Cireco Scotland is one of Scotland’s leading waste management providers, operating as a commercial enterprise backed by Fife Council. Serving a diverse range of clients, including businesses of all sizes and local authorities, Cireco delivers quick, convenient, and environmentally friendly waste management solutions.
For over a decade, Cireco has partnered with Blue Machinery (Scotland) to transform its waste processing capabilities. Building on the success of a dry mixed recycling materials recovery facility (MRF) at their Lochhead site, Cireco has once again placed its trust in Blue Scotland to deliver a new, cutting-edge MRF at their Ladybank facility.
Cireco processes a variety of waste streams at Ladybank, including local authority Construction and Demolition (C&D) waste, Commercial and Industrial (C&I) waste, and mixed skip waste from their skip hire business. Historically, bulky waste posed significant challenges, often being sent to landfill due to its incompatibility with waste-to-energy plants.
To address these challenges, Blue Scotland collaborated with BlueMAC Manufacturing to design and install a state-of-the-art recycling facility. The facility boasts an efficient, multi-step process for handling waste.
Waste is loaded into the Metso 6000 pre-shredder, reducing material size for subsequent mechanised separation. An inline magnet extracts ferrous metals before materials proceed to the Spaleck scalping screen. The scalping screen separates materials over 200mm, which are directed to a manual sorting station to recover the materials into five dedicated product bays.
Material under 200mm moves through a long-part separator and a Spaleck Combi Screen, producing three fractions: -10mm fines, 10-60mm mid-size material, and +60mm oversize.
Ferrous and non-ferrous metals are extracted from the mid-size fraction using magnets and an eddy current separator. Remaining material undergoes windshifting to separate heavy fractions from light materials.
The +60mm material is processed by a double-drum Nihot windshifter, creating three streams: a clean heavy fraction, a wood-rich mid fraction, and light materials for waste-to-energy. Heavy fractions and mid fractions undergo manual quality control to ensure product purity.
Earlier this year, the facility integrated Tomra optical sorters, significantly boosting its throughput and precision. With this advanced technology, the MRF now processes between 30-50 tons of material per hour, achieving ambitious recycling targets. The facility recycles the vast majority of its incoming waste, with only a small fraction of residual waste being sent to waste-to-energy plants.
Robin Baird, Chief Executive Officer at Cireco Scotland, expressed his enthusiasm for the project: “Our new state-of-the-art recycling facility enables us to recycle a large proportion our incoming waste. With the Scottish landfill ban on the horizon, waste-to-energy has become the sole outlet for residual waste. This innovative plant has eliminated our reliance on landfills, firmly aligning us with Scotland’s sustainability goals. I’d like to thank Blue Machinery (Scotland) for their dedication and expertise in making this exciting project a reality. This is, without a doubt, our most impressive recycling facility to date.”