Geoff Hadfield is the founder and Managing Director at Hadfield Wood Recyclers, which was formed in 1980. The company processes more than 300,000 tonnes a year of waste wood into recycled and sustainable products. The head office is in Manchester, and production sites in Manchester in the northwest, Middlesbrough in the northeast and Tilbury in the south of England allow Hadfield to offer a nationwide service. Hadfield recycles waste wood from many sources into products including feedstock for panel board, animal bedding and biomass fuel. In recent years it has won several awards including an export award for its “easibed” equine bedding and a “Recycled Product of the Year” award for its “easichick” poultry bedding, both of which are leaders in their respective markets.
LOOKING FOR MORE
In 2012 Geoff Hadfield was looking to improve efficiency at the Manchester and Tilbury sites to meet increasing demands. Geoff contacted Tommy Flinn of Komptech GB to discuss ways to improve screening throughput and the quality of the end product. Geoff and Tommy discussed a number of options and quickly settled on star screening. A new Komptech Multistar L3 mobile star screen with three-fraction-split was soon undergoing trials at the Tilbury site. The machine outperformed all expectations for throughput and end product quality, with very low fuel consumption. Geoff was equally impressed with the high build quality and finish of the machine
GOING TO THE SOURCE
Geoff paid a visit to the Komptech factory in Oelde, Germany, to meet the design team and tour the production facilities and spare parts centre. He also visited a customer site to see Komptech’s largest star screen at work. After talking to the owner, Geoff ordered a mobile L3 for Manchester and a mobile XXXL for Tilbury, with delivery taking place in early 2013. Over the past five years the L3 and XXXL have clocked in excess of 12,000 hours each and are still going strong. Both have proven extremely reliable, efficient and cost-effective, requiring only minor repairs. The XXXL screens at a consistent rate of 45 tons per hour, with 90 percent of the material being the finished product. The current set of XXXL stars have already run in excess of 5,500 hours and still have plenty of life left, partly thanks to the separation of ferrous and non-ferrous contaminants before the wood shred enters the machine, and partly due to the design and quality of the stars. The initial investment in what at the time seemed to be expensive Komptech machines has been more than recovered, in efficiency savings and in the ability to win more business due to the machines’ flexibility.
DEMAND SET TO INCREASE Hadfield will continue to evolve and grow to meet the ever-increasing legislative demands for wood processing. As demand for sustainable products continues to increase, Geoff would like to see Komptech develop a high efficiency wood shredder capable of producing “90 percent plus” of end product with very little dust, to match the capabilities of its star screen range.