Millions of tons of domestic scrap, such as scrap vehicles, are recycled every year at the European fragmenting facilities. The obsolete and environmentally decontaminated products end up there. As much as possible of the iron, non-ferrous metals and other materials are recycled and processed into new raw materials.
Combustible residual products such as car interiors, rubber, certain types of plastic, etc., have, however, been landfilled for many years. The reason for this is that the significant admixture of certain metals and halogens can cause operational disturbances in the power and heating plants when the residual materials are recovered for energy.
– If there is a well-balanced mixture of residual materials, the so-called fluff, household waste and sewage sludge, we can increase the share of fluff in the fuel mix and avoid harmful deposits on and corrosion in the combustion boiler. This is an important improvement as the solution minimizes the risk of shutdowns, Marianne Gyllenhammar says.
The Stena Metall Group has eight fragmenting[m1] facilities for complex scrap metal in Europe. The energy value of the residual materials is approx. 350 GWh, which corresponds to 35,000 cubic meters of oil. The energy value of all these residual materials in all member states of the EU is estimated to correspond to more than 1 million cubic meters of oil.
– If the energy from these residual materials is recovered, it will be sufficient for the heating of 400,000 small houses every year. It also solves a waste problem by meeting EU's directive that organic material must not be landfilled.
The project was carried out in the Waste Refinery network with Stena Metall managing the project. Full-scale trials were carried out at the Lidköping Heating Plant in cooperation with Metso Power, the SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden and the Chalmers University of Technology. The successes have been resounded internationally in Europe and Asia and the project will be presented at different international conferences in the future.
– Everyone faces pretty much the same challenges internationally and this creates three winners: recycling companies, heat and power plants, as well as the environment, Marianne Gyllenhammar says.
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For more information:
Marianne Gyllenhammar, Stena Metall AB, tel.: +46 10 445 21 32