UNTHA shredder working at Mexican RDF plant

UNTHA shredder working at Mexican RDF plant

XR shredder is preparing refuse-derived fuel for one of Mexico’s largest waste firms.

October 13, 2016
REW Staff
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A shredder supplied by Austria-based UNTHA GmbH is helping prepare refuse-derived fuel (RDF) for a waste-to-energy (WTE) plant in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico.

The facility began to take shape two years ago, when waste management firm Promotora Ambiental SAB de CV (PASA) set out to enter the WTE market.

PASA has more than 6,500 employees, a fleet of more than 2,000 vehicles and 43 waste management facilities in Mexico and handles 25,000 metric tons of waste every day, according to UNTHA. Growing pressures being placed on the country’s resource infrastructure caused PASA to produce RDF from its collected residual commercial and industrial (C&I;) materials.

Following a global search for the right equipment, PASA purchased an UNTHA XR cutter waste shredder.

UNTHA touts the model for “its high uptime, maintenance simplicity and low running costs.” These features proved particularly attractive given the tight margins within the Latin American waste market, says UNTHA. Output fraction quality, accessibility to local after-sales support and UNTHA’s global WTE brand presence also played a part, says UNTHA.

The XR was shipped to Mexico by sea freight along with a discharge conveyor and a crossbelt magnet for metal extraction. During commissioning, the technology achieved the required output of 12 metric tons of processed feedstock per hour, says UNTHA.

The installation team plans to further refine the RDF manufacturing process to optimize the plant’s capacity to 200 metric tons per day by June 2017.

“Industry reports predict the Latin American waste management market will evolve over the coming years, but PASA is a forward thinking company that has kick-started progress now,” says Peter Streinik, the head of UNTHA’s waste division.

“The smarter environmental thinking shown by this one organization will hopefully start to change the mindset in this part of the world,” he continues. “More people need to view the value of waste as a resource, not least because increased industrialization means the cement industry needs more renewable fuels, fast.”