The Southern Lights

It’s grim up North, the saying goes, but not if you are into recycling says south coast-based landfill operations manager for New Milton Sand and Ballast (NMSB) Darren Hazell. He has piles of mixed plastic from his skip waste operation but few routes to market. However, this isn’t stopping NMSB from nurturing a successful aggregate and soil recycling operation along with an ambitious restoration plan for their old workings. MQR visited the 100,000tonne a year site to take a look at the troublesome southern lights.

According to Defra 1.5milion tonnes of plastic waste is currently landfilled each year. It’s a figure that does not surprise New Milton Sand & Ballast landfill operations manager Darren Hazell.

As the horizontal winter rain drives across his 20acre waste processing operation near Lymington in Hampshire all he can do is watch his large volumes of mixed plastic twitch in the December wind as it waits to be landfilled.

While the not-for-profit plastics industry organization Recoup says reprocessor demand for plastics outstrips supply by three times, Hazell says he is certainly not seeing any of the action.

“Plastics are a real problem. We are picking out a load of high grade materials but cannot get rid of it. We have no choice but to landfill it and I know it is to do with our geographical location,” he told MQR.

And he has a point. A quick search through Recoup’s plastics reprocessor database throws up 11 in the Liverpool, Bolton and Manchester area alone but only four stretching from Kent across the south coast to Dorset.

Although figures are sketchy it is estimated that up to two thirds of plastics coded from 1-6 are exported from the UK each year to be processed. In fact, Recoup told MQR its advice to Hazell was “Find an exporter. Demand is high in China currently.”

But plastic is not the only light fraction to be troublesome. A general lack of manufacturing outlets also means markets such as chipboard makers for wood chip are also in short supply. Again, it’s a fact of things being a bit grim down south.

“The bigger players of the recycling industry are all up north. There is a strong manufacturing base there and this allows markets to develop. This is not the case in our area and we are limited by transport costs,” he says.

However, these problems haven’t stopped NMSB from developing a successful and diverse materials offering, as well as producing material for restoring its old quarry workings.

Recycled asphalt, concrete, sand, compost and soil all play a part while NMSB is on the brink of taking all of Viola’s green waste south and south west of the New Forest.

“The local council are keen to meet household targets so it looks like the composting side of our business is going to grow. The council doesn’t want the green waste going out of this area across the New Forest to Andover where there is a big composting facility,” he says.

Hazell jumped ship from his position as RMC quarry manager when the company was bought by Cemex.

Originally in charge of a range of operations he found his responsibilities cut down to just one quarry under the Mexicans’ restructuring.

Craving a challenge he took the position at NMSB and is developing its waste and recycled materials operations, which he says is “a breath of fresh air”. And his understanding of quarry products is coming in useful. An example is his blended products.

Concrete from NMSB’s excavation spoil removal service is crushed in an old Extec and screened to produce dust-14mm, 14mm-50mm and 50mm to oversize. These are then blended to customize 6F1 or 6F2, explains Hazell.

“Some customers want these products slightly grainier others finer. It is a lot more work but by blending the three sizes to create a custom made product we can give the customers what they want. And because of this we find they come back to us again,” he says.

Winter is the crushed concrete time of year. Bad weather chews up construction site entrances and recycled material works out cheaper than primary when it comes to temporary roads. So business is brisk. But Hazell is generally finding markets up and down.

“We see 1,000tonnes go out one week and then a bit quiet and then a large order will come in again. We are certainly not short of business but it is difficult to build patterns,” he explains.

To help out in building a more regular demand pattern he would like to see Hampshire Council introduce secondary aggregate into low strength concrete. Instead it tends to shy away from using recycled, he says. Then there is the product name.

“Calling them recycled materials is a bad term really. We need something new. I feel this would go a long way towards helping sell it. It is a quality product and not second rate but the name sends the wrong message,” he says.

Processes at the site are split into three areas. These comprise the materials from its excavations business, those from its SMS skip service and a soils screening section feeding its restoration from its sand and gravel quarrying activities.

Excavation spoil from its tipper service enters a Masterscreen to deal with oversize before entering an M&K trommel set at 30mm to separate soils into two bays. The soil then goes for restoration at another part of the 400acre former quarry workings. Oversize arisings go to the Extec for crushing.

Hazell admits he is losing a lot of aggregate through the trommel process and is considering further separation processes and washing plant. But it is a case of steady as you go, he says: “Screening is relatively cheap but water management, that is costly.”

The over 30mm material then carries on through to an overband for metals and then into a blower for lights. A small picking station is positioned at the end to take care of the heavier items of wood not picked up by the blower.

