Meldgaard extracts more than 98% of metals from bottom ash

Meldgaard Recycling has recently opened a new ash recycling and metals processing plant in Kolding, Denmark. The facility features ‘state-of-the-art’ equipment to handle steadily growing international demand.

Currently, Meldgaard is processing more than 1.2 million tonnes of waste-to-energy ash every single year from operations in Europe and the United States. The company affirms that there is a growing market for cleaner ash aggregates as well as top level metals extraction.

‘When constructing the plant we had 3 goals in mind: first of all, to create a more homogeneous and cleaner finished ash aggregate. Second, to create a plant that extracts more than 98% of the metals in the ash. Also, to produce higher quality metals for recycling,’ explains Anders Hedegaard, managing director of Meldgaard Recycling A/S.

He points out that municipal and industrial waste is at an ‘all time high’ – at the same time representing a large deposit of steel, iron, aluminium, copper and precious metals silver and gold. Such metals will be processed at the new plant and sent to the smelters for recycling.

The resulting ash aggregate will be sold for use in construction and road projects where it can replace virgin materials such as sand. According to Meldgaard, it has essentialy constructed its newest recycling plant to provide a ‘complete ash recycling circle’ for all materials with the known resource efficiency problem in mind.