Investing in Excellence pays off for Mick George Ltd

The Company

Mick George started his business in 1976, in Ramsey, Cambridgeshire with one lorry, offering muck away and transport services to the construction industry. 40 years later, his fleet is now 290 vehicles strong and the business has diversified to encompass quarrying, waste processing & recycling, contracting, plant hire and of course transport. Mick George Ltd is a major business in the Midlands and East Anglia, with 24 operational sites throughout the region. Today, with the most recent turnover reported at over £97m, record profits (recognised in the Fast Track & Sunday Times Profit Track 100 awards for the last 2 years) and a workforce of almost 750 people, it is impossible to drive the roads of the region without encountering a Mick George vehicle, in their distinctive white livery. And as the business continues to grow, through both acquisition and organic development, Mick’s Son Michael is now fully engaged in the management of the business, alongside the other directors of this dynamic company, headed up by Mick George himself, just as it was when he first started out in business.

The challenge

The St Ives site was purchased in 1999 and started operating as a waste site in 2006. Once further sites were purchased and our other Transfer Stations opened, St Ives soon became a hub for other facilities.

Landfill sites were also acquired and it soon became apparent to the management team that the rapid growth in waste volumes and the continual increase in HMRC Landfill Tax, meant that a new approach to this market segment was required. Restricted space at the existing sites, the need to sort material to achieve higher recovery rates and growing demand for its services, all led Michael George, Contracts Director, to look for a fresh solution to these issues.

Michael is a man with very clear ideas about where he wants to go with this business sector. His requirements were to ensure that the company bought the best product for its purposes, with reliability and long service life being crucial. Premium price is not an issue as long as quality and overall value for money is present in the final choice of product. He also wanted to ensure that the final choice of plant incorporated the very latest in sorting technology, to maximise recovery rates and to utilise all processed material, to meet the goal of zero waste to landfill. This would even include the >10mm material, which would be processed at a specialist washing plant, owned by Mick George and located at Mepal. An 18 month review of the market finally led Michael to conclude that the supplier best able to meet his exacting requirements was Kiverco. Interestingly, during this review, Michael discovered that he was actually already operating an older Kiverco plant, purchased many years before and which had given (and continues to give) good service for the business.

The solution

Having concluded that Kiverco would be able to provide the solution needed to support this rapidly growing segment of the business, detailed negotiations were conducted to determine the optimum solution for the business and crucially, to support future growth expectations. An important requirement was for the plant to be capable of simultaneously handling mixed waste streams, to cope with the growing diversity of the company’s waste collection business.

Every Kiverco plant is uniquely designed to meet the requirements of the individual customer. In this case, the demands of the customer, together with the site layout and Kiverco’s vast knowledge of similar material processing requirements, led to the following solution being proposed.

Process description

1. Material is loaded into the pan feeder which has adjustable speed to help give a consistent flow of material into the plant. The machine operator loading the system is responsible for ensuring that items likely to cause blockages are not loaded into the system and that the material is loaded evenly onto the belt feeder to prevent surging and give a consistent feed.

1. Material is conveyed to the waste screen (finger screen) which separates the material into two streams approximately 0-350mm and +350mm.

1. Oversize material from the screen (>350mm) is conveyed through a picking cabin, at this point operatives are responsible for ensuring that no unsuitable material reaches the shredder, e.g. oversize concrete/stone, large pieces of structural steel etc. that are likely to block the shredder or cause excessive wear.

1. Remaining oversize material is conveyed to the shredder where it is shredded to approximately 350mm and merged with the undersize (<350mm from the waste screen)

The shredder is fitted with a hopper to allow direct feeding of bulky/light waste to be shredded.

1. Material passes under an in-line electro magnet, operating in the direction of the material flow. This removes ferrous metals from the process and conveys them into a chute which directs the metal down to a bin.
2. Material is conveyed to a Spaleck combi-screen, with 80mm aperture top deck and 20mm aperture flip-flow bottom deck. 0-20mm (Fines) falls to a bay beneath the screen. This screen, as the name implies, gives the operator both high throughput and diverse screening capability.
3. Midsize material (20-80mm) is conveyed to a 2-way density separator, separating the light materials from the heavy fraction (mostly stone)
4. Oversize material (80-350mm) is conveyed to a 3-way Walair density separator which separates in 2 stages
   1. Heavy fraction (mostly stone & hard-core) is dropped out
   2. Mid heavy fraction, mostly wood, rigid plastics and other assorted, which is dropped out at the second point
   3. Heavy fraction from point 7 is combined with the heavy fraction from point 8 and passes beneath a Steinert over-band magnet as a final check point for removal of any remaining ferrous metals.
   4. Heavy fraction is then conveyed through a picking cabin where operatives remove any remaining contamination leaving a clean stone/hard-core fraction off the end of the belt to a storage bay
   5. Mid fraction is conveyed to an optical sorter which, depending on the material composition can be set to either eject mixed wood, or eject all other materials from the mixed wood.
   6. The eject fraction and drop fraction from point 11 are conveyed up either side of a split conveyor through a picking cabin where operatives can cross pick between each side of the belt and also remove any other contaminants as well as having an additional bay for a specific product

Depending on the material composition, mixed plastics can either be positively picked into a bay, or other contaminants can be picked to leave plastic going off the end of the belt to another bay.

1. Light fraction from point 8 is conveyed through a picking cabin where operatives have the opportunity to remove recyclable materials dropping them into storage bays beneath as required.
2. Light fraction residue from point 7 is combined with residue from point 13 in a storage bay, ready for further processing.

Kiverco chose to use high specification picking cabins throughout the plant, with full HVAC systems, larger windows and higher ceilings, to make spacious and comfortable working areas. All plant PLC controls are housed in a bespoke air conditioned and climate controlled cabin. A full CCTV system was also installed, with the monitor located in the control room. An indication of the scale of this plant can be gained by the fact that it took 41 articulated vehicle loads to transport the components from Northern Ireland to Cambridgeshire.

Both parties worked closely together during the extensive installation and commissioning phases, with Kiverco having been given full access to the site, to enable the experienced team of engineers and electricians, together with specialists from Untha, Steinert and Walair to come together to ensure that the demanding programme was adhered to. The plant will also be fully supported by Kiverco engineers, under a Kivercare bespoke inspection and maintenance programme to ensure maximum uptime over the life of the plant.

Quotations

Michael George, Contracts Director, Mick George Ltd said:

“I have been delighted with my choice of plant builder. We now have a facility that I believe to be the best in East Anglia and which will enable us to meet our planned growth targets over the coming years. Waste management and recycling is a core activity for this business. It was critically important not only that our chosen supplier had the experience to design and build this plant, but that they were also willing to listen to what we wanted and then incorporate our requirements into the final plant design and build. I was confident that Kiverco could do this and I have not been disappointed.”

John Lines, Sales and Marketing Director, Kiverco said

“Mick George Ltd is a very progressive company and their activities in waste management and recycling are growing significantly. They are a major regional business and we were delighted to have been chosen to design, build and commission this flagship facility, which utilises some of the best available equipment and very latest plant designs, to provide them with a flexible, high volume solution to their waste processing needs.”