Recycling Diaries...

01 February, 2007

Early last year SB Waste in Wolverhampton came to the conclusion that it was time to upgrade their plant to help improve material separation and give them more end products to take to market. With the project now underway and set for completion in the summer, SB Waste’s Andrew Hewitt offers MQR readers an insight into what they are learning from the upgrade as it progresses. Part diary, part advice column, Hewitt’s new series of articles starts with explaining why the firm took the plant route to expand their operations, and why businesses thinking of expanding should always think of the tax.

There must be many skip waste companies in the same position as we are at SB Waste. We have plenty of work – could always do with a bit more, mind you – but generally things are pretty good.

Our yard operates well although it can get a little congested during the busy spells. We actively recycle as much of the waste as possible but we know we could be doing an awful lot more. Some of this is down to plant.

The machinery we have on site currently may have been ideal five years ago but after the years of hard work it is now proving too small, too old and doesn’t give the material separation we require in today’s shifting regulatory environment. The big question is what to do about it.

Making a choice

Regardless of what industry you’re in it is almost impossible to stand still. Things are either moving forward – which is good – or rolling backwards – which is not so good. Every business must be constantly looking for ways to improve, which for the waste and recycling industry can be achieved in one of three main areas: collection, volume or processing.

In other words, you either improve the efficiency of your waste collection, make changes to allow more waste to be processed, or you raise your recycling levels, producing greater volumes of useful product and lowering landfill tax paid.

If, as at SB, you have your trucks well maintained, your drivers know the routes and are well managed, the only way forward is to look at areas two and three. And in both cases the two main options are getting a bigger yard with more people working in it or building bigger, better and more efficient plant. At SB we have chosen the latter.

Always think of the tax!

So with the decision made to improve the plant we asked ourselves about the best way to proceed. The first area we looked at was what materials we were seeking to reclaim from the waste stream.

There is no point in spending money on machinery to separate waste into beautiful clean piles only for it to be of no use to anybody and go straight to landfill. So we worked backwards. We looked at the local market first and asked what materials we wanted.

Clean hardcore, concrete and stone was the first choice, as it removes a large amount of the weight from the material going to landfill. ALWAYS THINK OF THE TAX!

Fines were another choice. Again the fine material makes up a significant amount of the weight of the waste so if that can be presented in an acceptable form for use as a fill or capping material a fortune can be saved.

Wood! Everybody wants good clean wood, well...to a point. The market for good clean wood can be a little geographical. If your waste company is within the catchment area of a reclaimed wood user, chipboard factory or powerstation etc, then great, but if not the transport costs can be prohibitive.

However, it is still worth collecting wood because even if you end up giving it away you’re better off than seeing it go to landfill. And there are always new ideas arriving on the scene.

For example, there is a range of inexpensive heaters on the market designed for the very purpose of using reclaimed wood. Free hot water and heating for the office/workshops and no landfill tax makes it worth considering for any system.

We also earmarked metals – ferrous and non-ferrous – as there is always a good market for scrap metal just about anywhere you go in the country.

Finally we put down paper, plastics and cardboard.There is a market for this material but whether we have enough of it in our waste stream to make it worthwhile separating into the individual components we are not sure. We may be better off just bailing it up and sending it to somebody who specialises in recycling it.

What’s left in the materials stream is usually what goes to landfill.With an average type of skip waste material it should be possible to get this down to 10-15% by weight of what comes in through the gate.

This process of working backwards is a good starting point for developing a waste business. Always start with demand in local markets.

A matter of volume

After we had built an idea of what we wanted to do with the waste, we had to figure out how much we wanted to process. This is an important stage as it will determine the size of plant you need and, more importantly, how much money you need to spend.

Every waste company should know how much material is coming in on a day-to-day basis but you need to ask yourself where you want to be in five or even 10 years’ time. For this you need to be asking the following questions:

Will you be able to increase the input quantities on the waste licence?
Is the yard big enough to take the plant you want?
If there’s too much machinery in your yard it can make the operation very difficult to work. Can you get enough waste to feed your new plant?
Is there enough business to justify having a machine that will process twice what you’re currently processing?
Can you physically get the waste to the plant in sufficient quantities to make it viable?

All these questions must be considered in the design of the plant. At SB we looked at the spine of the plant being set out in such a way that additional equipment could be bolted on at a later date without major modifications to the structure of the machine. The paper, cardboard and plastics separation is a classic example.

There might not be enough to warrant separating these materials when you start a new project or the budget might not run to another separation line for this purpose.

So when the plant is designed, make sure what is needed can be retro fitted without having to move the complete machine. Always try and leave enough space to fit a bigger screen or even a shredder at a later date.

Make ’em work hard

Now we had a good idea of what we wanted to do so it was down to the nitty gritty: choosing plant. Be warned. By the time you get to this stage some of the major players in the recycling plant game will be knocking on your door.

A good rep should know what’s what and who’s who in his area and know which companies are crying out for new plant. Now is the time to make these boys earn their corn.

At SB we visited as many plants as we possibly could. It gives you a good idea of what’s available for the money you have to spend, what type of plant will give the best separation for your needs, and at this stage, most importantly, it will give a good indication of the area and height needed for the plant for planning purposes.

Planning ahead

So, with a rough layout drawing of your proposed system it’s time to approach the planning people. At SB, already having a small plant on-site, we thought it would be an easy process to just make the planning permission a bit bigger. Not so!

Because there had been a number of changes – such as the purchase of the yard next door, repositioning of the weighbridge etc – since the old plant was installed, we had to start from scratch. Gaining permission took six months!

There are a number of things that need to be done in the pursuit of your planning permission, which I will come to in greater detail in a later article. At SB we were very lucky in two key areas. Firstly we had Jonathan Fallon, then of Synmet, helping to lay everything out for us on the plans and we were working with Martyn Gregory, the chief planning officer at Wolverhampton planning office. And our relationship with the latter holds a valuable learning point if you are starting up an operation.

Dealing with the planning office can be a frustrating experience but it must be remembered that they are people as well and to a greater or lesser degree tied up with the same red tape as the rest of us. The rules are there; good or bad they can’t be circumvented.

So, if the planning office wants to see the individual parking spaces for employees’ cars on the plan, show them. If they want to see a skip storage area and lorry park to scale, show it. If the scale required is 1:400 and the outline to be marked in red, do it, and not 1:500 and yellow. Do it with a smile on your face and with good grace and show gratitude for any help you get.

In Martyn Gregory we had a planning officer who was genuinely interested in what we were doing, wanted to help and wanted us to succeed. We worked to get him on our side and it made all the difference.

Andrew Hewitt: 07773 715882