Final Report Summary - START (Development of a Retro-Fitted Recycling Unit and Inter-Related Web-Based Logistical Software to Reduce Transport Costs and Improve Competitiveness of Organisations in the Recycling Supply Chain) Executive Summary:The overall industrial objective of the project is to develop a waste management technology to allow farmers to achieve their legislative requirements and allow waste management and reprocessing companies to make agricultural waste film recycling commercially viable. The technology developed used innovative dry-cleaning technologies to manufacture a transportable film cleaning unit that can be used to remove soilage from the film waste before transportation and the development of a logistical model and web-based software that will optimise the collection and recycling operations across a range of EU states.Characterisation of film waste was investigated where representative agricultural waste film samples were supplied and analysed to ascertain the amount and type of soilage present and were then tested to study the effects of the variable strain rates on soilage adhesion to the film to determine the optimal conditions for soilage removal. Tests to determine the effects of turbulent airflow on the removal of soilage from the film were carried out on the film samples where it was noted that moisture on the film making it harder for the airflow to remove the soilage. The consortium found a very large difference in the quantity of soilage on the film and reviewed how the films should be collected and processed before they are sent to be re-cycled, which was determined:• Mulch and tunnel film - very soiled and requires complete system preparation, to be directly collected off the field as a flat sheet.• Silage and greenhouse film – free from stones and heavy soilage can be introduced at the shredder stage as manageable bundles.The new premise was to develop a system which processed the mulch and tunnel film as a flat sheet collected directly from the field. Development trials of film preparation and soilage removal technologies were carried out and a three stage process was determined. First the film is collected from the field, then using brushes, rollers, stretching and air blowing technologies to initially clean and prepare for cutting where the film is reduced and further soilage separation carried out. The last operation carries out the final removal of soilage from the cut film and stores for recycling. The prototyping of the START sub-units which include the roller stretcher, mill cutting rotor, and cyclone units were successfully carried out and integrated into the complete system. During these trials extensive evaluation and validation was carried out by the consortium to improve the machine’s functionality and performance. The prototype is now able to process a continuous film which is 1.6 m in maximum width and from 25 to 250 microns in thickness which the consortium agree has demonstrated ‘proof of principle’ from the original concept idea and is able to handle the majority of agricultural film formats available on the market.Due to the START machine the cleaned waste film was able to skip the first washing phase and the first milling phase in the industrial recycling process. The films are directly fed into the second bath to complete the separation of soilage and other possible contaminants. In order to allow the START technology to be implemented throughout the EU with the greatest impact a logistical model and web-based software to optimise the plastic film collection and recycling operations was developed. The top level overview of the START software where the basic requirements were identified and the aim of the software was to provide a means for managing all aspects of the collection and recycling process whilst providing all users with easy access and simple input of all relevant data. The principle users of the system defined were Farmers, Collection Agents / Drivers and Service Providers (System Administrators). The software accepts films and waste includes greenhouse, silage, tunnel & mulch types; however, new types can be easily added to the data structure. The software handles the farmer’s collection requests; the collection agent and driver’s scheduling; the optimised planning of routes through Google Maps and provides reporting on the collection process.Logistical software trials were carried out to validate and optimise the functionality required, key additions were to provide a relationship between the farmer and geographical areas and also collection agent and geographical areas. All functionality is now included, a web based User model was completed where the consortium has satisfactorily trialled the latest version of the wed based software.Finally to determine the potential benefits of using the START machine for the collection of agricultural film from the field Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) was carried out which concluded that the START machine will have a significantly positive environmental benefit. A Techno-Economic analysis was also carried out which concluded that the machine could provide an attractive return to whoever owns and operates with savings at the film recovery, transport and recycling stages.The consortium were delighted and agreed that the project achieved its technological operational targets of the successful development of a ‘dry cleaning agricultural film’ START machine and web based logistical software to manage the collection of the agricultural waste films and reduce transportation costs with the ambition of achieving commercial exploitation.Project Context and Objectives:The overall industrial objective of the project is to develop a waste management technology to allow farmers to achieve their legislative requirements and allow waste management and reprocessing companies to make agricultural waste film recycling commercially viable. The technology we seek to develop will use innovative dry-cleaning technologies to manufacture a transportable film cleaning unit that can be used to remove soilage from the film waste before transportation. It is realised by the consortium that, although the START project is centred around the technical development of a retro-fittable enabling technology, the new dry-cleaning technology alone cannot be developed in isolation as the issue of non-hazardous agricultural film recycling is a complex EU-wide logistical problem involving technological, economic and environmental factors which are much broader than the consortium partners. The EU-wide logistical problem must be addressed in parallel with the technological developments to enable the technology to be implemented to give greatest impact across the EU. The technological development work therefore covers the development of a logistical model and web-based software that will have to be combined to optimise the collection and recycling operations across a range of EU states.The scientific objective is to:• To establish enhanced scientific understanding of the effects of deformation (elongation, torsion and flex) of 10 agricultural plastic film samples on % removal of key contaminants as part of WP1.