Any asphalt from excavations is kept separately and crushed and screened to 60mm down and then used to top off roads, especially at its own quarries. As Hazell says: “Our Ringwood quarry has a long haul road often in need of some dressing up.”

The commercial skip waste side of the business he wants to develop further as the company has waste transfer stations in the Fawley and Bournemouth areas. But again it is a matter of investment. “Picking stations are expensive to install and run,” he says.

The skip waste process starts with a Fuchs grab-sorting aside the timber. This goes to a Hammel secondary shredder. The end product is mixed with his green waste compost as an experimental product, but until the Viola contract kicks in green waste levels are low.

Metals are also mostly sorted by the grab. These go to a scrap yard near the site. The grab also takes off the larger plastics and cardboard which are both currently landfilled.

The remainder of the waste which is mostly wood, brick, rubble and the smaller pieces of plastic and steel missed by the grab enter a three-year-old Hammel primary shredder where an overband deals with rogue metals.

After the Hammel, the material enters a General Kinematics (GK) density separator with blower. A GK water bath separates the rubble from the wood – a process Hazell says is “OK but not 100%”. He is looking for another solution to get the material streams purer.
Any rubble or oversize falls into the bath and is conveyed out one way while wood that floats on the bath goes back into system. This then enters a Jenz shredder which reduces the wood to 20mm-dust.

Hazell’s predecessor used this material as inert for restoration, a practice he has put a halt to. The reason is that it contains plastic contamination which not only stops him from using it in a soil mix for the site but also from selling it. But a solution is now in sight.

Since he started at NMSB last year Hazell has been stockpiling the material but now he has signed on the dotted line for a Pearson starscreen. The material will be reprocessed so it is clean enough to become compost and join his reclaimed inert soils and soil improver for restoration and selling on.

He has chosen the smaller 12 shaft Astro starscreen model, which offers the ability to add further shafts should the process demand it. It will replace the Jenz and be covered by a mobile Timik suction hood which will effectively vacuum off the plastics. It is a piece of plant that is suddenly gaining a lot of interest.

The Environment Agency will be stepping up the pressure on waste acceptance criteria (WAC) compliance from this April and Michael Coleman, owner of agricultural specialist Timik UK, told MQR, he is feeling the effect.

“We traditionally deal with agriculture but now with farmers seeking to diversify and waste operators worrying about WAC enforcement our business has shifted towards recyclers and waste operators.

“Testing the waste market a couple of years ago people were ‘yes I like the product but there is no need for it’. Now it is totally different,” he said (see more page 22).

NMSB’s restoration of the former quarry workings at its waste site in which the material is used is best described as ambitious. And it is not over-the-top to say a sure future contender for the Cooper-Heyman cup at the annual QPA restoration awards.

Work your way past a large Masterscreen, mountains of recycled soils and the 20mm-dust Jenz produced stockpiles and you are met by a vast partially restored land-form comprising two lakes stretching across a panorama.

The first lake has three mounded islands. Two are destined to become nesting sites for birds while the other will be a hide for twitchers. The second lake to the right is backed by fresh tree-planting. The target is for a wetland haven for wild birds. And this is not all.

The lakes will feed into the nearby rapidly receding Keyhaven marshes – a 2,000acre Hampshire Wildlife Trust reserve covering saltings and mudflats forming a large part of the Hurst Castle/Lymington river estuary Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).

In the winter when the waters rise it will be a single wetland and NMSB will be planting willow shrubs to help create the new environment. In the summer when the waters fall it will become two separate lakes.

“In between the lakes and the marshes we are going to install a weir system that will control the water. So if the marshes dry out in the hot weather we can use the water from the lakes to keep then wet. Water can flow between the lakes,” explains Hazell.

Another section of the former workings on the site Hazell is hoping to turn into agricultural land, if he secures permission from the county council and the Environment Agency.

He is mixing his secondary soils, recycled compost – to include material from the starscreen – and a soil improver. First tests back on the improver were mixed. However, not to be put off, Hazell is now sending samples away monthly. “I know we will get it right, it is just a matter of time,” he says.

There is no doubt Hazell is stamping his mark on the operation and his quarrying background is helping, and not just in terms of product development. “Safety is my highest priority and business comes after this,” he says.

He knows to get the recycling mix right is a long process but visiting other sites across the UK he is sure NMSB is “going down the right route”.

And after walking around the site you can’t help but feel he is right. And when NMSB wins the Copper Heyman cup MQR will be the first to say, we told you so. Perhaps the QPA could even throw in a slow boat to China for a prize? For the plastics, that is!