The extra funding will be put towards enhanced paper purity and fire protection systems at the facility, which receives 300,000 tonnes of commingled recyclate from 28 local authorities.
The investment will be split into two sections, with £2.7 million going towards “an investment in quality” by targeting a reduction of contamination levels within the fibre outputs.
According to Viridor, the remaining £1 million will be spent on a new fire protection and water cannon system at Crayford, which will cover multiple storage areas and site infrastructure.
Quality
Commenting on the investment, Colin Richardson, Viridor’s head of recycling assets, said the investment will help meet the stricter quality criteria needed to export material to China.
“This will be achieved by specifically targeting contaminants in the sorted Mixed Paper (SMP) after processing from the ballistic separator lines,” Mr Richardson explained.
He added that since the Chinese restrictions, higher quality materials are still accepted, and the investment will help material coming out of the MRF meet the quality criteria.
Crayford produces c140,000 tonnes per annum of combined paper grades, of which nearly all has historically been marketed to China.
Fire
Commenting on the investment in fire, Mr Richardson added: “The new Helios fire protection and water cannon system is focused on the storage areas for incoming materials and this is considered the most likely source of any potential fires.
“Helios makes use of two proprietary technologies, a thermal detection system, which in this case constantly scans within the waste pile for signs of temperature increase and automatically operated turrets (cannons) designed to target the hotspot (rather than a sprinkler system which will deluge a larger area).”
The Crayford MRF processes both municipal and commercial dry mixed materials including paper, card, plastic bottles, cans and glass. Viridor says it is the largest of the company’s materials recycling operations in the UK.
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