Waste Beneficiation
Waste beneficiation operations complement EnviroServ’s holistic approach to waste management. This presents an opportunity for us to unlock value from waste products including the beneficiation of minerals and energy generation.
EnviroServ Mineral Beneficiation
EnviroServ Mineral Beneficiation (EMB) specialises in the recovery and beneficiation of waste streams from the metallurgical and smelting industry. A number of these waste streams include raw material fines, baghouse dust, slags and spent refractory material from current arisings or legacy dumps.
EMB aims to move its customers up the waste hierarchy through innovative recycling solutions. This enables them to reduce their volumes of waste disposed to landfill and eliminate legacy dumps. Material previously placed on legacy dumps is now recycled. At the same time the legacy dump in totality is removed.
What differentiates EMB from its competitors is that it is able to develop and secure markets for each and every recovered product rather than high-value commodities only.
Recovered product may be returned to the waste generator as an input back into their process or to alternate markets developed by EMB both nationally and internationally. These products have wide ranging applications in industry including raw material blends, energy source, construction materials and agriculture (soil conditioners).
The Mineral Beneficiation team has extensive industry experience. The team identifies waste streams for recycling based on knowledge of market demand. The team implements solutions and assumes control of the entire value chain from concept phase, permitting, operation of plants and lastly to delivery of product to the customer.
EMB owns and operates facilities that specialise in the processing of current developments and legacy dumps. This is achieved by means of screening, crushing, calcining, dense media separation, upsizing (briquetting, pelletising, granulation) of fines, micro-sorting, x-ray sorting and metal recovery.
Recycled products include carbonaceous, refractory and metal products recovered from these waste streams.
Main areas of focus are on historical waste legacies and current developments in smelting and mining operations.
The upsizing operation is specifically designed to address the raw material requirements of the metallurgical industry.
EnviroServ Recycling Solutions
Recycling Solutions runs various recyclable materials collection programmes, purchases recyclable materials from independent collectors and augments the activities of the Group’s on-site waste management operations. Its primary function is to add value to various recyclable streams as well as to seek new processes and products for recyclables. This is in the form of bulking a commodity by means of compaction for resale into processing plants, or in the case of the various plastics, from granulation through the various stages of washing and drying right through to pelletising, and in some cases even a finished product.
For example, EnviroServ offers a service to the automotive industry by recycling discarded polypropylene battery casings through granulation, washing and extrusion into pellets. These pellets are then utilised in the production of new battery casings; in some instances the recycled content is 100%. Similar activities are carried out for the beverage and white goods industries. Those recyclable plastics which are contaminated and cannot readily be recycled into an original product are used to manufacture pallet planks, which have several strength and resilience advantages over traditional wood planks.
The collection and compaction of glass plays an important role in the Recycling division. The weight and brittle nature of glass precludes it from being successfully integrated into normal waste streams. This activity has also created 500 new jobs in KwaZulu-Natal and shows every sign of increasing.
Recycling Solutions is currently engaged in exploring new avenues in the collection and sorting of domestic waste, which should hugely enhance the volume of recyclables collected. This is symbiotic with job creation and reduction of landfill space.
On-Site Waste Management
EnviroServ’s on-site waste management team provides trained staff who work at a customer’s premises to recover recyclable products such as plastic, paper, glass and cans. This service affords customers the peace of mind that, by using one service provider, they are legally compliant and meet the relevant safety, health and environmental standards, while effectively managing all waste generated on their sites. The programme offers a solution that is both cost-effective (as income is generated from recyclables recovered), and provides customers with detailed reports that enable them to track and report on the volume of waste that is recycled. Where possible, EnviroServ also aims to source, develop and secure markets for recovered recyclable materials.
EnviroServ Waste2Energy
As part of the EnviroServ Group strategy, a division has been created to deal exclusively with the extraction of energy from waste streams. The EW2E division was created within EnviroServ Waste Beneficiation to address the growing demand for green energy and the significant role waste can play as an energy source.
Furthermore, changes in waste management regulations will limit the landfill of calorific waste streams and the Group believes this division is uniquely poised to take advantage of this.
EW2E has acquired international and local expertise in the fields of Anaerobic Digestion (AD) and Gasification to assist in bringing these technologies to commercialisation. Current projections are that a testing phase on a pilot AD plant will commence early in 2013. This plant will test various waste streams as feed-stocks to produce energy in the form of methane gas. Successful completion of the test phase will provide an innovative solution for clients targeting mainly the food industry. Our Gasification technology is currently undergoing a final performance review against which the final technology will be delivered to market. The plant will be designed not only to test various waste streams as feed-stocks, but will implement proprietary technology in the field of gas cleanup, ensuring a clean source of energy.
During 2013, EW2E will commission the Chloorkop Landfill Gas project which will produce three megawatts of electricity. The sale of electricity from this project will be one of the first Independent Power Producing projects in the country. In doing so, EW2E is charting a course in the, as yet, undefined landscape of electricity trading in South Africa.
Through this division EnviroServ sees itself becoming a significant player in the waste to energy space enabling us to provide the green energy solutions that reduce our reliance on natural resources and speak to a sustainable future.
Benefits:
- Mitigation of rising energy costs
- Independent electricity supply
- An estimated return on investment of five years
- Its ability to reduce stock piling of feedstock
- Reduction in carbon emissions
- Suitability for Africa due to its robust design and low maintenance requirements
Tower Technologies
EnviroServ acquired a majority shareholding in Tower Technologies in December 2010, to harness and expand on the technology solutions developed by the company. Tower Technology is a research and development company known for its innovation in utilising various waste streams.
The waste streams are used to develop value-added products and are sourced mainly from the industrial market including paper, chemical, mining and smelting operations. The products developed from these waste streams are primarily sold into the housing, building and mining industries.
Tube City IMS South Africa
EnviroServ, together with its joint venture partner Tube City IMS, was awarded a slag processing and metal recovery contract by ArcelorMittal South Africa in July 2011. This contract services the Vanderbijlpark Works (one of the world’s largest inland steel mills and the largest supplier of flat steel products in sub-Saharan Africa) and the Saldanha Works over a nine-year period. EnviroServ’s stake in this joint venture is 25%.
Tube City IMS is the leading provider of on-site industrial mill services for steelmakers at over 70 locations around the world, with trading offices on five continents. The company is the North American leader in slag processing and metal recovery, utilising pioneering technologies to process slag – a by-product of steelmaking – into useful environmentally beneficial aggregate products. Applications for slag include road construction, asphalt, ready-mix concrete, cement, railway ballast, mining, filtration and agriculture.
Customer Care Number: 0800 192 783