Lifting environmental standards

Closed Loop Recycling is fast becoming one of the UK's green success stories. The company name gives away its area of expertise: this is an innovative recycling business which was the first in the world to recycle both PET and HDPE plastic bottles into food-grade raw material for new food and drink packaging. A £12 million expansion is soon to start which will double the capacity of its Dagenham plant to 60,000 tonnes, creating the most advanced plastics purification facility in the UK. Not surprisingly, given the green agenda's current top billing, this expansion has been welcomed by business minister Mark Prisk who commended the company's contribution to the new green economy. Closed Loop Recycling has been at the forefront of the UK plastic recycling industry which has gone from almost zero to £60 million in just five years. The new factory extension will help it realise ambitious growth plans and meet demand for recycled food-grade products. The business supplies big names such as Britvic, which is using the output of the factory for its Drench water bottles. Five lorry loads of baled waste that would otherwise be destined for landfill are delivered to the site each day to go through an eight-stage process of sorting cleaning and sterilisation. A fleet of Tonero forklifts from Toyota is used to unload the lorries and transport bales of flattened bottles to the conveyors for processing and to load the finished product in bags for onward delivery to the customer. Fitted with bale clamps, the forklift trucks compress the bales to allow easy handling even when the strapping is removed. Bryan Barnes, Closed Loop Recycling's production manager, says the truck is ideal for the demands of this site: "Unloading the lorries and bringing the bales into the plant requires the drivers to make frequent changes of direction. The Tonero is very easy to handle and the operators enjoy using it. The design of the instrument panel and overhead guard gives good all-round visibility and Toyota's system of active stability helps us feel confident that we are putting our drivers in one of the safest trucks around." Closed Loop specified the trucks with Toyota's Safety+ package, allowing each truck to be tailored to specific demands. Speed limiters, for example, control acceleration when the truck is carrying a load. A load weight indicator allows operators to assess the weight of each bale before it is lifted to helping to ensure the truck is not overloaded. Functionality and safety of the forklift trucks was important, but these were not in themselves sufficient reasons for truck selection. For operations director Colin Jackson, it was also vital that the company supplying the forklifts mirrored the ethos of Closed Loop: "It goes without saying that as a recycling company, we examine every area of our business to reduce the environmental impact. Solar and wind power help to reduce our energy use and we take great care to clean the water used in our processes to allow it to be returned to the water system. "Quality business processes are critical and we are working towards getting the plant ISO accredited as a priority. I feel confident in working with a supplier who already operates to these standards for both business and environmental management. And with the truck itself being 99% recyclable, it's perfect for Closed Loop." Toyota's three European plants, along with all of its component suppliers, are accredited to ISO 14001 – demonstrating Toyota's commitment to environmental management both for manufacturing processes and supplier choice. Every stage of the truck's life, from manufacture, through operation to end of life, has been examined with the objective of reducing environmental impact. Toyota's operations director Tony Wallis says that like many responsible businesses, Toyota realigned its design policies around 10 years ago to incorporate principles of sustainability. "We actively integrate the principles of 'the Toyota way' with our environmental action plan, and this has resulted in high levels of recyclability at a lower impact to the environment through longer component life and quality. "It's about guiding our designers to consider the best material that satisfies requirements for quality, yet also meets all of our sustainable values for the environment including our social responsibility." He highlights the Toyota Tonero IC engine range – that used by Closed Loop Recycling – which has achieved an impressive recyclability level of 99%. And the other 1%? "That's taken up by substances within the truck wiring that would currently be more harmful to the environment to recycle," he explains. Interestingly, the Tonero design has also cut back on the amount of plastic used for manufacture of its predecessor. The change was made, says the company, to improve product quality and durability – plastic panels are far easier to damage than steel. "Our analysis showed that the effect of plastic panel replacement did not improve our environmental principle targets, so the design was changed to steel which is more robust and easier to recycle," says Wallis. Eco-friendly offer Craig Johnson, marketing manager, Jungheinrich UK, agrees that responsible manufacturers need to look beyond the raw materials to ensure a truly green product results: "For the environmentally conscious forklift manufacturer, the energy requirements of the design, development, production, maintenance and disposal processes of the truck all have to be considered when designing a new model – and for the specifier, these things also have to be taken into account when deciding which truck manufacturer has the most eco-friendly offering." Like Toyota, Jungheinrich is actively promoting energy efficiency and environmental protection. "Thinking and acting environmentally is an integral part of our corporate philosophy and is reflected across all production and service divisions," says Johnson. "We attach great importance to environmental impact and recycling throughout a vehicle's lifecycle – from development to