Haulaway boosts recovery rates with new recycling plant.
Established in 1991, Haulaway Limited has grown into a thriving third-generation family business based in Hailsham, East Sussex. Led by owner Colin Holloway, his wife Julie, their three children—Lisa (Office Manager), Sam (Operations Manager), Cara (Head of HR) and Steve Walton (Business development Director)—the company has flourished with the support of nearly 50 dedicated staff members.
From humble beginnings with just two skip lorries, Haulaway has expanded its fleet to 21 vehicles, including skip lorries, 8-wheel tippers, a grab lorry, and a variety of rolonof and articulated vehicles. The company offers an array of services beyond skip hire, including tipper and grab hire, roll on roll off hire, bulk haulage, cardboard collection, trade waste disposal and a plastic recycling plant.
As Haulaway continues to grow, so does the volume of recyclable material they handle. This increase necessitated the installation of a new recycling plant to process their Dry Mixed Recycling (DMR) stream. After an extensive tender process, Haulaway selected Blue Machinery (Southern) to install the cutting-edge recycling plant at their Polegate Distribution Facility. Blue Southern assembled some of the world’s leading manufacturers including Westeria, Tomra, BRT Hartner, and M&J to create a state-of-the-art system.
The Process
The process begins with material being fed into an M&J K210 7 Knife shredder. This functions both as a bag opener and shredder, efficiently opening bags but negating the blockages from a mixed feedstock that you get from a traditional bag-opener. The shredded material is perfectly sized at approximately 400mm for the optical sorters used later in the process.
Next, the material travels via a conveyor to the first quality control picking station where contaminants are removed before the main process. The remaining material moves on to a BRT Hartner ballistic separator, which sorts 2D materials from 3D materials and produces a 0-50mm ballistic fines. The 3D material is then passed through an overband magnet to extract ferrous metals before an eddy current system removes non-ferrous metals.
The remaining 3D material proceeds to a second manual picking station where 3D carboard and various grades of plastic are recovered. Concurrently, the 2D material from the ballistic separator is directed to the first Tomra 2800 optical sorter, which removes film from the material. The remaining material then passes through a second Tomra optical sorter which takes the OCC leaving a mixed paper product as the drop fraction.
The plant has been cleverly reverse engineered meaning that optical sorters can easily be added to the 3D line in the future.
Capable of processing up to 10 tons per hour, the new plant became operational in March, and Haulaway is already seeing significant benefits. Sam Holloway, Operations Manager, commented, "The plant has been running smoothly for a few months now and has significantly increased our material recovery rates from our DMR waste stream."
Haulaway’s close working relationship with Blue Southern has stood the test of time, with the latter having supplied recycling plants and mobile machinery to the customer since the early 2000s. Sam noted, "During the tender process, we considered various options from different suppliers. Ultimately, our trust in Blue Machinery was the deciding factor. Once we had spoken to Tom Rutherford (Projects and Applications Manager) at Blue Southern, he had sold us on the plant. His knowledge and passion for plant design and build is unmatched.”
Haulaway Limited's commitment to innovation and efficiency continues to drive their success, setting a high standard for recycling and waste management in the industry.