Automatic recycling

It’s the very latest in Austrian technology. ALGAR’S new package waste sorting machine is already operating at the company’s plant near the Algarve Stadium in Loulé. Its job is to separate everything deposited in recycling bins in the Eastern Algarve.

The new equipment represents an investment of 1.6 million euros, although in total 3.2 million will be spent, as the company is in the process of installing another identical machine at the landfill site of Porto de Lagos, outside Portimão.

According to ALGAR administrator Hélio Barros, these two machines will be the solutions to dealing with the increase of around 11.9 per cent of plastic and metals collected in the Algarve in 2009. They will also help overcome the heavy summer workload - a period when the 4.405 recycling bins spread across the region collect 40 per cent more waste than during the rest of the year.

What makes this new equipment so special is its artificial intelligence, economical use of space and autonomy. When fully operational, it’s fed by a rotating carpet that transports a huge mix of soft drinks cans, milk cartons, and all manner of plastic bottles.

The machine then “identifies the waste with an infrared optical sensor, and 60 small compressed air jets push each type of material into the respective containers”, explains Miguel Nunes, director of ALGAR’S complementary activities.

In 2000, ALGAR installed a manual works line to separate plastics and metals, which cost 900.000 euros. In full operating mode, it required three shifts of 20 workers to separate on average 0.45 tons of packaging per hour.

The new machine needs only 10 workers to separate an amount 5.5 times larger in just a single shift. Comparatively, the electricity consumed is 48 per cent less.

But, despite being ultra-modern, the machine cannot perform miracles, and there is still a need for manual labour. Light objects, such as plastic bags, go on one side to be separated by hand. Many are not yet suitable for recycling, and end up in landfill sites.

According to Miguel Nunes, in the future “rejected” materials will be used to produce a solid fuel - useful in industry, for example. It’s one of the measures planned by the Strategic Plan for Urban Solid Waste (PERSU II), which has set out the waste strategy in Portugal for the period between 2007 and 2016.

But although ALGAR now needs less manual labour, none of the 240 permanent employees of the company are at risk of losing their jobs, Hélio Barros assures. In a press release preceding last Friday’s presentation, Barros actually stated the need for more workers in the near future.

“We are going to create more employment through new activities such as the grinding up of civil construction waste, a new unit for used oils, a centre for organic evaluation, and a unit to dismantle electrical and electronic waste”, he elaborated.

From January to October 2009, ALGAR separated and made use of around 32.300 tons of recyclable waste. Following separation, the waste is handed over to the Ponto Verde Society - a Portuguese not-for-profit company responsible for putting recycled materials to good use.

When questioned over the controversy last September concerning the Ponto Verde Society recycling less plastic to avoid bankruptcy - and all the negative consequences this would bring to the community - Hélio Barros said: “people can remain calm. At the moment we already have a contract proposal on the table” to resolve the issue.

Among various projects the company has in operation, there’s a new unit for organic residues planned for São Brás de Alportel - an investment of 7 million euros.

Scheduled to open at the end of 2010, one of its uses will be to process leftover food from hotels and restaurants – and the end product will be used in agriculture.

It should be added that since 2003, the company has been producing 100 per cent natural compost, from “green” decomposed residues (gardening waste from private gardens and green areas). Called “Nutrivede”, it is produced in the compost units in Portimão and Tavira and has already been used with great success on golf courses and in forestry and gardening industries.

At last week’s inauguration, Emídio Xavier the president of Empresa Geral do Fomento (which holds a 56 per cent stake in ALGAR) - emphasised the “excellent work done during the last 10 years in the region”. He revealed that since 1999, ALGAR has “eradicated 22 rubbish dumps that occupied around 500.000 square metres in the Algarve”, adding that the 16 Algarve municipalities hold the remaining 44 per cent stake in ALGAR. Xavier went on to say that in the last few years alone, the company has invested nearly 100 million euros in improving the Algarve’s environment.