Redwave expands on secondary fuel front

Austria-based sorting and sensing equipment maker Redwave, a division of BT-Wolfgang Binder GmbH, has expanded its commitment to the waste processing sector by founding a subsidiary called Redwave Waste GmbH. The new subsidiary, based in Wetzlar, Germany “adds the important area of mechanical-biological waste treatment (MBT) to Redwave’s product portfolio,” says the company.

The new division “provides waste processing solutions, using automated mechanical sorting and processing technologies, for converting waste into secondary fuel and usable recycling fractions,” Redwave says in a news release announcing the new subsidiary.

Among the technologies it offers is bio-drying, which Redwave says greatly improves the sortability of wet waste streams with high organic content, and turnkey plants for the composting of organic waste, such as kitchen waste, waste food and residual materials from biogas fermentation plants.

“By combining the two major areas of technology – sensor-based sorting on the one hand and classical mechanical-biological treatment on the other – we have become one of only a few suppliers on the market who are able to offer clients complete solutions designed individually to meet their needs,” says Silvia Schweiger-Fuchs, the CEO of Redwave. “Working with our new colleagues from Wetzlar is going smoothly, and including them in the Redwave group has been a big step forward that opens up new developments and growth.”

Redwave Waste is currently working on projects in Finland, Scotland and China. The project in Finland “is a combined plant for sorting the light fraction of household waste and waste packaging and for mechanical processing of household waste to fuel,” says Redwave. The two plants together have a capacity of 175,000 metric tons per year. Construction of both plants began in December 2015 and are scheduled to begin operating in the summer of 2016.

In Scotland, Redwave is supplying the fuel storage and feed technology for a gasification plant for a project that is currently in the design phase and is planned to go into operation in the summer of 2017.

The project in China represents “a new kind of process in terms of plant size and MBT technology in China,” according to Redwave, with an annual capacity of 270,000 metric tons, in which household waste is first dried biologically and then processed mechanically. The plant will be built in eastern China, north of Shanghai.

“This project is a milestone in the development of the Chinese market for our company,” says Redwave Waste CEO Andreas Puchelt. “The approach of sorting the waste before incineration, in order to recover recyclable materials and also to make energy generation from waste more efficient, is new in China and has huge potential for us,” he comments.