JPH04354577A - Sorting and recovering device for drink container - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide the sorting and recovering device which can sort and recover various and diversified drink containers, such as empty cans, empty bottles and paper packs, respectively by kinds. CONSTITUTION:Various kinds of the drink containers 1 charged into a hopper 12 are sorted to the empty cans 2, the empty bottles 3 and the paper packs in a can and bottle sorting device section 14. The empty cans are compressed in a can compressing and sorting device section 16 and are sorted to compressed aluminum cans 4 and compressed steel cans 5 by the effect of the magnetic force of a magnet roller 50. These cans are recovered into respective recovering containers 54, 56. The empty bottles are sorted by sorting sensors 58, 60 and a screening machine 62 to brown glass bottles 6, blue glass bottles 7 and transparent glass bottles 8. These bottles are crushed by glass crushing machines 70, 74 and respective kinds of the glass cullet after the crushing are separately recovered into a recovering container 76. The paper packs are sorted from the glass cullet by the floating and sinking when the paper packs are charged into a water tank 22.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

0001

[Industrial Application Field] This invention is applicable to empty cans such as aluminum cans and iron cans (steel plate cans) after drinking beverages such as soft drinks and alcoholic beverages, and empty bottles such as brown and blue colored glass bottles and transparent glass bottles. Furthermore, the present invention relates to a beverage container sorting and recovery device that separates various miscellaneous beverage containers such as paper cartons by type, and collects empty cans and empty bottles by reducing their bulk.

0002

[Prior Art] In recent years, due to the spread of vending machines and their convenience, can containers made of aluminum or steel sheets have been widely used as containers for beverages such as soft drinks and alcoholic beverages.
It is thought that the amount of can containers used will continue to increase in the future. However, most of these cans are not collected and are only used once. In particular, aluminum cans require a huge amount of electricity to refine, so despite the fact that they are mostly imported from foreign countries in the form of semi-finished products (ingots), the recycling rate of aluminum cans in Japan is is only about 5%, which is extremely low at 1/5 to 1/10 compared to developed countries.

[0003] One of the reasons for the low recycling rate of empty cans
The first is that it takes a lot of effort to sort and collect empty cans by material. Recently, from the perspective of effective resource use and garbage disposal issues, some local governments and local residents have been working together to separate and collect empty cans, etc., but nationwide this has not been very effective. The reality is that there is not.

[0004] Therefore, for example, Utility Model Application Publication No. 57-14089
Publication No. 1, Publication of Utility Model Publication No. 58-143098, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 1983
1-165299 etc., a detector detects the material of an empty can put into an empty can inlet and determines whether the material of the empty can is ferromagnetic (iron can) or non-magnetic (aluminum can). There has been disclosed an empty can sorting and recovery device that separates empty cans according to their type of material, compresses the empty cans using a press device, and guides each material to separate collection boxes for recovery.

[0005]

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] When the empty can separation and recovery equipment described in the above publications is used, aluminum cans and iron cans can be separated and recovered. , when there are various types of beverage containers mixed together, such as empty bottles such as brown or blue colored glass bottles and transparent glass bottles, as well as paper cartons for milk, fruit drinks, soft drinks, etc.
First, it is necessary to separate empty cans from other items. In addition, even if empty cans can be collected separately using an empty can separation and collection device, at the same time, empty bottles must be separated into different colored glass bottles and transparent glass bottles for collection, and only paper cartons must be sorted and disposed of. It is not possible. Therefore,
As before, they had to be done manually.

[0006] This invention not only makes it possible to separate and collect empty cans, but also to separate and collect empty bottles according to the type of glass material they are made of, and also to sort out paper cartons even if they are mixed in with waste products. The technical problem is to provide a device for sorting and collecting beverage containers.

[0007]

[Means for Solving the Problems] The present invention provides a beverage container sorting and recovery device including a hopper into which various empty beverage containers are placed, and a hopper that separates aluminum cans, iron cans, and various glass bottles among the various beverage containers. A can/bottle sorting means for separating empty cans, a can compressor for compressing empty cans, a can sorting means for sorting empty cans according to the presence or absence of magnetism, a glass bottle sorting means for sorting empty bottles according to whether or not they are colored and the type of coloring, and glass bottles. A glass crusher for crushing into cullet, and a paper pack sorting means for separating paper packs from glass cullet or compressed cans,
In addition, a waste liquid reservoir and a plurality of collection containers were provided.

[0008] In the sorting and recovery apparatus having the above configuration, when various beverage containers are put into the hopper, the can/bottle sorting means separates empty aluminum cans and iron cans from various types of glass bottles. The empty cans are separated into aluminum cans and iron cans by a can sorting means, and compressed by a can compressor before or after the separation. Further, various types of glass bottles are separated into, for example, brown glass bottles, blue glass bottles, and transparent glass bottles by a glass bottle sorting means, and each is crushed into cullet by a glass crusher. Further, paper packs are separated from glass cullet by paper pack sorting means, for example, by floating up and down when placed in a water tank, or from compressed cans depending on whether they are conductive or nonconductive. Further, residual liquid remaining inside empty cans, empty bottles, and paper packs when they are put into the hopper and flowing out from them during each of the above processes is stored in a waste liquid reservoir. The separated aluminum compression cans, iron compression cans, various glass cullets, and paper packs are stored separately in a plurality of collection containers.

