TOMRA helps Green Recycling achieve its goal

 Monday, January 2, 2023

TOMRA plays a key role in helping Green Recycling achieve its goal of establishing the UK’s first picker-less C&I MRF. Essex-based waste management and recycling solutions provider, Green Recycling, has achieved its goal of becoming the UK’s first picker-less C&I MRF thanks to investment in sensor-based sorting equipment from TOMRA Recycling Sorting.

Green Recycling initially installed one of TOMRA’s AUTOSORT units at its C&I MRF in Maldon, Essex, in November 2021 to recover fibre from the end of its process line. This not only doubled the plant’s paper and cardboard production from c.50 tonnes to 100 tonnes per week, but also enabled the company to redeploy four employees – who had previously been manually picking paper and cardboard – into new, more technically-skilled and appealing roles in the plant. Then, in July 2022, Green Recycling shut down the plant to enable the installation of four additional AUTOSORT units, with the full optimisation of all five units taking place at the start of August. The additional units are programmed to automatically recover plastic film, cardboard, wood, bottles and other rigid plastics, while the original AUTOSORT unit has switched to recover mixed office paper.

Jamie Smith, Operations Director at Green Recycling, comments: “The four additional AUTOSORT units from TOMRA were the final piece in the jigsaw for our picker-less MRF project. The COVID-19 pandemic made us realise that we needed to change the business model and move away from our reliance on manual picking. We have always had a keen interest in automation and artificial intelligence, so over the past 18 months we have invested heavily in automation to enhance our screening, sizing and separation operations, including ballistic separators, automated magnets and eddy current separators. Thanks to this investment, and the addition of the additional four latest generation AUTOSORT units, we can safely say that we are now operating a picker-less MRF and all our former picking staff have been redeployed into other roles within the business.”

Tags: AUTOSORT, C&I MRF, Covid-19, Green recycling, Recycling, TOMRA, wood, wood and panel, woodworking and manufacturing, woodworking industry, woodworking UK