• To establish enhanced scientific understanding of the effects of air flow on % removal of key soilage contaminants of 10 agricultural plastic film samples as part of WP1.• To use this new knowledge to develop and optimise empirical model on the effects of stretching and blowing on soilage adhesion and removal using data from WP1. • To use this new knowledge for the design, development and test logistical management software using existing logistic software and adapting to characterise specific data regarding plastic film usage, farm type and distance travel to collect within different EU states and regions.The overall technological aim:• Develop a film cleaning system for agricultural waste film that uses stretching and air blowing of the film for removal of soilage and does not require water.• Develop/produce a prototype waste film preparation system that will feed agricultural film waste into a cutting roller system and cut the film into ribbons at a rate of 2.5m/s.• Develop/produce a ribbon stretching and agitation system which will efficiently remove >90% contamination at a throughput rate of up to 500kg/hr.• Develop/produce an effective air blowing system to give a differential speed between the film surface and the air and allow START system to efficiently remove >90% contamination which will work at a throughput rate of 500kg/hr• Develop/produce a separation process for the film ribbons and contaminates which will produce a stream of film ribbon waste that is >90% w/w polymer which will then be fed into a standard compacting and baling system that will produce bales of density >400kg/m3.The Integrated Objectives are:• Develop/produce an integrated system for cleaning agricultural waste films combining the individual processing steps from above with robust process control to:o Reduce transport costs by >50% by removing >90% contaminants therefore reducing amount of waste to be transported from ~250,000tonnes to ~100,000tonnes. o Reduce recycling costs by ~€80/tonne from €450/tonne to €370/tonneo Reduce recycling fees for farmers by ~€20/tonne• Develop/produce a drive system with an internal combustion engine source of power rating 100hp (75kW) able to drive the system at an output rate of 500kg/hr • Achieve a total cost per fitted unit of €30,000 for a system which can be easily transported (weighing less than 500kg and is suitable for on road towing) and is approved by SME processors. (Complies with CE and in-line with Machinery Directive 98/37/EEC• Develop/trial the user-interface of the logistics software that will input collection data via the internet or the telephone (automated service) to enable optimal collection logistics and the waste transportation distances minimised.Project Results:The technical work over the period (1st December 2008 – 31th May 2012) has been spread over the tasks in the following Work Packages:-• WP 1: Characterisation and Scientific Investigation• WP 2: Development of Logistical Software• WP 3: Development of Film Preparation and Soilage Removal• WP 4: Technical Integration• WP 5: Technology TrialsThe START ‘Kick-off’ meeting was successfully held at CESAP Limited, UK on Tuesday 11th November 2008 where partners attended and expressed much enthusiasm. During the project there have been regular quarterly meetings which have been hosted by various partners to discuss technical and management issues, to determine the work that needs to be done and allocate packages of work amongst the partners to best utilise each partner’s areas of expertise. During this time a number of technical meetings also took place focusing on the specific developments of the project.Characterisation of film waste was investigated where representative agricultural waste film samples were supplied and analysed to ascertain the amount and type of soilage present. The film samples are typically used for a) Greenhouse and tunnel films to protect crops b) Silage films to preserve silage and c) Mulch films to modify soil temperature, reduce weed growth, prevent moisture loss and improve crop yields, these having the greatest amount of soilage.These film samples were then tested to study the effects of the variable strain rates on soilage adhesion to the film to determine the optimal conditions for soilage removal. This was very positive as a large percentage of the soilage was removed using an optimum strain rate (stretch) of the polymer. Tests to determine the effect of turbulent airflow on the removal of soilage from the film were carried out on the film samples. It was noted that moisture on the film making it harder for the airflow to remove the soilage and the higher moisture content makes a crust of soilage that adheres to the surface. From these test an empirical model was developed which determined the types of waste film and levels of soilage present in different geographical areas. The model also informs the user how mechanical deformation (stretching) and turbulent air flow affects the surface-soilage adhesion and gives the user optimised conditions for these parametersEarly in the project it was understood that in order to develop a system that will be efficient and acceptable to potential users, the design has to be focused on creating a system that handles silage film (used film usually wrapped up in to large bundles) and mulch & low tunnels film (removed from ground by rolling up into untidy bundles).A concept / prototype design of a film preparation and cutting unit was produced and evaluated. The initial premise was to process the film whether mulch or silage as a bundle and not to be fed into the system in a flat sheet. During this initial development the consortium gained considerable new knowledge and understanding about the waste films and how to handle it which changed their initial premise and developed a new focus regarding the priority of the films collected and how it should be processed before they were sent to be re-cycled. The consortium found a very large difference in the quantity of soilage on the film and reviewed how the films should be collected and processed before they are sent to be re-cycled, which was determined:• Mulch and tunnel film - very soiled and requires complete system preparation, to be directly collected off the field as a flat sheet.