Mid Devonshire County Council

Mid Devonshire County Council Case Study

What they asked us: How do we start automating our material recovery process?

Baler and picking line specialists Whitham Mills have scored a record 99.6% for qualitative marks in the recent Mid Devin District Council (MDDC) local authority tender for a new mini-MRF.

The 99.6% score represents the highest qualitative tender mark in Whitham Mills’ history and sets a new benchmark for all future tender work.

MDDC has been running an in house recycling service which needed to be relocated in July 2014 to new premises. The existing baler system was deemed to be no longer fit for purpose and required replacing with a modern, future-proofed mini-MRF system. Whitham Mills were one of ten companies to tender for the new baling system.

Whitham Mills have installed a mini-MRF for MDDC that allows for some automated material separation with an eddy current and over band magnet. Together with three balers, a picking line and a perforator for plastic bottles, the new system will allow greater throughput and material diversity for MDDC. The new MDDC depot in Tiverton can now automatically sort some co-mingled material and also have a sorting platform to enable manual sorting that meets the district’s recycling needs.

Whitham Mills successfully completed the installation in July, allowing MDDC to now be able to collect and process:

• HDPE
• Steel cans
• Aluminium cans
• Cardboard
• Mixed plastics
• Tetra Paks
• Foil
• Carrier bags

With a record time for install of 2 month turnaround time, Whitham Mills were delighted with the achievement.

Managing Director Ben Smart commented, “the new management team at Whitham Mills are proud to see the advances the company has made over the last 12 months. The quality of our tender work, service back up and baling system quality are getting more and more recognition all the time”.