When most people look at an expanse of construction, demolition and excavation material they see only waste. Andrew Thompson, director at William Thompson & Son, is able to see things differently with the introduction of a
William Thompson & Son has been in business since 1946 at its site in Dumbarton Glasgow. The company began in 1946 as a quarrying business. Now as it celebrates its 70th year in business it offers a wide range of products for the construction sector. The most recent addition to the Group is Thompson's Recycling & Landfill which recycles construction, demolition and excavation waste in its 120 tonnes/hour wash plant, which was installed in January 2016.
William Thompson & Son is able to supply the C&D waste recycling plant using material exclusively from its landfill site as well as imported material. This was the original Rigangower quarry which was then used for disposal of construction and excavation waste. The C&D recycling plant will now be utilised to turn these waste materials into a range of products with a commercial value. “We are able to recycle around 80% of the landfill material,” explained Thompson.
Supplying customers mainly within a 30 mile radius of their Glasgow quarry, William Thompson & Son has a wide range of new products from its C&D waste. The smallest aggregate is suitable for pipe bedding, the mid-range aggregate is sold for closed drainage and the largest aggregates suit open drainage. The 0-4 grit is in high demand for block making, the company also produces 0-2 fine sand and a concrete sand.
At the initial pre-sales stage, before any agreement is signed, CDE will always carry out detailed testing of the feed material and determine the capacity of the plant to ensure that the models and options included are those best suited to the site. In this case the feed material is very dirty given that it had been stored in a landfill for up to 25 years. In addition, it is very wet and sticky, making it more difficult to process.
After consultation with the team at CDE a fully integrated C&D plant was designed to suit the Thompson site’s specific output requirements. The plant comprises a R2500 Primary Screening Unit, an AggMax 153R Logwasher, M2500 mobile wash plant, an AquaCycle thickener, an Overhead Beam Filter Press and completed with four water storage and sludge buffer tanks.
Speaking about his first foray into wet processing, Thompson said: “As our previous projects utilised dry crushing and screening we carried out a lot of research into all the possible options. Given the complexity of the equipment and the difficult feed material, we knew that working directly with the manufacturer was going to be essential.
“We opted for CDE as I know that they are not just selling this equipment, they are the manufacturer and we see a lot of value in that: it means the same person who designed the plant can come to our site.”
As with all CDE projects William Thompson & Son was assigned a dedicated Project Manager to be a point of contact and ensure a successful installation and commissioning. Describing the design phase, project manager Ciaran Hegarty said: ‘We made use of a modular design which allows us to utilise our bespoke designs, which have been tried, tested and installed on many other projects worldwide. This also means that any spare parts are easily and readily available.”
The other benefit of the modular design is the quick installation time. Whilst the major plant items are modular in design, all the pipework and conveyors have been designed to interlink seamlessly within the agreed plant layout ensuring efficient transfer points and maximum material retention within the processing circuit.
