Newport Hosts one of Europe's largest recycling facilities

Sims Group UK’s Newport operation is one of the biggest recycling sites in Europe and hosts the world’s largest shredder and fridge recycling plant whilst operating to some of the highest standards in the recycling industry.

The operation, run by Sims Group UK - part of the Australian international metals-recycling company - is equipped with the world’s largest industrial shredder, capable of processing 450 end-of-life vehicles an hour. A brand-new gantry crane will also ensure the facility has one of the fastest ship-loading rates for a metals-recycling terminal anywhere in Europe.

In addition, the terminal has a new rail freight facility, which has been part-funded by a £1.72 million Freight Facilities Grant awarded by the Welsh Assembly Government.

The grant was awarded to Associated British Ports (ABP) and Sims Group in June 2003 and formed part of a major multi-millionpound investment programme in which Sims invested some £10 million in commissioning new equipment for the terminal, and ABP, for its part, invested some £3.5 million in major infrastructure works at the port.

One of the main methods for bringing material to the site is the rail freight facility which handles in excess of 60,000 tonnes of scrap metal each year from Wimborne and Nottingham, saving the equivalent of nearly 52,174 lorry trips, or almost seven million road miles, over 10 years.

The heart of the metals-recycling terminal is the giant, 9,200 HP metal-shredding plant which can process 350 tonnes of metal an hour. It is an important piece of machinery, as Tom Bird, Managing Director, Sims Group UK, explains:

"The shredder is the latest design for this type of technology and allows for improved yield of all metals. The shredder will also contribute to the Group’s ongoing investment in technology to recover non-metallic materials, such as plastics and glass, emphasising Sims Group’s stance on a complete and legislatively compliant process for metals recycling and, more specifically, end-of-life-vehicle recycling."

The plant achieves this through a number of operations beginning with the shredder box itself whose purpose is to break products and materials down in size to liberate one material from another. Processes then use the cyclones and the magnetic properties of metal to remove the ferrous and non-ferrous materials from the non-metallic materials. The ferrous metals are then checked for quality before being loaded onto ships from the site’s deep sea dock facility.

This docks facility is capable of loading a 30,000 ton vessel in 72 hours using Sims Group’s gantry crane. Once loaded, the metal is exported to steel mills all over the world where it is recycled back into metal products.

Meanwhile the non-ferrous materials are sent to the Group’s Stratford upon Avon Dense Media operation where further sortation technology is used to separate the material into individual non-ferrous metals such as copper and aluminium.

Research and development at the site is looking to use the sophisticated plant and other new processes to recover non-metallic materials such as rubber and plastics from the remaining shredder waste; a development critical for Sims Group if it is to meet the requirements for recycling and recovery in the End of Life Vehicle legislation.

Alongside this operation, the site also hosts a metals recycling yard that deals with heavier fractions of metal that are unable to be processed by the shredder. Finally, Sims’ Fridge Recycling Plant, is also based in Newport, and is capable of recovering the Ozone Depleting Substances and recycling the various material fractions of up to one million fridges a year.

For further information about Sims Group contact:

Myles Pilkington Sims Group UK, Marketing and Communications Manager

Tel: 07760 344 230

Email: mpilkington@uk.sims-group.com  

Website: www.sims-group.com