• Silage and greenhouse film – free from stones and heavy soilage can be introduced at the shredder stage as manageable bundles.The new premise was to develop a system which processed the mulch and tunnel film as a flat sheet collected directly from the field.Development trials of film preparation and soilage removal technologies were carried out and a three stage process was determined. First the mulch film is collected from the field using brushes, rollers, stretching and air blowing technologies to initially clean and prepare for cutting where the film is reduced and further soilage separation carried out. The last operation carries out the final removal of soilage from the cut film and stores for recycling. The machinery will be mobile and controlled by PLC and the speed will be synchronized to the speed of the tractor. The technologies and process stages of the START system were determined and input / output requirements defined, with a concept design developed. A trailer was identified as the mobile platform for the START system where the layout of the sub-units designed. During the development trials, to improve efficiency, feasibility, and safety, modifications have been carried out. The prototyping of the START sub-units which include the roller stretcher, mill cutting rotor, and cyclone units were successfully carried out and integrated into the complete system. During this phase, the most challenging task has been to optimise how the film to be processed goes from one unit to the other. In order to let the film run smoothly on a continuous basis without breakage, the connecting components have been improved such as the mill hopper and its position, the power of the cyclone fan motor and the position of the three units. Further work on the machine structure was necessary to prevent the film from twisting around the cylinders. The various improvements allowed the film to run smoothly on a continuous basis and to be satisfactorily clean, as demonstrated by the functioning trials. The prototype is power driven and the three units are connected to a switchboard, initial testing checked the correct function of each individual unit and their coordination and the necessary adjustments were made to let the various system components run in a synchronous way. This was controlled by a PLC which allows the operator to set the feeding speed and process variables so as to adapt them to the type of film used and optimize cleaning performance. During field trials a number of process variable set-ups were tested with the intention of finding the most suitable ones for a better cleaning action. An operating manual for the START machine was produced covering its working procedures, safety requirements and maintenance.For the technology trials the prototype was mounted on a trailer. The trailer was equipped with a suitable frame on which the three components of the system were fixed. A certain number of trial sessions have been performed to verify and adjust the working conditions of the system. The data collected in the various trial sessions have been taken into account for generating final results. Different types of silage, mulch and tunnel films of variable thickness from 25 to 100 microns were initially tested. The films tested were contaminated with diverse types of soil (clay soil, sandy soil and mixed soil) and with different humidity content. The best results were obtained using thicker films with low-humidity sandy soil. Under such conditions about 80-90% of soilage was removed from film. During these trials extensive evaluation and validation was carried out by the consortium to improve the machine’s functionality and performance. On the basis of the experience acquired since the beginning of the project a number of necessary modifications were identified and implemented that have improved and made more efficient the machines operation. The prototype is now able to process a continuous film which is 1.6 m in maximum width and from 25 to 250 microns in thickness which the consortium agree has demonstrated ‘proof of principle’ from the original concept idea and is able to handle the majority of agricultural film formats available on the market.The soilage waste removed from the agricultural film was analysed to identify the presence of possible contaminating and/or dangerous substances in the soilage itself. The absence of such substances has allowed us to determine that the best way of reusing it is the possibility of returning the soilage to the land from which it has been collected together with the film. This helps avoid the reduction in cultivated land fertility, transport-related problems and costs, possible post-treatment costs and landfill costs.Due to the START machine the cleaned waste film was able to skip the first washing phase and the first milling phase in the industrial recycling process. The films are directly fed into the second bath to complete the separation of soilage and other possible contaminants. The trials show that the final quality of the granules obtained using this special type of feeding (dry-cleaned flakes) is totally equivalent to the one obtained using the two traditional milling stages and the two traditional cleaning stages with a consequent total saving in terms of industrial process costs of about 10-15%.In order to allow technology to be implemented throughout the EU with the greatest impact, the START project developed a logistical model and web-based software to optimise the plastic film collection and recycling operations. An investigation of the value of using road-miles software was carried out where the collection vehicles would travel to collect plastic film waste from farms and return to an agricultural waste recycling centre. The vehicles would