Lindner's tailor-made re-grinding line boosts output and growth for Winco Plastics

Winco Plastics, North Aurora, Illinois/USA, a subdivision of Winco Trading (www.wincotrading.com), is one of the largest full service plastic recycling companies in the Midwest with 30 years of experience. After purchasing a Lindner re-grinding line including a Micromat 2500 pre-shredding system and a grinder, Winco has significantly increased their plastics waste handling capacity. The range of rigid materials fed into their Lindner system includes HDPE pipes of any size and thickness, HDPE sheets, PE and PP purge, and PC sheet as well as PET, mainly from post-industrial sources such as automotive and others.

Tim Martin, President of Winco Plastics, confirms an output of 4,000 to 6,000 lbs. of ½” regrind material per hour, ready for sale to the company’s clients for further processing in the recycling loop. “One major reason for our decision to purchase Lindner’s re-grinding line was its ability to handle the wide variety of size, weight and form of the expected input material coming from different suppliers”, he says. “We were happy to see that Lindner’s re-grind line is designed to shred heavy parts including pipes up to 8’ long, purges and logs up to Gaylord size as well as light material which can be directly ground. What convinced us even more was that all of this is backed by a high level of sustainability, particularly low power consumption, as well as low-maintenance operation with virtually no rotor wear and a maintenance-friendly layout thanks to the maintenance flap, which makes cleaning and maintenance very easy and convenient without requiring staff to climb inside the hopper. We believed that at the end of the day this combination of plus points would pave the way to a highly cost efficient recycling process."

Lindner-Recyclingtech America LLC, the US branch of Austrian company Lindner, offered Winco a tailor-made re-grinding line which exactly met their specific needs. In a first step the delivered plastic waste is transferred to a heavy duty feeding belt conveyor, designed to handle all kinds of material loaded by forklift or Gaylord dumper, followed by a Micromat 2500. This high performance single-shaft shredder is equipped with a customized (higher) internal ram enabling high throughput of all input materials as well as an overlapping rotor to avoid bridging of material between ram and rotor during the shredding process. The rotor carries fourfold reversible knives which further assist high productivity operation whilst at the same time facilitating cutting blade replacement and maintenance. The pre-shredded material is discharged from the Micromat by two successive belt conveyors, one of them equipped with a Gaylord dumper for handling any scrap suitable for direct feed into the downstream grinder without prior pre-shredding.

As Christopher Howard, General Manager of Lindner-Recyclingtech America LLC, recalls: “An initial challenge was to provide a system which would completely fit into the customer’s limited shredding area. Thanks to compact design of Lindner’s systems, the complete regrind line could be installed on just 1200 sq. feet, leaving plenty of space for operation and maintenance.” And he also highlights the uncompromisingly safe and secure operation of the system in spite of the partly undefined input material. “Being basically very sensitive to any contamination, the Lindner system is equipped with dual protection technology including a safety clutch on the Micromat 2500 shredder and a metal detector installed on the feeding conveyor into the grinder. In addition, the rotor is protected by a highly effective hard coat to extend lifetime when shredding abrasive material.”

And Martin sums up: “We chose Lindner for our shredding line because of their engineering knowledge and long experience in the plastics recycling industry. They had several references worldwide showing them to be a reliable partner for customized shredding projects. Their systems are heavy duty, which is an absolute necessity for our daily operations. Lindner’s experienced project team was very helpful from day one and they were able to supply a full shredding line including complete control, installation and electrical work to ensure the line would be operational in a timely manner. With hindsight, our decision to accept Lindner's offer was absolutely correct. The complete system went into operation after a lead time of only 4 months. Its energy consumption is even lower than expected and its performance is outstanding!”