WASTE RECYCLING ALWAYS WORTHWHILE

In the UK, the Shotton mill has opened the country’s best recycling facility. UPM Raflatac customers in turn can, by means of the RafCycle system, send their labelstock waste from their production for utilisation as energy.

 

The £17 million Materials Recovery & Recycling Facility (MRRF) opened at UPM Shotton in the UK in July was immediately the best in the country. From drawing board to reality, the project aimed for and achieved the highest standards.

Combining UPM thinking and expertise with state of the art technology and highly efficient operations, the MRRF already excels by processing 99% of recyclable material with 98% product purity.

What is more, up to 45% of the plant’s output is consumed on site while the remainder becomes valuable, high quality raw material for other reprocessors and can even be turned into new products and materials.

 

 

Label waste utilised

RafCycle is UPM Raflatac’s waste management concept which makes use of the by-products from all stages of the labelstock lifecycle: process waste from UPM Raflatac’s operations, matrix and start-up waste from label printing and die-cutting, and liner waste from label dispensing at the end of the cycle. The recycled waste finds new life as UPM ProFi wood-plastic composite products, energy, or paper.

As part of the RafCycle waste-to-energy concept, UPM Raflatac customers in Europe can send their labelstock waste for re-use as a source of energy. This is possible thanks to a highly efficient CHP plant (combined heat and power) which supplies heat and energy into the operations at UPM’s paper mill in Schwedt.

 

Text: Jane Garner, Łukasz Małecki
Photos: Eric Howard, Karen Wright Photography

 

 

This article is based on interviews with David Green, UPM Shotton Technical Director and MRRF Project Manager, and Erkki Nyberg, Director of Business Development for the Engineered Materials Business Group at UPM.