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MBT PLANT
The MBT plant will take all of the county’s residual (‘black bag’) waste, that is currently not recycled or composted, and has been going to landfill, and, using some of the latest machinery and technology, will separate out elements of this rubbish for recycling and composting.
 Firstly the waste is loaded into bag splitters, which empty the waste out of bags and sends it to giant circular sieves (trommel screens), which divide the waste by size for ease of separation. Hard particle separators use tilted vibrating plates to extract glass and stones for recycling. Large electro-magnets pull out any ferrous items such as steel cans and eddy current separators sort out non-ferrous metals for recycling. Ballistic separators sort the waste into heavy and light fractions, and plastics are then extracted from the latter fraction using near infra-red separators, which use the different wavelength absorption of plastics and targeted air jets to blow them onto different conveyor belts.  It is expected that this mechanical sorting of the waste will separate between 20 – 25% of the waste for recycling. The remainder, mainly paper, cardboard, food and garden waste, will then be taken by conveyor belts to 4 large machines that grind the waste and add measured amounts of water ready for the material to be taken to the largest part of the MBT plant, the composting hall, which is roughly 70 metres wide and 200 metres long. Conveyors will lay the organic waste across the hall, to a depth of around 3 metres, and giant mechanical turning wheels will keep the material aerated by turning it 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week, and moving down the hall. After 7 weeks the organic material will have been moved the 200 metres along the hall, and will then be extracted by conveyor, screened and stored for use. Due to the fact that the input is mixed waste, the material produced cannot be used by farmers or the public, but Donarbon hope to use the compost-like output of the MBT plant for quarry restoration, growing energy crops or as a fuel. 
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EDUCATION & VISITS We welcome visits from schools and colleges, special interest groups, local businesses and the general public in Cambridgeshire. We can arrange for groups to tour the site and see what happens to Cambridgeshire's waste. Activities and workshops for schools and colleges can be organised in the Education Centre. |