[0009]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a schematic cross-sectional view showing the general structure of a beverage container sorting and collection device which is an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining a series of operating steps in this sorting and recovery apparatus.

This beverage container sorting and recovery device includes a hopper 12, a can/bottle sorting device section 14, a can compression/sorting device section 16, a glass bottle sorting device section 18, a glass crushing device section 20, and a glass/paper crushing device section 20 in a casing 10. It is constructed by disposing a separation water tank 22, a plurality of conveyor belt conveyors 24, 26, 28, a plurality of collection containers, and a waste liquid reservoir 30.

A first conveyor belt 24 is connected to the hopper 12, and the empty aluminum cans and iron cans, the empty brown and blue colored glass bottles, and the empty transparent glass bottles are fed into the hopper 12. Beverage containers 1 such as bottles or even paper packs are transported to the can/bottle sorting device section 14 by a first conveyor belt 24 . The can/bottle sorting device section 14 consists of a rotating inspection table 32 consisting of a motor 34, a vertical rotation shaft 36 rotated by the motor 34, and a horizontal mounting plate 38 held by the vertical rotation shaft 36, and a metal It is composed of a sorting sensor 40. The horizontal mounting plate 38 is rotatably movable in a horizontal plane, and is supported so as to be rotatable downward about a horizontal axis based on a signal from the metal sorting sensor 40 . Through holes are formed at positions that should face each other.

Then, the beverage container 1 is placed in the hopper 12, transported by the first conveyor belt 24, and placed on the horizontal mounting plate 38 of the rotating inspection table 32 facing the metal sorting sensor 40. Then, the metal sorting sensor 40 determines whether the beverage container 1 is an empty can such as an aluminum can or iron can, or a glass bottle or paper pack.
The determination is made by detecting the presence or absence of conductivity. Based on the output signal of the metal sorting sensor 40, when the beverage container 1 is an aluminum can or an iron can, the horizontal mounting plate 38 rotates downward at that position, and the empty can 2 is placed in the can collection hopper 42. drop it to On the other hand, when the beverage container 1 is a glass bottle or a paper pack, the motor 34 drives the horizontal mounting plate 3.
8 is rotated by 180 degrees, and then the horizontal mounting plate 38 is rotated downward at that position, thereby dropping the empty bottle 3 (or paper pack) into the bottle collection hopper 44.

One end of an empty can transport belt conveyor 26 is connected to the vicinity of the lower outlet of the can collection hopper 42, and a can compression/sorting device section 16 is disposed at the other end of the empty can transport belt conveyor 26. has been done. Can compression/separation device section 1
Reference numeral 6 denotes a first can compression roller 46 and a second can compression roller 48 that compress empty cans, a magnet roller 50 that magnetically attracts a ferromagnetic iron material, and this magnet roller 5.
a scraper 52 for peeling off the adsorbed object from 0, and
It consists of a drive mechanism (not shown) that rotates each roller 46, 48, 50.

The empty cans 2 supplied from the empty can conveyor belt conveyor 26 to the can compression/sorting device section 16 are compressed by three rollers 46, 48, and 50, and the aluminum 9 compressed cans 4 are transferred to the aluminum can recovery system. It falls into the container 54. Also,
The compressed iron can 5 is attracted to the magnetic roller 50 , and when the magnetic roller 50 rotates and moves to the upper position of the iron can collection container 56 , it is peeled off from the magnetic roller 50 by the scraper 52 and removed from the iron can collection container 56 . Fall inwards.

On the other hand, near the lower outlet of the bottle collection hopper 44, one end side of an empty bottle conveyor belt conveyor 28 is connected, and in the middle of the empty bottle conveyor belt conveyor 28, a brown glass bottle detection device and a blue glass bottle detection device are connected. Two color-specific sensors 58, 60 and a colored glass bottle sorter 62 are provided. The color-specific sensors 58 and 60 are composed of a light projecting section and a light receiving section. Also, a first guide tube 64 that guides the brown glass bottles 6 sorted by the sorter 62 to a first chamber on the upper front side in the drawing partitioned by a partition plate 68;
In addition, a second guide tube 66 is provided which similarly guides the blue glass bottle 7 to the second chamber on the other side of the partition plate 68. Then, an empty bottle conveyor belt conveyor 28 is installed near the top of the third chamber to convey transparent glass bottles 8 other than colored glass bottles and paper packs to a third chamber adjacent to the first and second chambers. The lower end side is placed. Said 1st, 2nd,
Each of the third chambers is provided with a brown glass crusher 70, a blue glass crusher 72 (not shown in FIG. 1), and a transparent glass crusher 74, respectively.

