plant’s –75mm C&D waste stream is subjected to metal and lights extraction through a air blower and eddy current separator within the facility which, combined with a single bay picking station, helps deliver a good clean end-product ready for washing and further processing into materials suitable for drainage stone, haul roads, Type 1 recycled aggregate etc.

The plant reprocessing starts with a Powerscreen Warrior 1400 screener that ensures the incoming feed material stream is +75mm. An elevated conveyor array with an overband magnet feeds through into the covered plant where a Spalec double-deck separator combines a 3D twin top-deck with a flip-flow bottom screen to further separate the materials to 10-75mm. All high-quality clean fines are discharged on to a collection conveyor for stockpiling. 

A further conveyor takes any residual oversize material to a BlueMAC Typhoon air density separator to remove the ‘lights’, with the heavier fractions being taken via transfer and feed conveyors to the single bay picking station and on to a all-metal separator unit for further ferrous and non-ferrous metal separation and extraction. The remaining cleaned hardcore at the end of the whole process becomes crushed recycled aggregates for a multitude of civil engineering and construction uses.