New Technology Among Award Front-Runners

28 April 2011 by Daryl Tunningley

Cleansing Service Group’s pioneering technology designed to recover maximum volumes of valuable oil from aqueous wastes has been shortlisted in this year’s National Recycling Awards.

The company’s Thermal Desorber, which recently took runners-up spot in the 2011 Salford Business Award for Technology, is now among the front runners for the NRA Best New Technology award.

The annual awards are organised by the trade journal Materials Reclamation Weekly and winners will be announced in London in July.

Award judges said the finalists had demonstrated “outstanding quality, innovation and best practice.”

The desorber, installed at a cost of £1 million, is located at the company’s advanced hazardous waste handling site at Cadishead, Manchester, where it is successfully reclaiming oil from refinery sludges. The oil is ‘cleaned’ for use as Recovered Fuel Oil (RFO) suitable for use as boiler fuel, leaving inert solids which can be safely landfilled.

CSG’s award submission said the collection and treatment of oil-contaminated wastes was one of the company’s core activities. The residue remaining after initial treatment of the waste is an oily sludge. In the past, this sludge (which still contains 15% oil) has had to be landfilled at a rate of 250 tonnes per month.

The desorber had been developed to extract the remaining oil from the sludge.

The result was that a difficult waste was being diverted from landfill with obvious environmental benefits, landfill costs had been reduced, waste recovery rates increased and revenue from oil sales had risen.