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MRF material testing

MRF material testing. Dr Julian Parfitt Research and Technical Director Resource Futures. Testing material quality at MRFs - why?. Input material Excessive contamination of inputs can affect the operation of a facility and the quality of outputs. Need to know how much and from where?

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MRF material testing

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  1. MRF material testing Dr Julian Parfitt Research and Technical Director Resource Futures

  2. Testing material quality at MRFs - why? Input material Excessive contamination of inputs can affect the operation of a facility and the quality of outputs. Need to know how much and from where? Identify potential to target further materials Output material Poor or variable quality outputs can adversely affect end market acceptability and price per tonne (if not today, maybe tomorrow). Quality of outputs? Contamination? Cross-contamination of output products? Residual material Good quality materials can remain in the residual material

  3. Co-mingled versus kerbside sort – potential to contaminate Contamination Contamination Co-mingled Materials Recovery Facility Kerbside Sort

  4. Co-mingled contamination measurement points Kerbside: % contaminated/rejected bins MRF gate: % vehicle loads rejected MRF ‘Input’ material: % contamination across input samples MRF ‘Output’ products: % contamination of materials sold to end markets MRF ‘Output’ residual: % non-target and % target material in ‘Residual’ stream

  5. WRAP quality assessment projects (2008) Practical field trials of material sorting and sampling techniques (Resource Futures, April 2008) http://www.wrap.org.uk/wrap_corporate/mrf_dissemination.html (ongoing) - Material quality assessment of municipal MRFs within England, Wales and Northern Ireland: awarded to Enviros, October 2008 (ongoing) - Material quality assessment of municipal MRFs within Scotland: awarded to Resource Futures, October 2008 (ongoing) - MRF output material quality thresholds: awarded to Resource Futures, October 2008

  6. Sampling principles Good housekeeping High quality accurate sorting Calibrated scales Accurate data recording Good sampling A ‘sample’ should reflect as closely as possible the population as a whole Control or represent where possible key determining factors Sampling strategy: needs to consider practicalities (operational constraints) and coverage (across input sources, output streams/residue; through time) Need to account for day-to-day and week-to-week variation (ideally also seasonal variation)

  7. Sampling principles Statistical reliability Is your data representative of what is actually happening? 95% confidence level, sampling error reduced with larger number of samples ~ for example, mean % non-target material from 100kg MRF input samples (MRF 001 results): 14.01% +/- 6.7% from 6 samples 13.17% +/- 4.01% from 15 samples 12.53% +/- 2.73% from 30 samples

  8. Suggested sampling regime for key headline parameters No two MRFs will be the same: design your own sorting regime Review your results to adapt and calibrate Quality monitoring of your sampling regime Use quality monitoring to train sorting staff to sort more accurately and /or more efficiently

  9. Indicative sample sizes and weights

  10. Sampling points Conveyor Chute (enclosed?) Input material Hopper Manual pick Manual pick PET Baler/ pile News & PAMs Magnet Ferrous Baler/ pile Mixed paper and card Manual pick Manual pick Mixed plastic Baler/ pile Eddie current Baler/ pile Non-ferrous Baler / pile ‘Residual’ material Baler/ pile

  11. Mass flow approach Tonnes paper in (x) Process Tonnes out as product (y) Tonnes out in other product streams and residual (z) x = y + z z = x – y y = x - z

  12. Potential to target wider range of materials? • Mass flow approach to focus the issue: • Which non-target materials significant? • Which of value to end markets? • Do technologies exist to capture? • Potential to improve resultant quality?

  13. Input and output compositions: WRAP field trials

  14. Input and output compositions: WRAP field trials

  15. WRAP projects: overview 31 MRFs (22 England, 4 Scotland, 2 Northern Ireland, 3 Wales) Data to cross-reference quality across different MRFs Over 5,300 samples being sorted into 16 material categories (estimated 285 tonnes of material) Fieldwork November 2008 - March 2009 Range of MRF types: 12 x training MRFs (1-3 day training, ongoing support) 9 x full sort MRFs (1-2 weeks sampling) 10 x data MRFs (MRF process data review) Mass flow assessment i.e. input, output and residual samples sorted

  16. Concluding remarks Sampling material quality at MRFs is an essential part of understanding quality and marketability of MRF output materials It can be undertaken in a systematic and resource efficient manner The ongoing WRAP material quality studies will provide data which will inform material quality issues across the UK Important to take mass balance approach - Pin-point actions to raise output quality - Consider potential to target new materials

  17. Thank you Dr Julian Parfitt Research and Technical Director Resource Futures Julian.Parfitt@resourcefutures.co.uk For further information on sampling please contact WRAP in the first instance.

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