Automation: Turning mixed cullet into cash
Ask any glass processor or recycler about the principal reason prices for their cullet can falter and the second most popular response probably will be material quality.'' No matter how well-educated the customers, no matter how well-trained the line pickers, there are always some unnoticed contaminants that fool the eye and get into the recycling bins, slip past on the conveyor belts, and ruin a load. In addition, glass has the tendency to break -- especially in the growing number of high-compaction co-collection vehicles -- leaving unusable, mixed cullet behind that is difficult and dangerous to sort by had. Most work on automated separation of whole glass containers in this country remains in the research and development stage. So far, this work has had few enthusiastic supporters, and has ground nearly to a halt. Right now, it just doesn't make economic sense.'' With most processors sticking to manual sorting of whole bottles, MSS and several other companies are focusing, instead, of beneficiating nearly marketless mixed broken cullet. From that stream new contaminant-detection technology can pick out bits of unwanted window glass, bottle caps, plastics, labels, ceramics, and porcelain, which have different melting points and can cause impurities and structural weaknesses in recycled glass. Other units can detect colored cullet from clear and automatically eject it. To date, applications of these machines have been limited, but news from field tests in the US and commercial operations in Europe -- considered by many to be the birthplace of automated sorting technology -- is encouraging.
- OSTI ID:
- 5691870
- Journal Information:
- Waste Age; (United States), Vol. 25:1; ISSN 0043-1001
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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