The New Packaging Treatment Line of COGERSA

In March 2018, the Consortium for Solid Waste Management of Asturias (Cogersa) approved the development of several works to advance in the improvement of waste management with a budget of more than 5 million euro. The first of the actions was the modernization of the packaging recycling plant (yellow container) to be able to treat up to 25,500 tons per year.

The works developed by PICVISA consisted of the total modernization of the plant, increasing the treatment capacity up to 7 tons per hour, and the provision of new selection equipment, as well as the automation of the installation and the improvement of the workers’ safety conditions.

The project designed a plant consisting of a feeding system, primary and secondary triage, conveyor belts, trommel, bag opener, two ballistics, a film capture system, magnetic separation, induction separation, pressing, reject compacting and optical plastic sorters working on recoveries of over 90% and purities of over 92%. The plant’s optical separation system is made up of 3 ECOPACK Double Track units.

Using the first two ECOPACK, which add up to a total of 4 tracks, the PET, the CBA, the HDPE and finally the MIX plastic are separated in this order. Before passing through the third and last optic, the unselected material goes back through an inductive sorter, in order to finish recovering all the non-ferrous metals. Finally, both the remaining material and the previously selected and correctly classified material are sent for pressing.

This system of cascade optical sorting was one of the many adaptations that the project required to fulfil the objectives and specifications of the installation. To ensure a continuous capacity in time, different innovations were carried out, including laser sensors placed in the boxes of the selected materials to measure the height of the stored material.

But the biggest challenge of this project was to carry it out in only 182 days, while at the same time complying with the demand and all the specifications required by the uniqueness of the work. Calaf Constructora developed a double shift work system that required great coordination with the different actors of the project. Even with all the present difficulties, PICVISA successfully completed the project in December 2019 and the plant has been operating normally ever since.

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