Recycling Your Skip and Household Waste

Step 1

Pre-sort. Only one skip is tipped in each bay at a time and larger waste types are removed via a 360 grab (wood, metal, cardboard, green waste etc). All of this is done in an enclosed building and the waste is sorted immediately, which makes it easier to recycle as it reduces contamination.

Step 2

After the pre-sort, the remaining waste from skips is too small to separate via a 360 grab (e.g. soil, rubble, concrete, small bits of plastic, wood, paper, metal etc.) All of these individual waste types can be recycled as useful resources. To ensure nothing is wasted, we feed this material into our bespoke machinery; designed by our directors and installed by our own engineers.

Step 3

A trommel then separates the waste types by size. An air knife blows off material that is light (e.g. plastic cement bags and paper) and the smaller, heavier material passes to another section of the plant. The oversized material reaches a belt where two operatives remove any large items (wood, plastic, metal etc) that isn’t hardcore material. The large hardcore material drops off the end of the belt and is recycled as aggregate.

Step 4

The smaller material (less than 80mm) that fell through the trommel drops onto a belt. This passes under a magnet, which removes ferrous metals. The material then drops onto a vibrating screen, which has two levels that screen different sizes. The smaller material (less than 6mm) passes into another section of the plant. The larger material (6-80mm) is passed onto another series of belts, via a waste separator.

Step 5

The waste separator machine acts similarly to a magnet but instead uses suction to extract small lightweight contaminants (e.g. small polystyrene balls, tiny pieces of paper, wood) that are too small to be removed by hand or air knives. These items are collected in a compactor and once full, this is emptied into our RDF shed where it is processed into fuel.

Step 6

After passing the waste separator, the remaining material is sent along another picking belt where two operatives remove any other waste contaminants that have passed through. The remaining material then passes under a second magnet which removes smaller metal items (nails, screws etc). The final hardcore material falls off the belt and into a bay, where it can be recycled as aggregates.

Step 7

The only material we have left is the soil and fines (less than 6mm). This falls through onto a belt which deposits the material in a separate enclosed building. Processes 1-7 allow us to separate waste types from large bulky items such as mattresses, shed doors etc. to very small materials such as aggregate of 6-80mm to soil and fines of less than 6mm.

Step 8

When waste is transferred from the producer to a waste contractor, the producer must fulfil their duty of care (Environmental Protection Act 1990) and adhere to Regulation 12 of the Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2011 to apply the waste hierarchy. To best meet the waste hierarchy, everything we do at our site ensures that the above is adhered to. We are the only skip hire company in East Norfolk capable of doing all this in-house using machinery we have refined from over 37 years’ experience.

Step 9

Any non-recyclable bulky waste collected from skips is shredded and this is sent to our Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) building. Mixing waste in this way ensures that we achieve the correct specification to optimise the energy recovery process.

See below for more information on RDF.

Step 1

Municipal waste received from large waste companies is tipped inside our enclosed Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) building, where it’s mixed with dry, non-recyclable, shredded waste which has been recovered from our processing of skips.

Step 2

The baler compacts the material into a bale approximately weighing 1.2 tonnes. The bale is then strapped with recycled plastic ties. The bale then passes onto a belt where it is taken to the cross-wrap.

Step 3

The bales are wrapped with several layers of recycled plastic film. This seals the bale so it can be safely stored and then transported to the energy recovery facility.

Step 4

The finished bales are placed in the yard where they await collection by fully-licensed hauliers. The non-recyclable waste has now been transformed into a resource; Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF). Traditionally this material would have been sent to landfill, but this is no longer the case. It is now used as a direct replacement for fossil fuels.

Step 5

The bales are loaded onto articulated vehicles which transport the RDF to highly-efficient energy recovery facilities within the UK and Europe. We back-load trailers that have delivered consumer goods to the UK which would normally return to Europe empty which enables the transport process to be carbon-neutral. Nothing is wasted during the RDF energy recovery process.