Following exhaustive competitive product testing, driver preference and substantial fuel cost savings has led to a new order for two further Doosan DL350-3 Stage IIIB compliant wheel loaders at GP Green Recycling, a leading specialist in the recycling of green waste and food waste into compost, based in Lanarkshire in Scotland. This follows on from the purchase of a previous Doosan DL350-3 wheel loader at the end of 2013. All the new wheel loaders have been supplied by Scotia Plant Ltd, the authorised Doosan and Bobcat dealer for the central belt of Scotland, based in Coatbridge.
Formed 14 years ago, GP Green Recycling has purchased the three new Doosan wheel loaders, which have replaced three existing Doosan DL400 machines, to cover all the different loading applications at the business, which deals with large volumes annually, typically processing 60,000 tonnes of material a year.
The Doosan DL350-3 wheel loaders are GP Green Recycling’s first new wheel loader purchases and the first the company has bought from Scotia Plant. In the past, the company had purchased second hand wheel loaders for its fleet and these were mainly Daewoo and Doosan machines.
Jim Gilchrist, Managing Director of GP Green Recycling, said: “Over the years, we have been very pleased with the performance of the Doosan wheel loaders in our fleet and they have always represented good value for money. Before we bought the last two wheel loaders, we carried out tests on an equivalent machine from another manufacturer, but our drivers said they preferred the new Doosan machine and so it was a simple choice to choose Doosan for the second and third machines.
“We are also seeing a very positive difference in terms of a 30-50% saving on fuel costs which will probably amount to a very impressive £10,000 to £15,000 a year per machine. Impressively, the fuel saving has not come at the expense of power as the DL350-3 machines easily outperform the DL400 loaders and this all nicely complements the information from our drivers regarding aspects such as the comfort and operation which was very good.”
The DL350-3 model is part of the latest generation of Doosan large wheel loaders, which combine fuel efficient Scania SCR Stage IIIB compliant diesel engines with ZF 5-speed transmissions, and many other features to minimise fuel consumption such as Auto Idle, Torque Convertor Lock-up 2nd-5th gear, electronically controlled fan, low rolling resistance axles and load sensing hydraulics, to mention a few.
The DL350-3 wheel loader is powered by the 9-litre Scania DC09 SCR 5-cylinder diesel engine delivering a maximum power output of 202 kW at 1800 rpm. With a bucket capacity of 3.7 m3, the Doosan DL350-3 large wheel loader is intended to meet a wide range of material-handling needs from loading and transporting recycled material to industrial, mining and quarrying applications.
Like all Scotia Plant customers, GP Green Recycling benefits from the dealer’s on-site service network, covering everything from emergency repairs to routine maintenance. Scotia Plant’s trained engineers have years of experience of repairs and servicing of heavy plant and machinery and the company’s service vans are fully equipped with workshop tools and parts for on-the-spot service work. Genuine parts are readily available from the local Coatbridge facility.
Just 10 minutes from the M74 motorway, GP Green Recycling is ideally located to take in raw materials mainly from surrounding local authorities including those in Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire and the City of Glasgow. By committing green waste to a recycling process, the environment is protected, landfill taxes are avoided and the cost of transportation of this bulky product is significantly reduced.
Green waste is delivered to the GP Green Recycling headquarters at Blantyre in Lanarkshire, primarily in polythene bags which need to be opened by hand and the contents segregated, with contaminating rubbish removed. The segregated material is fed by the Doosan wheel loaders into large shredding machines, each capable of processing 30 tonne of product per hour. Once the material has been shredded it is then placed in windrows for the composting process to begin, which takes about 12 weeks to complete. The product is then transferred into a storage area in new windrows, where it has to be regularly rehandled by the Doosan wheel loaders to aerate and speed the composting process.
In the next stage, the Doosan wheel loaders pass the product through a large industrial screed which sizes the product into 3 different grades for different applications. GP Green Recycling produces an extremely rich compost, high in fibre and nutrients, which meets BSI PAS 100 standards and is suitable for a variety of situations including regeneration projects, agricultural, horticultural and landscaping use.
The compost product is also heavily utilised by interior and exterior landscaping specialist, GP Plantscape, a sister company to GP Green Recycling.
