CDE plant gets to work in Australia

CDE Group says the recent commissioning of one of its aggregates and mixed materials sorting plants for Rino Recycling in Brisbane, Australia, already is delivering "dramatic improvements" to recovery rates in the Brisbane metropolitan area and capturing high-value construction materials that otherwise would have been landfilled.

CDE is based in Northern Ireland and has North American headquarters in Texas. The company designed and engineered the wet processing part of a system that integrates with a dry processing system designed by Ireland-based Turmec.

“South East Queensland (SEQ) is in the early stages of a very significant investment period,” CDE Australasia General Manager Daniel Webber says.

“Over the next two decades, we’re going to see a real uptick in construction to support the development of major infrastructure and large-scale capital projects [and] this plant will be one of the primary supply lines to help deliver on those aims in an economic and environmentally sustainable way."

Officials point to a new metro station as one of 29 projects receiving government support in the region to boost its development. One area of investment in the program is resource recovery infrastructure.

“Rino Recycling is ahead of the curve in this respect,” Webber says. “This plant is really leading the charge towards a circular economy and flying the flag for C&D [materials] as a viable alternative to virgin quarried materials."

The new system has been designed to minimize the need for operator intervention, according to CDE Group. The interconnected system melds CDE’s knowledge of materials washing with Turmec’s experience in dry recyclables.

"We truly believe this plant to be one of SEQ’s crown jewels for sustainable construction,” Rino Recycling General Manager Daniel Blaser says. “It’s a beacon of sustainability, not only for this region but for any fast-developing region that recognizes economic growth doesn’t have to come at the cost of the environment.”

The result is a system that can accept a wide range of highly variable waste streams, including commercially generated materials, materials, hydro excavation waste, concrete and excavated fill material.

Linked by a network of conveyors, infeed materials transition between the wet and dry systems without manual input. First, feed material is processed via Turmec’s dry mixed recyclables plant to separate fines and remove contaminants before passing through to CDE’s wet processing plant to produce a range of washed and graded recycled sand and aggregate products.

“This really is uncharted territory,” Webber says. “It’s the first time two systems of this kind have been brought together in this way, under one ‘roof.’ It’s living proof that wet and dry waste recycling can coincide, and it highlights the power of collaboration because the results are undeniable.”

The automated facility has a maximum processing capacity of 475 metric tons of C&D material per hour—equivalent to 1.5 million tons per year. While the plant has only been operational for a few months it is expected to reach full capacity in the next 12-18 months, according to Blaser.

“A major component of the work we’re doing is about educating the industry about the potential of recycled construction materials,” he says. “We’re making a very strong case in favor of recycled sand and aggregate. More and more are adapting, and as that increases so too will our capacity to meet that growing demand.”

C&D materials account for 38 percent of all waste generated in Australia and in the fiscal year 2020-2021 the sector produced 29 million metric tons of discarded materials, according to Australia’s Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.

“The plant has the capacity to really turn the tide to give resource recovery rates a healthy boost and help accelerate progress towards a circular economy,” Webber says.