travel on predetermined routes that minimize journey length and time. To aid in the development, specification, visualisation, construction and documentation of the software system a technique known as Unified Modelling Language (UML) has been adopted. Also existing software packages were investigated which could be modified or configured to suit the START application.The top level overview of the START software was developed where the basic requirements were identified and after much review although the preferred methodology was to integrate the bespoke route planning functionality into the IFFPG website it was agreed by the consortium that the decision was not to build upon the existing IFFPG system because the database and the entity relationships did not support the new functionality and it would have entailed re-writing much of the existing system to accommodate the necessary changes. It was decided to use the latest version of MySQL for the database and the latest version of ASP.Net for the software development platform. These were MySql Community Version 5.1 and Microsoft .Net version 3.5. The initial version of the web base software was developed:http://start.pera.com/The original specification suggested that the aim of the software was to provide a means for managing all aspects of the collection and recycling process whilst providing all users with easy access and simple input of all relevant data. The principle users of the system defined were Farmers, Collection Agents / Drivers and Service Providers (System Administrators). The software currently accepts films and waste includes greenhouse, silage, tunnel & mulch types; however, new types can be easily added to the data structure. The software handles the farmer’s collection requests; the collection agent and driver’s scheduling; the optimised planning of routes through Google Maps and provides reporting on the collection process.Logistical software trials were carried out during the technical and management meetings with the consortium to validate and optimise the functionality required, key additions were to provide a relationship between the farmer and geographical areas and also collection agent and geographical areas. This should be automated and it was agreed that the Admin should be able to create those relationships. All functionality is now included, a web based User model was completed where the consortium has satisfactorily trialled the latest version of the wed based software. Technical documentation for the Web based software has been produced.Potential Impact:The EU is committed to resource efficiency in order to sustain world population and economic growth. In order to achieve this the landfilling of materials that can be recycled will in the near future not be possible. The ruse and recovery of materials will therefore become a priority.Some plastics used in agriculture are recovered through recycling schemes but systems are dispirate across Europe and the overall recycling rate of plastic films used in agriculture in the EC is believed to be around 25%. The balance is either disposed on farm or sent to landfill.Plastics used in agriculture can have very high levels of contamination from soil, straw, silage,chemicals depending on application. The level of contamination will vary depending on application eg that used for greenhouse applications normaly has the lowest level of contamination with that used in crop cover applications having the highest.To recycle agri film requires a system of collection hubs normally needing to be 30 mile radius where farmers can bring their materials and where material can be hand sorted and then baled for onward transport. This operation is necessary as farmers will normaly bring or have collected a mixed load of film, netwrap,bags, containers, string,oil,wood etc. The outlets for the different materials are different and hence the need for manual separation and sorting. Once the film is separated from the load it is then baled and is then ready for collection/delivery to the recycling plant. The recycling plants tend to be dedicated to handling agri film and in the UK for example there are presently only 2 plants one in Dunfries Scotland and one in Brecon Wales. Distances to be travelled once the film is collected can therefore be considerable. Clearly transporting film will high levels of soilage is inefficient and not good environmental practice. Finding ways to reduce the amount of soilage being transported is vital as this soil also when separated in the washing plant also carriers with it a landfill charge which the recycler has to pay.As the majority of farmers require collection on farm typically in the UK between 65 and 90% opt for collection on farm despite it costing farmers more for this service, the optimal planning of journeys is vital and using a software tool to enable this will bring considerable additional benefits.It is the wish of the European organisations that represent the plastics industry namely EUPC, EUPR and the producers organisation representing the producers of agri film APE to see the level of recycling optimised across Europe and recycling levels increase in the process.As co-ordinator PAFA has been working closely with the above organisations in this regard.Since the project has been running a new recycling plant for agri films has been commissioned in the UK in Wales. As recycling levels improve further recycling plants will be required as will more jobs be created locally at collection centres as sorting of the materials and baling will always be required. Each new collection agent will employ around 3 persons. In addition a typical recycling plant with a 15k tonne capacity will employ around ….persons. Therefore if recycling of agri films was to triple this will result in a considerable number of jobs being created at both collection hubs and at also at recycling plants.In summary the main benefits that will accrue from the successful implementation of improved cleaning of agri films on farm and or at collection hubs and the successful deployment of logistics software will be 1. Reduced transport of soil over long distances to recycling plants.2. Reduced landfill charges incurred by recycling plants for the disposal of soil ( presently £65 per tonne)3. Improved logistics and therefore lower collection costs ( difficult to quantify)4. All the above resulting in lower costs to farmers