While the empty bottles 3 (or paper packs) are being conveyed by the empty bottle conveyor belt conveyor 28, based on the detection signals from the two color sensors 58 and 60, the colored glass bottle sorter 62 selects brown or brown bottles. The glass bottles 6 and the blue glass bottles 7 are sorted, and the brown glass bottles 6 are introduced into the first chamber by the first guide tube 64 and crushed by the glass crusher 70. Brown glass cullet after crushing 6
' falls into the cullet collection container 76 and is stored therein. Moreover, the blue glass bottle 7 is similarly attached to the second guide cylinder 66
After being introduced into the second chamber by the glass crusher and crushed by the glass crusher, the blue glass cullet falls into a cullet collection container (not shown) and is stored therein. On the other hand, the transparent glass bottle 8 and the paper pack are conveyed to the third chamber by the empty bottle conveyor belt conveyor 28, and the transparent glass bottle 8 is crushed by the glass crusher 74. The transparent glass cullet 8' after crushing is placed in the water tank 2 for separating glass and paper together with the paper pack.
Fall into 2.

The glass/paper separation water tank 22 separates glass cullet and paper pack based on the difference in specific gravity between the two. That is, the transparent glass cullet 8 that has fallen into the water tank 22
' sinks and accumulates at the bottom of the water tank 22, while the paper pack floats on the water surface of the water tank 22 and goes into a paper pack collection container (not shown) adjacent to the water tank 22 together with the overflow water. Inflow and containment.

In addition, residual liquid remaining inside empty cans, empty bottles, or paper packs when they are loaded into the hopper 12 and flowing out from them during transportation, separation, can compression, bottle crushing, etc. The waste liquid falls to the bottom of the casing 10 and becomes the waste liquid reservoir 30.
contained within. By operating the waste liquid cock 78 at any time, the waste liquid in the waste liquid reservoir 30 is discharged to the outside of the casing 10.

[0020] With the sorting and recovery device configured as described above,
Various miscellaneous beverage containers, such as empty cans, empty bottles, and even paper cartons, placed into the hopper 12 undergo a series of processing steps such as sorting, can compression, and bottle crushing as shown in Figure 2, and then are compressed into aluminum. The waste is separated into cans, compressed iron cans, brown glass cullet, blue glass cullet, transparent glass cullet, and paper packs, and collected in separate collection containers.

Although the beverage container sorting and collection device of the present invention has the above-described configuration, the scope of the present invention is not limited by the content of the above description and drawings.
Various modifications may be included without departing from the gist. In other words, the arrangement of each component device, the conveyor belt conveyor, the can/bottle sorting device, the can compression/sorting device, etc. are not limited to those of the above embodiments; for example, the can compression device and the can sorting device The structure may be such that after the empty cans are separated into parts and the empty cans are compressed, they are separated into aluminum compression cans and iron compression cans, or they are separated into aluminum cans and iron cans and then compressed. In addition, for example, various beverage containers put into a hopper are first separated into empty bottles, empty cans, and paper packs based on the presence or absence of light transmittance when irradiated with light, and then empty cans and paper cartons are separated. The device configuration may be such that the packs are classified according to whether they are conductive or nonconductive.

[0022]

Effects of the Invention Since the present invention is constructed and operates as described above, if the beverage container sorting and collection device according to the present invention is used, various miscellaneous beverage containers such as empty cans, empty bottles, and paper cartons can be collected. This invention can greatly contribute to the effective use of resources and the solution of garbage disposal problems.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic cross-sectional view showing a schematic configuration of a beverage container sorting and collection device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining a series of operating steps in this separation and recovery apparatus.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Beverage container 2 Empty can 3 Empty bottle 4 Aluminum compression can 5 Iron compression can 6 Brown glass bottle 6' Brown glass cullet 7 Blue glass bottle 8 Transparent glass bottle 8' Transparent glass cullet 10 Casing 12 Hopper 14 Can/bottle sorting device section 16 Can compression - Sorting device section 18 Glass bottle sorting device section 20 Glass crushing device section 22 Water tanks for glass/paper separation 24, 26, 28 Transport belt conveyor 30 Waste liquid reservoir 32 Rotation detection table 38 Horizontal mounting plate 40 Metal sorting sensor 42 Can collection hopper 44 Bottle collection hoppers 46, 48 Can compression rollers 50 Magnetic rollers 52 Scrapers 54, 56, 76 Collection containers 58, 60 Color-based sensors 62 Colored glass bottle sorters 70, 72, 74 Glass crushers

Claims (1)

[Claims] [Claim 1] A hopper into which aluminum cans, iron cans, various glass bottles, and paper packs are placed, can/bottle sorting means for separating aluminum cans, iron cans, and various glass bottles, and compressing aluminum cans and iron cans. A can compressor, a can sorting means for separating aluminum cans and iron cans according to the presence or absence of magnetism, a glass bottle sorting means for sorting various glass bottles according to whether or not they are colored and the type of coloring, and a cullet for crushing glass bottles. a glass crusher that separates paper packs from glass cullet or compressed cans; Separate collection of beverage containers, which consists of a waste liquid reservoir that stores residual liquid that flows out during each process of bottle crushing, and multiple collection containers that separately store aluminum compressed cans, iron compressed cans, various glass cullet, and paper packs. Device.