An equipment upgrade at a Sherbrooke, Quebec materials recovery facility boosted the facility’s capacity from 14 tons per hour to 18 tons per hour and resulted in improved bale quality.
The $2.6 million (Canadian) investment was made last fall at the Récup Estrie facility, which is about 100 miles east of Montreal and sorts about 30,000 tons of material each year. The upgrade was completed by equipment company Machinex Group.
The development was announced in a press release earlier this month.
Machinex Group, which won a public bid to modernize the facility, installed a MACH ballistic separator, which separates two-dimensional materials from three-dimensional items. That allowed the MRF to improve the efficiency of container sorting.
After the ballistic separator, containers head to two MACH Hyspec optical sorters, which target PET and HDPE. Aluminum cans are removed with an eddy current separator.
Machinex also installed disc screens and transfer conveyors.
In addition to the improved capacity that resulted from automating the containing sorting line, the equipment allows for cleaner PET, HDPE and fiber bales. It also resulted in less loss of sought-after plastics. Additionally, the system removes 95 percent of glass at the beginning of the line, according to the press release.