and making them more likely to join a collection scheme which will boost recycling and in the process ensure the efficient use of resources and create local jobs to collect and recycle plastics.As the organisations that are likely to exploit the Start technology already exist namely EUPR which embraces the European plastic recyclers and APE which is the organisation representing the producers of agri films and the latter also has strong links with the collectors dissemination beyond these parties has been limited to trade shows and magazine articles.During the START project the progress and results were disseminated across Europe and, where relevant, globally. This took the form of direct dissemination to interest groups, attendance to trade shows and conferences, workshops and the publication in journals and trade magazine articles. Once the device has been successfully patented and performance criteria proven then it will be appropriate to start the formal marketing process to appoint partners to sell and market the device as well as those to manufacture it to ensure we achieve maximum coverage and sales. Clearly any manufacturing rights granted must ensure the device can endure the farming environment and maximum exploitation of the device in terms of sales coverage. Suitable partners will be identified and vetted to ensure 'maximum reach' both within a country and between countries. Licensing rights to manufacture and or sell will need to be considered as appropriate.Bearing in mind the device is intended as suitable for use in fields and towed by a tractor, sales channels to be pursued can be either or a combination of:• Sold or made available through agricultural machinery agents/ merchants • Deployed by farming contractors• Made available through agricultural film collection schemeWork to identify appropriate partners and most appropriate sales channels will commence progressively from the beginning of next calendar year and initially it may be worth considering a number of country initiatives across Europe both North and South. Clearly an important part of ensuring early success will be the need for a number of production units to be used in demonstration trials and the number and scale of launch will be determined to the degree that satisfactory comprehensive testing and trialling can be done with pre production prototypes in a farm environment and in different soil and moisture conditions. This will determine whether a more cautious and staggered launch will be suitable as opposed to a European wide launch. Many publications, editorials and papers were made in order to promote START project in the second period, including a number of exhibitions, seminars and conferences where case study fliers about the START project were produced and distributed. Also a presentation about the project developments at the EPRO (European Association of Plastics Recycling and Recovery Organisations) in Oslo was delivered.TrainingDuring the prototype stage of the development of the ‘dry cleaning agricultural film’ START machine and web based logistical software to manage the collection of the agricultural waste films and reduce transportation costs, technical training issues relating to the engineering solutions developed in relation to film cutting, preparation, cleaning and collection were carried out. A training plan was set-up and this training has taken place over a number of meetings with the SME-AG and SME consortium members during the full scale development of START machine and web based logistical software. The SMEs, the SME-AGs and RTD partners have attended the consortium meetings regularly throughout the project where technical training and the training plan was reviewed and discussed in detail. The training sessions have been undertaken to train the AGs involved in the project, to qualify them as „START‟ trainers. These Training Workshops have focused on how to use the developed training tools/modules to enhance the industrial and commercial application of the project’s results. The RTD personnel responsible for the technical development have carried out the training directly to the other RTD, SME-AG and SME consortium members. Specific training events have also taken place for the SME-AG and SME members and the SME-AGs plan to arrange further training after the projects end, to the SME-executives and their members at the appropriate time. The RTD performers and AGs who have participated in the project’s development created and implement the training programmes to transfer the knowledge. Their work was focused on the design, development and production of the training materials. The training material consists of a range of standard electronic and printed formats including web-based delivery. The objectives of the training materials will be to transmit the findings of the work undertaken at both the prototype and full scale stages.Finally to determine the potential benefits of using the START machine for the collection of agricultural film from the field Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) was carried out. The findings compare two scenarios, without and with the use of the START prototype for collection of film. An LCA should be performed in line with the principles and procedures stated by the ISO 14040 series of standards, following current LCA practice and using SimaPro, a widely known LCA software tool. The system analysed focuses on the differences between operations involving the START machine and the status quo, and excludes those processes which are the same. The boundary for the analysis therefore starts with the collection of the film and adhering soil etc in the field, where the START machine partly cleans and shreds the film, and then covers the transport of the film and soil to the recycling facility, the recycling of the film, which involves fewer steps where the film has been processed by the START machine, and the transport of soil from the recycling facility to landfill. Overall, it was concluded that the START machine will have a significantly positive environmental benefit. A Techno-Economic analysis was also carried out which concluded that the machine could provide an attractive return to whoever owns and operates with savings at the film recovery, transport and recycling stages.List of Websites:http://start.uk-matri.org Related documents final1-start-218335-project-final-report-final.pdf
