GB2269774A

GB2269774A - Can processing plant

Info

Publication number: GB2269774A
Application number: GB9216067A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Robert Christopher Firbank
Original assignee: Firbank & Sons Ltd C
Current assignee: Firbank & Sons Ltd C
Priority date: 1992-07-28
Filing date: 1992-07-28
Publication date: 1994-02-23
Anticipated expiration: 2012-07-28
Also published as: GB2269774B; GB9216067D0

Abstract

Apparatus for sorting and compacting metal food or drink containers includes a first store 11 for storing a first mixture of containers predominantly of a first metal type, and a second store 32 for storing a second mixture of containers which includes containers of a second metal type. A sorting means 18 is capable of sorting and segregating containers of the first metal type and containers of the second metal type from the second mixture. A feed means eg conveyor 14a communicating with the stores is selectively movable to feed the contents of the first store to a crushing means 22 or the contents of the second store to the sorting means 18. <IMAGE>

Description

CAN PROCESSING PLANT The invention relates to can processing and, more particularly, a processing plant capable of sorting, crushing and baling of metal packaging cans in preparation for recycling of the metal.

Food and drink is packaged in cans made of steel or aluminium, in particular almost all brands of drink are widely obtainable in some kind of metal canister. It has become more common to provide collection "banks" at convenient locations, for example car parks, shopping centres, etc to enable people to dispose of cans. The cans are then collected for disposal or recycling.

Unfortunately, it is not commercially viable to collect empty cans, particularly made of inexpensive steel, and transport the empty cans long distances to a processing plant whereat the cans are smelted for reprocessing. This is due to the large volume to weight ratio of the cans i.e.

cans occupy a large volume but contain a small weight of metal, and also to the fact that the contents of a collection bank may contain a mixture of aluminium or steel and possibly non metallic rubbish.

It is a general aim of the present invention to provide a processing plant whereat cans can be compacted, for example into bales, to substantially reduce their volume to weight ratio for subsequent transport to a processing plant for smelting.

The processing plant is relatively small compared to the smelting plant and can be provided locally in order to service collection banks in the regional vicinity.

Apparatus for sorting and compacting metal food or drink containers including a first store for storing a first mixture of containers predominantly of a first metal type, and a second store for storing a second mixture of containers which includes containers of a second metal type, a sorting means capable of sorting and segregating containers of the first metal type and containers of the second metal type from the second mixture, a crushing means for crushing containers, and a feed means communicating with the stores and being selectively movable to feed the contents of the first store to the crushing means or the contents of the second store to the sorting means.

Preferably the sorting means is in direct communication with the crushing means for feeding containers of the second metal type directly to the crushing means.

Preferably, the containers of the first metal type are made from a non-magnetically attractable metal, eg aluminium and the containers of the second metal type are made from a magnetically attractable metal, eg steel.

Preferably a magnetic sorter is associated with the feed means for removing magnetically attractable containers from the first mixture whilst it is being fed by the feed means to the crushing means.

Preferably the stores are in the form of bunkers having a floor, opposed side walls, an open inlet end and a closeable outlet end. Preferably, a hopper is located beneath the floor of the bunkers to enable the contents of a store to be discharged into the hopper by opening the closeable end and pushing the contents therethrough.

Preferably the feed means includes an elongate conveyor mounted on a pivotally movable frame, the conveyor having an inlet end located adjacent the pivotal axis of the frame, the crushing means and sorting means being located adjacent to the arcuate path described by the outlet end of the conveyor when the frame is moved about its pivot.

Preferably the elongate conveyor is enclosed.

According to another aspect of the present invention there is provided a method of processing waste including metal food containers or drink containers including storing containers predominantly of a first metal type in a first store, and storing a mixture containing containers of a second metal type in a second store, and either (i) feeding the mixture from the second store to a sorter to separate containers of the first and second metal type from one another and feeding containers of a first metal type to the first store and feeding containers of the second metal type to a crushing means, or (ii) feeding the contents of the first store to said crushing means.

Various aspects of the present invention will hereinafter be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Figure 1 is a processing apparatus according to the present invention; Figure 2 is a flow diagram of a preferred operation of the apparatus of Figure 1.

Referring to Figure 1, there is shown a can processing apparatus 10 according to the present invention comprising a first and second store 11,32, feed means 12,13,14 and 40, sorter 18, baling hopper 21 and baling crusher 22.

First store 11 is for storing waste of first metal type, for example aluminium drink cans and second store 32 is for storing a waste mixture including for example waste of a second metal type, e.g. steel drink cans, and for first metal type waste (aluminium cans) and non metallic waste such as plastics. The aluminium is fed from the first store direct to the crusher 22 whereas the mixture is fed first to the sorter 18 then after extracting metal of second type is passed to the crusher 22. Metal of the second type is for example steel.

