Tidy Planet helps fuel London airports
Tidy Planet helps fuel London airports
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Energy recovery plants devised by Tidy Planet for delivery company DHL International Gmbh are now producing 25,500 kilowatts (kW) of heat per day from food waste generated at London’s Heathrow and Gatwick airports.
The technology debuted in November 2016, when Tidy Planet says Gatwick became the world’s first airport to begin disposing of food and catering waste onsite. In 2017, DHL and Tidy Planet will start to process Category 1 International Catering Waste. Previously, 2,200 metric tons of the “high risk” food and packaging materials from non-EU flights had to be sent to licensed hazardous waste incinerators for specialist handling.
Now, the biomass combustion systems can treat the waste safely and compliantly onsite, according to Tidy Planet, “reaping significant environmental benefits in the process.”
“The process begins with pre-sorted organic material being tipped from 600-liter (158-gallon) bins onto a conveyor,” says Tidy Planet’s managing director Simon Webb. “The input material then enters an Untha RS40 four-shaft shredder. Sitting at the front of the line, this machine liberates the organic materials and reduces them to a homogenous 20-millimeter (three-quarters-of-an-inch) particle size, so they can be optimally processed by downstream equipment,” adds Webb.
He continues, “The shredder includes an in-built foreign object protection mechanism, which means unexpected contaminants ranging from teapots to crockery and even metal drums can be processed safely and swiftly, without causing the machine damage.
“The material is then conveyed to our Gobi drying system, where it is exposed to high temperatures to create a powdered biomass fuel,” says Webb. “When it reaches a suitable moisture content of less than 10 percent, it is cooled [and then] a rotary screen sieves out any remaining plastic and foil packaging material.
“The removal of such plastic and foil – which is used in a neighboring energy-from-waste facility – means the result is a certified high-quality biomass fuel that powers DHL’s specially-developed biomass boiler. This heats enough thermal oil to operate the drying system, plus an additional 15,000 kW of energy for space and water heating in Gatwick’s wider buildings,” adds Webb.
Coupled with an onsite materials recovery facility (MRF), the technology is saving approximately £1,000 ($1,280) per day in fuel, transport and waste management costs.
DHL’s Flight Catering Centre at Heathrow was next to close the loop on its catering waste, with a slightly smaller plant that produces 7,500 kW of net energy per day. “There is an Untha organic waste shredder at the front of this DHL facility too,” says Webb. “This one is the RS30 fed via a 120-liter (32-gallon) bin lift. We designed this system so that it could tackle three metric tons per day, but it is comfortably handling five metric tons,” he adds.
“The design process itself took almost five years, part of which involved trials at Untha’s state-of-the-art test center,” Webb remarks. “However, once complete and patented, we knew we’d devised a solution capable of providing a sustainable solution for a number of high hazard commercial entities worldwide. We’re now in talks with supermarkets and food manufacturers through to hotel complexes and hospitals – enquiries have gone through the roof.”
The Tidy Planet managing director concludes, “It’s great to see such high demand for systems that maximize the value of limited resources. This is our single biggest potential for business growth since Tidy Planet was founded in 2001.”
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Source: Recycling Today
Tidy Planet helps fuel London airports
<![CDATA[Energy recovery plants devised by Tidy Planet for delivery company DHL International Gmbh are now producing 25,500 kilowatts (kW) of heat per day from food waste generated at London’s Heathrow and Gatwick airports. The technology debuted in November 2016, when Tidy Planet says Gatwick became the world’s first airport to begin disposing of food and catering waste onsite. In 2017, DHL and Tidy Planet will start to process Category 1 International Catering Waste. Previously, 2,200 metric tons of the “high risk” food and packaging materials from non-EU flights had to be sent to licensed hazardous waste incinerators for specialist handling. Now, the biomass combustion systems can treat the waste safely and compliantly onsite, according to Tidy Planet, “reaping significant environmental benefits in the process.” “The process begins with pre-sorted organic material being tipped from 600-liter (158-gallon) bins onto a conveyor,” says Tidy Planet’s managing director Simon Webb. “The input material then enters an Untha RS40 four-shaft shredder. Sitting at the front of the line, this machine liberates the organic materials and reduces them to a homogenous 20-millimeter (three-quarters-of-an-inch) particle size, so they can be optimally processed by downstream equipment,” adds Webb. He continues, “The shredder includes an in-built foreign…