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Safer maintenance for metal recycling

A Castell Safety International product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Dec 11, 2002

Britain's largest metal recycler has greatly facilitated safe routine maintenance at its Birmingham site with the installation of an integrated safety system from Castell.

Britain's largest metal recycler has greatly facilitated safe routine maintenance at its Birmingham site with the installation of an integrated safety system from Castell.

As part of European Metal Recycling's continuous safety improvement process, five switch disconnectors, three key exchange units and 20 access interlocks have been supplied to EMR to allow its Birmingham fragmentiser to be divided into five separate zones.

Access to hazardous areas is now only possible through interlocked gates after power to those areas has first been isolated.

Of the 1500t of metal processed by EMR Birmingham each day, some inevitably spills over from the fragmentiser's conveyors.

Aside from retrieving this overflow, operatives also need to clean dirt from rollers and check that bearings are properly greased.

These maintenance tasks previously entailed locking off the relevant isolator with a padlock before removing head and tail guards covering the conveyor concerned.

Once maintenance had been carried out, the guards had to be replaced, the padlock removed and the isolator finally re-energised.

Castell's safety system has enabled EMR to completely do away with both the head and tail guards and the padlocks.

Operatives need now simply remove the key from the relevant disconnector unit to isolate power to the conveyor requiring maintenance, and insert this key into one of the exchange boxes.

This action releases a number of keys, each one relating to a specific interlock on one of the access gates; operatives can then choose the key that they need.

Depot Manager at EMR, Mark Broadhurst says he's pleased with the Castell system: "It's much easier and safer for us to carry out maintenance than it used to be".

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