Krauss-Maffei Aktiengesellschaft

Hubert Kindler

Klaus Hillekamp

Peter Niedner

Household or industrial refuse is first passed through a device which rips open garbage bags, breaks open cardboard boxes, and breaks up bundles. Then this refuse is passed through a magnetic separator that extracts all the ferromagnetic elements. Thereafter the refuse is subjected to a coarse comminution and passed through a sieve to eliminate particulate material. The sieved refuse is then fed to an air-classifier which separates it into heavy, medium-heavy, and light fractions. The medium-heavy fraction is more finely communited, then passed through a zig-zag air-classifier and a cyclone to recover material usable in the production of paper, which is combined with the light fraction from the air classifier for reclamation.

Method of treating refuse for reclamation of valuable components thereof

A light refuse fraction including flat pieces of different rip resistance, such as relatively rip-resistant synthetic-resin foils and textiles and less rip-resistant paper, is separated by first suspending the material in a gas stream which is passed over an entrapment element. This entrapment element is so oriented that pieces of the material catch on it. The speed of the stream of gas relative to the entrapment element is such that the less rip-resistant pieces tear free from the entrapment element and the more rip-resistant pieces remain caught on it. Thereafter a stripper element serves to clear the more rip-resistant pieces off the entrapment element and segregate them from the less rip-resistant pieces. In this manner it is possible to recover from the light fraction separated out in a refuse-sorting plant the flat pieces of paper that are recycled for use in making paper products.

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Grobenzell, Germany

Hubert Kindler