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The waste processing company Indaver has built a new factory in Willebroek for the processing of PMD waste from the ‘blue bag’. Chairman Fernand Huts calls it ‘one of the most advanced factories in the world’.
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Three man-sized drum sieves whirl mountains of PMD waste around at a furious pace. Through holes they make an initial separation of the PMD waste that is brought to the Indaver factory by household refuse trucks – seven per hour – from six in the morning to six in the evening. The caps and the bottle caps fall through the holes of 40 millimeters, the plastic bottles and the foils through those of more than 300 millimeters.
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The noise in the 19 meter high hall – area: 5,000 square meters – is deafening. On four levels, 300 conveyor belts – a total length of 5 kilometers – rattle endless streams of waste through some 50 machines. The smell around us is that of a pmd bag, but times a hundred. We are passed on all sides by streams of plastic that go up and down at great speeds.
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The brand new ‘intelligent’ factory processes 20 tons of PMD per hour or 65,000 tons per year. Since April, plastic dishes, yoghurt pots, toothpaste tubes, butter dishes, foils, ice cream boxes, mushroom trays and carrier bags have been allowed in Belgium everywhere in the blue PDM bag.
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We can export the technology of this factory to other countries.
Paul De Bruycker
CEO Indaver
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Indaver has fully adapted its new installation to this. Whereas previously nine fractions were sorted, now 14 different plastic fractions come out at the end of the sorting process. ‘The public has understood the sorting message well’, says factory director Eric Goddaert. ‘In the past, an average of 15 kilos of plastic was brought in per inhabitant per year, now we are already at 23 kilos, and it will probably increase. That is 90,000 tons of plastic that no longer ends up in the incinerator.
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Plastic film turns out to be good for about 20 percent of PMD waste. In the factory it is removed from the waste streams with wind sifters. A large overband magnet picks out the metal cans. The aluminum cans are guided in individual paths via machines with magnetic fields. Using halogen light rays, beverage cartons and plastics are separated on the basis of nature, composition and colour.
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The final work
The only color that cannot be detected optically is black. The black plastic bottles are removed at the end of the hellish ride by about twenty workers. Two by two they manually pluck away at a furious pace – with ear protectors – what has mechanically slipped through the meshes of the net. This often involves foil that has become stuck between cans or PET bottles.
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‘In the long run, the intention is to have that last extra check performed by robots, sensors and cameras,’ says Indaver CEO Paul De Bruycker. “But that won’t be easy.” The sorted fractions are then pressed into large square bales, ready for collection and recycling. The sale is in the hands of Fost Plus. The non-profit organization is also responsible for the collection and recycling of household packaging waste in our country. It receives money from its members, companies such as Danone, Coca-Cola and Alpro.
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Goddaert expects the factory – in which 35 million euros has been invested – will soon reach its maximum capacity. ‘But if we work in three shifts instead of two, we increase our capacity with the same installation to almost 100,000 tons in one fell swoop.’
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‘If Flanders suddenly decides that extra processing capacity is needed for PMD, we will simply build a second factory’, says Huts undisturbed.
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Europe wants to see 65 percent of all packaging waste and half of all plastic packaging waste recycled by 2025. Belgium is a paragon of plastic collection in Europe. It aims to selectively collect 65 percent of its plastic packaging waste by 2023. Now it is over 50 percent.
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To achieve this goal, processing plants are being built in various places in our country. Suez and Sources Alma – market leader in bottled water – will operate a factory in Charleroi for the recycling of PET bottles. Start in Ghent President – part of the Lidl holding – a plastic sorting installation. ‘But what you see here is the cream of the crop’, Huts boasts. ‘Something we can export to other countries’, says De Bruycker.
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Indaver
- The processing company built a new factory in Willebroek for the processing of PMD waste, an investment of 35 million euros. 78 people work in the factory.
- The company processes industrial and household waste and counts 16 factories in Europe.
- The group has 1,900 employees, good for 600 million euros in turnover and 118 million euros in gross profit. She is owned by Katoen Natie.
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