Hagglunds drives into heavy duty composting

Industrial scale composting is becoming an important development in the drive towards improved environmental conditions, reducing landfill volumes by effectively recycling organic materials in the municipal waste streams and Hagglunds Drives is very much involved in the process.


The patented Plus Grow “Turner”, whose plant is based at Poulton le Fylde near Blackpool, is a low capital cost plant design providing an automated method of accelerating organic biodegradation in a continuous process producing usable compost in a short period of time. The waste material is fed into a series of concrete bays some 70 metres long by 2.75 metres high and 3 metres wide. The twin drum Turner, which is now powered by two Hagglunds direct drive hydraulic motors, replaced the old drive system due to operational reasons. In addition to this the hydraulic system was re-configured to better suit the application and the operational duty.

The drums are fitted with gathering blades, as the turner moves along the bay it picks, chops and mixes the material prior to conveying it to a secondary set of rotating blades before depositing it some five metres from its original position. The Turner operates up and down the bays and, by turning the waste daily, achieves a 14-day throughput.

In order to produce a higher quality product, alternate day processing can be adopted. This system can be used on many materials such as green/garden waste, municipal/household waste, wood/paper and stable bedding/sludges.
John Davison of Plusgrow commented. “The Hagglunds drives have given the PlusGrow system infinitely more control, with extra power available to treat the more demanding waste streams.”

Hagglunds Drives are involved in all kinds of recycling applications and offer user friendly drives which do away with large gearboxes, providing compact hydraulic drives that are easy to apply on heavy duty plant and low on maintenance. They are used on all kinds of heavy duty shredders and feeders for tyres, wood, cars and green waste and have also been used for drum drives on trommels and composting drums.

For example, the Bedminster system uses very large drums to tumble waste to accelerate the biodegradation. Hagglunds drives are used to rotate the drums continuously and. due to the high torque efficiency – some 97% – the drums can be started fully loaded without problems. One such system is installed in Perth, Australia, with four drums operating, handling over 12% of the waste stream. One 70 metre long composting drum filled with household waste weighs about 660 tonnes. Four Hagglunds Marathon motors on each drum naturally share the load and run continuously.

Other Bedminster systems are operating in Sweden and Spain.
Hagglunds, with its head office in Sweden, and sales and service facilities all over the world, can design and supply a complete hydraulic system with controls. The company has a wide range of power units, providing advanced variable speed systems with logging, bus control facility and remote monitoring via modem so that an expert eye can be kept on the system.

The company also provides expert assistance with sizing and application to ensure the drive is correctly selected and commissioned and maintained.

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