Member Article

Lancashire Waste boosts SRF production capacity with new UNTHA shredders

Alternative fuel production specialist Lancashire Waste Recycling has halved plant wear costs and further boosted manufacturing capacity with an investment in its sixth UNTHA shredder.

The firm has been making a high-specification Solid Recovered Fuel (SRF) at its Fleetwood site since it was established in 2013. An UNTHA XR2000 pre-shredder fed two TR3200s secondary shredders, to produce a renewable energy source for the cement industry.

But as UNTHA’s engineering innovation continued – to challenge the industry norm of high speed SRF manufacturing – Lancashire Waste worked with the UK division of this global brand to understand how to leverage the potential that next-generation technology could bring.

So when Lancashire Waste opened its second SRF production plant 46 miles away in Burnley, a single UNTHA XR3000C was installed at its heart. This slower speed equipment could produce a quality 40mm fuel in a single pass, without the concerns surrounding downtime or damage when higher speed machines encounter unshreddable items.

Fast forward to 2019, and the growing company wanted to further strengthen its alternative fuel production capabilities. Advanced trials with UNTHA ensued and it became clear that the all-new UNTHA XR3000XC could achieve an on-specification 30mm particle with slightly more throughput than the two TRs combined.

The two Fleetwood post-shredders have now been switched, so that the original XR2000 feeds the XR3000C and the new 85rpm XR3000XC machine. A capacity of 30tph has been achieved.

A 65rpm XR3000XC has also been added to the Burnley line to take hourly throughputs on this site to 20tph.

Commenting on the new fleet of state-of-the-art technology, Lancashire Waste’s founder Jim Entwistle said: “As a business, we’re constantly looking to progress, so consistency and capacity are key to our operation. We work with three UK cement kilns and one export offtaker, and the better quality the fuel, the more our clients seek. We’ve doubled our supply to one kiln, for example, over the past 18 months, so the impact on our business – from savvier waste shredding – is vast.

“Add to this 40% less energy costs, halved wear costs and only minimal damage repairs as we’ve moved away from high speed machines, and the business case for our shredder investment is extremely strong.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Katie Mallinson .