Footwear waste to be used as alternative fuel for Vietnam kiln

Work is underway to commission a Solid Recovered Fuel (SRF) manufacturing plant for Holcim Vietnam to process solid footwear production waste from the country’s main shoe factory.

The system, supplied by Austria-based UNTHA comprises an anti-explosive Atex-specification XR3000 Cutter waste shredder with two 113kW motors, conveyor, over-band magnet, control room and water-powered fire suppression technology. It is capable of processing up to 10tph of material to produce an 80mm fuel with high (15-20GJ/t) calorific value. Metals will be liberated and extracted for recycling.

The entire plant was fully pre-fabricated and pre-assembled in Salzburg (Austria) for acceptance testing by Holcim Vietnam. The technology was able to exceed the 95 per cent <80mm performance
requirement, with 97 per cent of materials consistently achieving the required particle size.

The plant has now been shipped to Vietnam by sea, and is expected to be fully operational by September.

Providing further detail behind the development of this system, Christian Lanner, UNTHA’s head of engineering and product management explains: “This footwear production waste is an incredibly difficult product to shred, due to the mixture of notoriously tough materials contained within sports shoes. We’re tackling rubber, textiles, plastics, metals, sponge, reinforcements and more. However, we extensively configured, re-engineered and trialled our flexible XR waste shredder – using the client’s own material – until it was perfectly suited to this application.

“We’ve also refined the cutting concept so that it is incredibly well equipped to deal with this demanding waste stream.”