New Wash Plant for Mayton Wood Quarry

First published in the April 2024 issue of Quarry Management 

Mick George Group invest in new state-of-the-art CDE wash plant, supplied through Molson Washing 

It is more than 40 years since the Mick George Group started trading with just a single tipper lorry. Fast-forward those 40+ years and today the name is synonymous with a wide range of construction-based services across East Anglia and the East Midlands. Demonstrating the scale to which the business has evolved over the years and how it has grown to become one of the leading suppliers to the construction industry in its region, the Group now operates over 600 HGVs from more than 40 separate sites and employs in excess of 1,000 local people.

From its humble beginnings the Group has expanded massively to include specialist bulk excavation and earthmoving services, demolition and environmental management, a wide range of skip-hire and waste-management services, and aggregate and concrete supply. Along with expansion into these sectors came geographical expansion, allowing services to be delivered across a wider area, yet still with a local feel. Such expansion has led the company into the operation of landfill sites, waste-transfer stations, and quarries, all aimed at offering bespoke, cost-effective solutions to commercial, trade, and residential customers.

One of the largest sectors Mick George Group work in is the supply of aggregates from both their own quarries and also from material recovered and recycled from skip and tipper waste. 

As has been the case since the Group started, quality is the name of the game, and this is mirrored in the supply of aggregates. Mick George’s Mayton Wood Quarry, near Norwich, produces a range of sand and gravel products for sale to a variety of external customers as well as for use within the company’s own concrete batching plants.

To effectively clean and process the excavated material, Mick George have invested in a new, state-of-the-art wash plant from CDE, which was supplied through CDE’s strategic partner, Molson Washing. 

‘We required a plant that would not only give us the capacity to wash a large volume of material on an hourly basis, but would also be reliable, easy to work with, and environmentally friendly too,’ commented Mayton Wood site manager Mark Shackcloth.

Several manufacturers offer bespoke washing plant solutions to the UK market and following detailed discussions with many of the leading brands, the team at Mick George sat down with Molson Washing, part of the Molson Group, to discuss their options.

‘We liked what Molson put across to us. Their proposal was very detailed and thorough; it put us at ease knowing they were exactly on our train of thought when it came to meeting our requirements,’ said Mr Shackcloth.

With a deal agreed, the installation team from Molson Washing visited the site to lay out the position of the plant and to ensure services were correctly installed prior to Mick George creating the hardstanding for the plant. ‘Having that level of service prior to the plant’s delivery was great,’ continued Mr Shackcloth. ‘The installation team were always on hand to answer any questions we had during this period.’

Once the pads and services were in place, the plant was delivered and installed. Designed in Northern Ireland with its modular design centred around CDE’s AggMax 160 scrubbing and classification plant, the system has been built to withstand years of arduous aggregate processing.

Incoming material is fed into a 13m3 capacity hopper equipped with a set of grizzly bars, whilst a heavy-duty Toughflex conveyor sends a steady flow of material to the plant. Part way along the conveyor an overband magnet pulls out any metals from the material to reduce potential damage and blockages further into the system. The free-flowing material is deposited into an AggMax 163SR with an Infinity H2-60 pre-screen, where it enters the washing process. The unit is lined with TEMA Isenmann polyurethane screen media to increase its lifespan and reduce maintenance.  

Material passes into an RX160 RotoMax log-washer – another heavy-duty unit whose twin-shaft design cleans the material passing through. Retention of the material is easily controlled through the rotation speed of the shafts, ensuring it is processed correctly. The unique spiral alignment of the paddles has been designed to reduce the shock of intermittent loads on the gearbox and bearings, thereby prolonging component life and reducing downtime. The outgoing material passes into a second, similarly sized Infinity sizing screen with any waste material picked up on an Infinity D1-43 trash screen.

As the clean aggregate materials leave the plant via three conveyors, water containing sand is passed through an EvoWash system with dewatering screen. Again, this unit is lined with polyurethane panels to reduce wear and produces both a fine and coarse grade of sand which are discharged via two more conveyors.

One of the prerequisites for the plant was that it should be environmentally friendly. ‘We were very surprised to find out that we only needed a 103kW power supply for the entire plant,’ commented Mr Shackcloth. ‘The low power consumption and added benefit of low water requirements has meant the plant is very efficient to run.

‘Another massive plus point is the level of detail in the build of each unit within the plant. Wherever water and sand are mixed together will create wear, but we have been very pleased with the protection fitted into the plant and the use of heavy-duty components as standard. As it stands, we are expecting the plant to surpass others we have in the fleet in terms of maintenance costs and wear and tear breakdowns.’

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