First and second stores are open top construction comprising opposed side walls 31,33, base 35, access opening 25, and raised end walls 38 including a closable discharge opening 26. The two stores 11,32 are conveniently arranged side by side each sharing a common side wall 31. The base 35 is conveniently contiguous with the ground to allow a vehicle to drive through the access opening 25 onto the base 35 to tip waste directly into the store. The discharge opening 26 preferably comprises a pair of closable gates 36 that are hingedly connected to opposed side walls. The gates 36 are normally closed whilst the stores are being filled with waste.When it is desired to empty a store, the gates 36 are opened and the waste contents of the store are pushed through the opening to be deposited into a reception hopper 40 which forms part of feed means 12,13,14. Emptying of a stcre may be conveniently achieved using an emptying vehicle having a bull dozer type pushing scoop/bucket. Preferably end wall 38 is sufficiently low to prevent the emptying vehicle from passing through the opening 26.

The feed means 12,13,14 and 40 is selectively operable to pass the waste to either the sorter 18 or the baling crusher 22 and comprises a reception hopper 40, and a series of conveyors, for example belt conveyors 12,13 and 14. The reception hopper 40 is of open top construction and is located beneath ground level and abuts the discharge end 26 of the first and second stores 11,32. The hopper 40 includes front wall 52, end wall 41, including a discharge opening 39 and open inlet end 49. Accordingly, if desired large loads of waste material can be deposited by a vehicle tipping into the hopper 40 via open side 49. The back wall of the reception hopper 40 is defined by the end walls 38 and gates 36 of stores 11 and 32. The base of the hopper 40 is defined by inclined floor members 51 located either side of a central belt conveyor 12. Accordingly waste is conveyed out of the hopper 40 by conveyor 12 through discharge opening 39 onto a transfer conveyor 13. Conveyor 13 is inclined and ascends from the aperture 39 and conveyor 12 in order to deposit waste onto a movable conveyor 14.

A segregator 27 located above conveyor 13 and is used for extracting stray waste of the second metal type from that of the first metal type and comprises magnet 53, belt 54 and rack 28 for traversing the magnet between an operative and inoperative position above the conveyor 13.

The segregator 27 is of conventional construction, a suitable segregator being available from Eriez Magnetics Europe Ltd.

Conveyor 14 is selectively moveable between points A and B to carry waste to either the sorter 18, or the baling hopper 21 and comprises enclosed conveyor belt mounted on a position variable frame structure 55. Preferably the conveyor is enclosed by cowling 14a to prevent waste from being blown off the conveyor by wind. The position variable frame structure 55 is pivotally anchored to the ground adjacent the lower inlet end 29 of the conveyor 14 and includes a pair of wheels 30 to enable the frame 55 to move about its pivot. At least one of the wheels 30 is driven by a reversible motor (not shown) for moving the frame 55. The conveyor 14 is attached to frame 55 via a height adjustment means 42 which may be a hydraulic ram or motor driven rack for enabling the height of the discharge end of conveyor 14 to be varied for communication with sorter 18 or baling hopper 21.The motor for driving wheels 30 are controlled by an operator to move the frame 55 carrying the conveyor 14 in an arc about its pivot point between points A and B for communication with the sorter 18 and baling hopper 21 respectively.

Sorter 18 is of the conventional type, supplied for example by Newell Engineering Ltd and referred to as a nonfeffous type separator. The sorter 18 receives waste from conveyor 14 and sorts the waste into three types to be processed. The first type of waste is of the first metal type which is non magnetically attractable, the second is of second metal type which is magnetically attractable and the third is miscellaneous non metallic waste. The first metal type is fed out of the sorter 18 by a conveyor 17 to a bulk load means 19 for return to store 11, the second metal type is fed from the sorter 18 into the baling hopper 21 by means of a conveyor 15. The third type of waste is fed from the sorter via conveyor 16 to a container to be disposed of.The sorter 18 acts on the waste mixture to first separate out the second metal type by magnetic attraction and then separates out the first metal type by instructions to leave the non metallic waste.

Baling hopper 21 is located above the baling crusher 22 for feeding waste to the baling crusher 22 and comprises vertically opposed front, rear and side walls 44,46,35,47 and access port 43. The hopper 21 includes a funnel shaped floor having a closable discharge opening (not shown). The opening is closable to allow waste to accumulate in the hopper before being fed into the baling crusher 22 for baling.

