Over­view

The pro­cess as­so­ci­ated with gran­u­lat­ing, sort­ing and pro­cessing - the re­cyc­ling of raw ma­ter­i­als - con­sists of vari­ous manual and auto­matic steps and is more com­plex than com­monly ac­cep­ted. This com­plex­ity is also re­flec­ted in the fire risks along the pro­cess chain. Right at the de­liv­ery of the re­cyc­ling ma­ter­ial and its stor­age it is worth coun­ter­act­ing po­ten­tial sources of ig­ni­tion. The quant­it­ies of or­ganic and in­or­ganic ma­ter­ial mix­tures hold a con­sid­er­able fire risk due to the fer­ment­a­tion pro­cess. Taken to­gether with bat­ter­ies that are in­cluded and con­tain­ers with flam­mable li­quids that have not been com­pletely emp­tied or spray cans, the ig­ni­tion po­ten­tial of re­cyc­ling ma­ter­ial in­creases enorm­ously. Even the trans­port from one pro­cessing step to the next cre­ates chal­lenges to fire pro­tec­tion: For ex­ample the roller bear­ings of the con­veyor belts may run hot and ig­nite. If the fire leaps on to the re­cyc­ling ma­ter­ial being trans­por­ted, a fire can spread rap­idly in other areas of the op­er­a­tion as well. Pro­cessing sta­tions at which flam­mable li­quids, for ex­ample in the form of hy­draulic fluid, are used, rep­res­ent an extra risk. On these ma­chines an un­con­trol­lable fire can eas­ily de­velop and be­come an eco­nomic threat to the en­tire com­pany. Sprink­ler sys­tems are an im­port­ant com­pon­ent of build­ing pro­tec­tion for re­cyc­ling plants. A fire de­tec­tion sys­tem com­ple­ments build­ing pro­tec­tion in all areas. The fire de­tect­ors’ sig­nals run to­gether into the fire de­tec­tion- and ex­tin­guish­ing con­trol unit. This no­ti­fies people in danger as well as the fire ser­vice and in many cases as­sumes con­trol and func­tion mon­it­or­ing of the fire pro­tec­tion sys­tems. Hy­drant sys­tems com­plete the build­ing pro­tec­tion and allow the fire to be im­me­di­ately at­tacked manu­ally. In ad­di­tion to the basic con­fig­ur­a­tion, other fire pro­tec­tion sys­tems come into op­er­a­tion:

Protected Area

1

De­liv­ery area

2

Server rooms

3

Of­fices

4

Elec­tric & con­trol rooms

5

Sep­ar­at­ing- and crush­ing sys­tems for re­cyc­lable ma­ter­i­als

6

Mech­an­ical con­veyor sys­tems

7

Pneu­matic suc­tion and con­veyor sys­tems

8

Ag­glom­er­a­tion sys­tems

9

Sort­ing cab­ins for re­cyc­lable ma­ter­i­als

10

Stor­age areas

1. 1

   De­liv­ery area

2. 2

   Server rooms

3. 3

   Of­fices

4. 4

   Elec­tric & con­trol rooms

5. 5

   Sep­ar­at­ing- and crush­ing sys­tems for re­cyc­lable ma­ter­i­als

6. 6

   Mech­an­ical con­veyor sys­tems

7. 7

   Pneu­matic suc­tion and con­veyor sys­tems

8. 8

   Ag­glom­er­a­tion sys­tems

9. 9

   Sort­ing cab­ins for re­cyc­lable ma­ter­i­als

10. 10

    Stor­age areas