manufacturing and on to service. We are thrifty in our use of raw materials and energy and feed recyclables back into the production system." Johnson makes the point that refurbishing used trucks is not always the greenest option. "When it comes to refurbishing used trucks, only vehicles with high energy efficiency that can be refurbished without expending too many resources are reconditioned. Used trucks whose state of repair would use up too many resources or whose future use would use up too much energy by modern standards are scrapped expertly by specialist companies. "Raw materials and equipment such as hydraulic oils are reconditioned and returned to the production process and recycled." It's not only the counterbalance forklift trucks that come under the green spotlight. Jungheinrich has recently announced a key development in truck technology, with a lithium ion-powered pallet truck. The product was among several new products unveiled by Jungheinrich at last month's CeMAT exhibition in Hannover, Germany. Following successful trials, the EJE 112i is now in production. Lithium-ion technology offers several significant environmental and productivity benefits over traditional lead acid batteries. The battery unit itself, for example, is very different, weighing just 14kg in this case and resembling a brief case. Importantly, it can be handled easily without lifting gear. Charging is easy – it takes 30 minutes to deliver a 50% charge, or 80 minutes for a full charge. Short charging times enable more flexible truck use, as well as the chance for opportunity charging – ideal for those sites on multiple shifts. Jungheinrich says a single charge will power this product for a typical eight-hour shift. And, when it comes to recharging, a dedicated charging bay is not required. The battery is removed by hand from the truck and placed within a recharging docking device that can be positioned near a power supply anywhere within the building. The simplicity of the recharging process reduces the need for dedicated battery charging room personnel. The smaller, lighter battery means a smaller battery compartment – and smaller truck. This model is 70mm shorter in length than a comparative lead acid powered version with the same capacity. Jungheinrich first demonstrated a prototype of this model three years ago and says it is the first forklift manufacturer to go in to production with a lithium-ion powered truck. "We believe that our new lithium-ion powered EJE 112i represents a step change in forklift truck design," says Bill Goodwin, sales director of Jungheinrich UK. "We've been researching alternative fuels for a long time and believe that with its rapid charging, long running times and compact truck dimensions, our lithium ion powered pallet truck will be welcomed by truck users in all sectors and of all sizes." The more environmentally friendly the truck components, the easier it is to dispose of the truck at its end of life. In the UK forklift truck market, end of life can have several stages, given that most trucks are supplied initially on a three or five year contract hire arrangement. What happens next? Most of the truck suppliers operate short-term hire fleets, into which they put trucks returning from contract hire. Cannock-based Briggs Equipment, for example – now national distributor for Yale trucks – has a burgeoning short-term hire fleet as well as hundreds of items of used equipment for sale (www.bmhque.co.uk). The company says it is focusing hard on end of life impact in terms of maximising the life of each product: "New trucks are typically sold on a five-year contract, but a truck has a much longer lifespan than that," says Scott Bullock, marketing manager at Briggs. If the vehicle is older and has been through the stages of first, second or even third use, it could be sold for a project, perhaps stripping parts for re-use and selling the empty shell. The shell can also be sold to scrap merchants, though this is unusual and Briggs says happens only a handful of times in a year. Electric avenue Electric is certainly seeing a surge of interest from forklift buyers. Truck and battery advances have made electric-powered vehicles suitable for many more environments than would have been possibly just a few years ago. For example, Hyster – sister company to Yale – has just launched a heavyweight electric counterbalance truck for the 4-5 tonne market, for which there is increasing demand it says. Electric forklift trucks now account for approximately 20% of the 4-5 tonne segment of the counterbalance market. As the price of fuel continues to rise and operations are increasingly sensitive to environmental concerns, Hyster is banking on the fact that high capacity, electric-powered, counterbalance forklift trucks will become more prevalent in a range of applications. The series – badged the JXN – is designed for demanding applications such as metal fabrication, timber processing, beverage and bottling, brewing, paper manufacture, pulp processing and automotive manufacturers among others. Foot on the gas In recent years, there has been a marked increase in the number of forklift trucks powered by liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). Two of the major LPG suppliers to the UK market are Shell Gas and Calor. Calor's Paul Young says that new developments have helped users to operate more efficiently and made gas a more obvious choice. The introduction of larger capacity fixed fuel tanks has enabled businesses to significantly reduce downtime and manual handling, he says. "There have also been several other modifications to LPG cylinders themselves, including Magnatract technology, which eliminates the potential risk of any fragmented metal particles affecting the fuel supply or forklift engine." Calor commissioned independent tests to demonstrate the benefits of LPG-fuelled forklift trucks over other power sources, notably diesel. The tests, at Millbrook, showed LPG to be quieter, to lower carbon dioxide by 23% and, perhaps most importantly, to virtually eliminate particulate emissions.