The treatment of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) poses significant challenges for all organizations operating in the recycling sector and for Public Administrations, such as municipalities, which are legally required to properly manage the disposal of this type of waste.
When we talk about Municipal Solid Waste, we are not only referring to the waste produced in private households during daily activities, but also to many other types of waste, radically different from each other and generated in very diverse contexts. MSW includes, for example, green waste from parks or gardens, waste from cemeteries or street cleaning activities, office or commercial waste, as well as packaging and production scraps from light industry, and even abandoned waste collected from public areas or roads.
According to Italian law, all waste that does not fall under the category of special waste must be considered MSW, regardless of its hazardousness or management complexity. Municipalities are required to ensure its safe disposal by equipping themselves with dedicated plants that allow for effective waste separation, maximize the recovery of recyclable materials, and comply with environmental regulations and worker health and safety standards.
CAMEC Plants for MSW Treatment
CAMEC designs, builds, and installs efficient and customized plants for the treatment of Municipal Solid Waste, specifically developed to optimize the separation of materials within the unsorted mass and to maximize the quantity of recoverable materials, ready to be sent to recycling plants and thus gain value also from an economic perspective.
Moreover, CAMEC’s lines are developed to minimize manual operations by workers, focusing particularly on process automation and the improvement of comfort in sorting cabins, thereby enhancing working conditions for operators tasked with separating specific materials from the unsorted mass.
All CAMEC MSW selection plants are custom-developed, based on the requests of individual clients and the characteristics of the territory where they are installed. However, the processing phases that waste undergoes can be schematically summarized in a few key steps:
- Loading waste into the plant
- Opening of bags, carried out with automated bag openers or tearers, making it easier to access waste for sorting
- Screening of waste, through a disc system that separates waste by size and performs an initial automatic selection, facilitating the separation of organic from non-organic fractions
- Manual sorting of waste, carried out by operators in air-conditioned cabins equipped with ergonomic workstations, designed to ensure maximum comfort and safety
- Magnetic separation of metals within the waste, to isolate ferrous materials
- Storage of separated materials in dedicated bunkers with automatic doors
- Compaction of sorted materials, which are pressed into bales to optimize transfer to recycling facilities
The processes within an MSW treatment plant are highly complex due to the wide variety of materials present in the incoming waste, requiring all components of the line to work in a coordinated and synergistic manner to maximize the amount of correctly recovered material.
For this reason, CAMEC has developed increasingly efficient MSW treatment lines, perfectly integrating automated steps with manual interventions, while progressively equipping operators with tools to perform their tasks as safely and comfortably as possible. In CAMEC MSW treatment plants, operators can stop the line at any time, if necessary, by pressing a dedicated emergency button. They work in climate-controlled sorting cabins with wide passageways and large windows, optimizing visibility and ensuring ideal working conditions throughout the year.
Advantages of CAMEC MSW Treatment Plants
Thanks to their focus on process efficiency, CAMEC MSW treatment plants allow:
- Maximizing material recovery, obtaining high-quality sorted fractions ready for recycling plants
- Reducing environmental impact and valorizing the non-recyclable dry fraction by transforming it into Refuse-Derived Fuel (RDF), thus reducing the volume of waste sent to landfills
- Intelligently automating processes by integrating automated activities with those requiring human intervention
- Minimizing plant footprint, with compact and modular line designs
- Providing a truly customized, turnkey plant, designed by expert technicians based on the specific needs of each client
If you would like to learn more about CAMEC’s Municipal Solid Waste treatment plants, visit our website and contact our team of technicians and professionals for a personalized consultation.