Originating back to the 1940s, Stuart Partners is a family-run company located in Devon. It has evolved over the years from a cattle haulage business into various industry sectors, such as farming, truck sales and servicing, landfill, recycling, skip waste and renewable energy.
Based at the original Hill Barton Business Park in Exeter, Devon, the inert waste recycling sector of the business grew in the 1990s when they started to clean aggregate to make crushed concrete. This is when they first purchased a screener. The process has developed over the years, and today, the wash plant is required to operate all year round. Most of the material brought onto their site is now recycled, including the processing and sorting over 80,000 tonnes of inert waste per year. Over 70,000 tonnes per year are reusable and sold as quality recycled aggregates.
Needing to upgrade their existing plant, Stuart Partners contacted Retec Equipment, the UK and Ireland distributor for Sandvik mobile crushers and screens, to discuss their requirements. A QE342e hybrid model was proposed, and it seemed the ideal fit for their recycling operation.
The QE342e is one of today's most versatile and reliable heavy-duty mid-size scalpers. The ‘e’ hybrid variant offers an electric or diesel plug-in option to suit the customer’s preferred energy choice. Purposely designed for durability, its crusher-style chassis incorporates a wear-resistant rigid hopper and is compatible with 2-way or 3-way split configurations. It can also interchange side conveyors.
Its heavy-duty 16’ x 5’ / 4.7 x 1.45 m screen with high speed and aggressive throw is built for tough applications and can handle high volumes of infeed material. It offers user-friendly features for ease of operation, including an electrical control system that improves operational effectiveness and machine safety and two-speed tracking for faster mobility on site. The unit also comes fitted with My Fleet telematics as standard to optimise machine performance and productivity.
Tom Stuart, site manager at Stuart Partners’ recycling site, said: “We have a long history with Sandvik extending beyond the ‘Extec days’. We know the brand produces quality, reliable machines which are exceptionally functional and hold excellent resale value. This time, we opted for a dual-power machine to suit our future requirements.”
Stuarts has been granted planning permission to build a new gasification plant that will produce renewable energy on-site. This will incinerate waste for electricity rather than sending it to landfill, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and recovering valuable energy.
Producing their first energy from a waste plant running on a neighbouring site will mean they can use renewable energy to power the wash plant and the Sandvik QE342e. “So the reliability, flexibility, range of options, and resale made the QE342e the obvious choice,” Stuart comments about why his firm chose Sandvik.
Stuart says Stuart Partners is operating the QE342e through an external generator and using it to separate larger fractions of material (60 mm plus) that would be too large to go through their wash plant from the smaller fraction (0-60mm). It is used as the main feed and regulates the speed of throughput of the wash plant.
The smaller fraction is fed into the wash plant. The larger material is then processed through a crusher and sold as crushed concrete, or 6F5. Once the screened material is processed through the wash plant, the aggregates are used by a wide range of customers, such as utilities, commercial builders, and even farmers for sand. The larger material that is crushed is mostly used by commercial builders.
In addition to the sustainability of the hybrid drive, the QE342e offers many additional benefits in terms of lower cost of ownership and higher uptime. With fewer moving parts and filters, less time is required for maintenance, meaning the machine can be operational for longer.
The unit is fitted with the latest generation, efficient Stage V engine for maximum performance, reduced fuel consumption and lower environmental impact. The hydraulic system is optimised and reduced engine RPM lowers fuel consumption, while a well-proportioned fuel tank maximises intervals between refueling. There is also a 50% hydraulic fluid saving with extended service intervals from 2,000 to 4,000 hours.
All mobile units also leave the factory in Northern Ireland with HVO renewable fuel in the tank, contributing to cleaner operation and a lower CO2 footprint.
“We have been really pleased with the machine so far. We have noticed a big step forward from our previous model (2008) in terms of electronics managing the RPM of the engine. The plug-in electric will be a big step forward when we have the infrastructure in place” comments Tom.
“The ease of removing the mid-size conveyor and the ability to reconfigure to our requirements has also been a real positive.”
Stuart says he wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Sandvik, the QE342e, and their supplier, Retec Equipment. “We have had a great experience so far from Sandvik and Retec, and the expertise from Sandvik technicians has been second to none, helping us to fine-tune the machine over the first few months of operation.”
Sandvik Mobiles is proud to be selected as a preferred supplier for Stuart Partners' recycling operation and looks forward to continuing the business partnership going forward.
