PROCESS
RAW MATERIAL SUPPLY PHASE
GEMDOUBS recycles paper and cardboard recovered from:
- 30% from household packaging recovered by local authorities (mainly Regional);
- 70% from product packaging collected from mass distribution (agri-food...) and industry.
The raw material is delivered in the form of compressed bales, each weighing between 300 and 1500 Kg, to be stored in the bales bay.
LOADING PHASE
The bales are brought by forklift operators to the elevator belt, which takes them up into the pulper tank, where they are defibrated.
TRITURATION PHASE
In the first stage of the trituration process, the bales are milled with water by the pulper's rotor. This defibrates the paper. The paper fibre (cellulose) is separated from most of the waste - plastics, metals, sludge...
TREATMENT PHASE
The purifiers continue this work in greater detail, targeting different types of impurities. The cleaners complete the treatment phase by definitively separating the plastics, staples, glues, so that nothing is left other than the cellulose fibres to be used to make the paper. This is the pulp.
FORMING PHASE
The papermaking process starts. The pulp, composed of water and fibres, is projected onto the "wire", a kind of conveyor belt through which water is aspirated, leaving behind the fibres to form the paper, which is still very wet.
A continuous paper web is thus formed, according to a certain width and a certain thickness (determining the grammage).
DRYING PHASE
The paper, still very soft and wet, then goes through roller presses which mechanically withdraw as much water as possible.
The drying must then be completed by thermal means: The paper strip now travels around the circumference of about 50 large-size drying cylinders, brought to 130°C by a water vapour circulation system.
In order to obtain a less "blotting-paper-like" and more solid paper, starch is deposited on it before the last drying cylinders by a roller system called a "size-press".
FINISHING PHASE
The now dry paper strip is wound around a metal mandrel at the end of the line to create a mother reel. The paper's characteristics are continuously measured and checked by a scanner positioned just before this stage.
CONDITIONING PHASE
Second reeling phase: the mother reel is transferred to the winding machine. The paper is unwound and rewound, this time onto cardboard mandrels, to make several daughter reels, fastened with adhesive and labelled.
The reels of C.B.P. (Corrugated Base Paper) thus obtained have a width of up to approximately 3.35 m. The mother reel can make 2 to 3 daughter reels in the direction of the winding. In the direction of the width, several daughter reels of additional smaller "widths" can be cut.
These reels are then transferred to a finished product storage facility and stored upright, before being sent to customers.
SUMMARY