The baling crusher 22 is of the conventional type as supplied for example by Harris Selco; a type 2R 10-50 being suitable. The crusher is located below the baling hopper 21 positioned to receive waste therein for crushing into bales 23 of a standard uniform size and of single metal type. These are collected for despatch to a smelting plant.

Reference is now made to the flow diagram of Figure 2 which is a preferred process for using the processing apparatus 10 wherein aluminium drink cans constitute waste of the second metal type.

Waste which is known to comprise the aluminium cans only is deposited in the first store 11. The source of this waste may be from the sorter 18 or direct from waste collection sites.

Waste which is known to be a mixture of steel cans, and/or aluminium cans and/or general waste is deposited in second store 32 or is directly deposited into the hopper 40 if the load is sufficiently large to warrant processing.

When a suficient quantity of waste is located in store 11 or 32 the waste is fed to the crusher 22 either directly from hopper 40 if waste from store 11 is fed into hopper 40 or indirectly via the sorter 18 if waste from store 32 is fed into the hopper 40.

In order to feed aluminium cans from store 11 to the crusher 22, the conveyor 14 is moved to position B and the segregator 27 is moved to its operative position above conveyor 13. The aluminium cans are then fed from hopper 40 via conveyors 12,13 and 14 into the hopper 21. If there are any stray steel cans located in the store 11, these are removed by the segregator 27 as they pass along conveyor 13. The removed steel cans are returned to store 32.

The aluminium cans are then fed into the crusher 22 from hopper 21 to be crushed into bales for subsequent transport to a smelting plant.

In order to process waste from store 37, the conveyor 14 is moved to position A. Waste from store 32 is then deposited into the hopper 40 and is then conveyed via conveyors 12,13 and 14 to the sorter 18. Since the segregator 27 is not required during feeding of waste from store 32, it is moved to its inoperative position.

The sorter 18 sorts the waste into aluminium, steel and non metallic waste. The aluminium is fed via conveyor 17 into a container where it may be weighed, if desired, and then subsequently returned to store 11 to await processing. The non metallic waste is fed by conveyor 16 into a container (not shown) for disposal. Again this container may be weighed to determine the weight of the non metallic waste. The steel waste is fed directly to hopper 21 by conveyor 15 and is subsequently crushed into bales by crusher 22. The bales of steel are then subsequently transported to a smelting plant.

Claims

1. Apparatus for sorting and compacting metal food or drink containers including a first store for storing a first mixture of containers predominantly of a first metal type, and a second store for storing a second mixture of containers which includes containers of a second metal type, a sorting means capable of sorting and segregating containers of the first metal type and containers of the second metal type from the second mixture, a crushing means for crushing containers, and a feed means communicating with the stores and being selectively movable to feed the contents of the first store to the crushing means or the contents of the second store to the sorting means.

2. Apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the sorting means is in direct communication with the crushing means for feeding containers of the second metal type directly to the crushing means.

3. Apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the containers of the first metal type are made from a nonmagnetically attractable metal and the containers of the second metal type are made from a magnetically attractable metal, and wherein a magnetic sorter is associated with the feed means for removing magnetically attractable containers from the first mixture whilst it is being fed by the feed means to the crushing means.

4. Apparatus according to claim 1, 2 or 3, wherein the stores are in the form of bunkers having a floor, opposed side walls an open inlet end and a closeable outlet end.

5. Apparatus according to claim 4, wherein a hopper is located at a level beneath the floor of the bunkers to enable the contents of a store to be discharged into the hopper by opening the closeable end and pushing the contents therethrough.

6. Apparatus according to any preceding claim, wherein the feed means includes an elongate conveyor mounted on a pivotally movable frame, the conveyor having an inlet end located adjacent the pivotal axis of the frame, the crushing means and sorting means being located adjacent to the arcuate path described by the outlet end of the conveyor when the frame is moved about its pivot.

7. Apparatus for sorting and compacting metal food or drink containers substantially as herein described with reference to and as illustrated in the accompanying drawings.

8. A method of processing waste including metal food containers or drink containers including storing containers predominantly of a first metal type in a first store, and storing a mixture containing containers of a second metal type in a second store, and either (i) feeding the mixture from the second store to a sorter to separate containers of the first and second metal type from one another and feeding containers of a first metal type to the first store and feeding containers of the second metal type to a crushing means, or (ii) feeding the contents of the first store to said crushing means.

9. A method according to claim 8, wherein the first metal type is selected to be a non-magnetically attractable metal and the second metal type is selected to be a. magnetically attractable metal and wherein the contents of the first store when being fed to the crushing means are fed passed a magnetic sorter for removal of the second metal type from said contents.

10. A method of processing waste substantially as herein described with reference to the accompanying drawings.