Milperra has operated a non-ferrous cable granulator since its first commissioning in 1990. The granulator shreds the cable into granules, which liberates the plastic from the copper. Then the granulator separates these elements so that the copper can be sold and the plastic disposed of.
The granulator was not efficiently liberating the plastic and copper when processing lowgrade cable, and it was found that the plastic waste resulting from the separation process contained up to 10 percent metal.
The Engineering team conducted research into possible technologies that could improve copper recoveries with the low-grade cable and determined the Bano’s vertical turbo mill technology would be the best solution. The Bano Turbo mill works differently than traditional granulators, in that it balls fine wire up to increase density and allows the system to more effectively separate the fine wire from the plastic.
The granulator is processing approximately 1,700 tonnes of low-grade cable per annum. The Bano Turbo mill recovers an additional 4.4 percent of copper. This equates to a 75 tonnes diversion from landfill per year, saving the business unit $12,000 in landfill costs. Additional revenues were also obtained from sale of the copper commodity.