Konica Minolta’s successful entry beat more than 500 other nominations to be crowned the UK Gold winners for an Environmental Improvement and Sustainable Development Green Apple Environment Award in the national campaign to find Britain’s greenest companies, councils and communities.
![20130409_103456[6]](https://warehousenews.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/20130409_1034566.jpg)
The winning submission focused on the polystyrene produced (100kg a day) and how that can effectively and efficiently be processed. The incumbent disposal method was costly and environmentally unsound. Various methods were researched and investigated by the Logistics and Quality & Environment team and Konica Minolta now manages polystyrene waste using a Styropress. This machine compacts the waste into dense bricks resulting in the polystyrene being 100% recyclable. Konica Minolta were one the first companies in England to have this type of fully automatic compaction system. As a result, it has eradicated storage problems; high transport costs and provided an environmentally friendly solution to a common problem with polystyrene waste.
The Styropress is a highly effective machine for polystyrene recycling as everything is done with hydraulic compaction force (no gearbox) and no heat. The result is highly dense briquettes that recyclers will pay premium rates for. With twice as much on a pallet and on the lorry this machine achieves twice the payload effectively halving the transport.
The problem with alternative screw action compactors is that they are prone to jamming and overheating after constant use. When the machine is not running, loose polystyrene builds up creating other safety and fire risks and so is often disposed of via landfill which is costly. With the Styropress there’s no heat, no jamming and no hardened molten polystyrene that needs to be chipped off by hand or with power tools and therefore no costly downtime waiting for engineer visits.
‘We had been using a screw action compactor for some years for our polystyrene,’ says Dave Dartnell – Warehouse Manager for Konica Minolta, ‘we were looking for an alternative and discovered the Styropress through a free waste audit with Compact & Bale Ltd. Like most businesses Konica Minolta operates as efficiently as we can but we just did not have the time or space to allow for loose EPS to build up whilst the machine was cooling, particularly at our busy month end.’
‘We are very happy with the labour savings achieved with the Styropress, the fully comprehensive service contract and collection service all provided by Compact and Bale. Now our briquettes can be stored safely and without creating a mess in our warehouse and with payback in 3 years we are very happy with our new machine.’
For more information on the Styropress or Strautmann’s UK agent Compact & Bale Ltd please visit www.compact-and-bale.com/equipment/briquetting-presses/styropress/
call 01732 852244
email info@compactandbale.com
Tel: 01732 852244
Email: info@compactandbale.com
Comments are closed.