For Josh, the biggest challenge was coming to terms with the capital spend and how he would get the best return on investment. He embarked on a process of trialing a number of material classifiers before deciding on the EDGE MC1400, distributed by machinery specialist Focus Enviro, which he had viewed at another customer’s site in Sydney.

On top of dealer support; value for money and machine design drove his decision. The machine was purchased mainly for separating the rocks from green waste and out of the oversize fraction as well as for the extraction of contaminated plastics and papers from the final product. “The design of the machine, with its large 1400mm opening, and how the actual separator works, best suited our needs as it lets the big rocks drop out whereas another machine I trialed didn’t do that,” Josh explained.

The MC1400 is able to extract impurities from highly contaminated material in a single pass using controlled air flow as a separation medium. Contaminated compost overs are first screened before being fed to the MC1400 to be separated into a range of materials, including clean rock, ferrous materials, clean organic fraction, and light fraction. At the same time, plastics are removed to prevent them from re-entering the compost stream. Operators are able to adjust a range of controls, from fan and feed conveyor belt speed, to drum positioning.

Additionally, the machine is fitted with a wide feed conveyor to allow for an even spread of material, which can be fed from existing trommel screens, increasing the efficiency of separation. In being a fully self-contained machine, air flow is better controlled while air depressurisation, dust creation and spillage are minimised. At present, Green Fingers composts more than 40,000 tonnes of green waste a year. To get through its legacy pile, the company has been running the MC1400 full-time in October and will continue to do so till the end of November.

Now that the machine has been in operation for a few months, Josh is able to reflect on the capital spend and said that based on early figures, he expects a return on investment in four years. “And that’s purely based on the numbers and selling product to pay off the machine. But there are a lot of other benefits that we’ve not included in this estimate, for instance the space we’ve freed up space on-site and the capacity it gives us,” Josh said. “If I were to move to an alternative screening solution, I can run the MC1400 off three-phase power, off 415 volts. I won’t need to run the motor because it’s got the ability to plug into power if power becomes a cheaper option,” he added.