Moores Metals has been providing scrap metal recycling services from its two sites in Stoke-on-Trent, in Staffordshire since 1911. Among its services is car wrecking, dismantling vehicles to recover valuable waste components.
Needing a new scrap handling machine, it contacted Case Construction Equipment dealer Robert Coates Plant Sales, whose sales manager Richard Parry explains: “As an existing customer, having previously bought a used Case 821E wheel loader, Moores Metals came to us with a demanding specification for a new machine. They needed a zero tail swing excavator able to operate on a congested site with an attachment nimble enough to extract wiring looms and starter motors, yet robust enough to strip apart an engine block. It also had to be efficient to operate.”
Moores was recommended a Case CX245DSR excavator partnered with a Powerhand VRS 200 recycling system. “This unique combination enables the operator to precisely dismantle scrap vehicles, saving time on separating valuable recoverable materials found in modern vehicles rather than crushing them without being able to recycle any of the parts,” Richard Parry says.
With the Powerhand attachment, the excavator can hold down and clamp vehicles with the mounted clamp arms. Oversized materials can be cut to size using the grapple mounted shear, which means that operators can use the same machine to separate ferrous/nonferrous metals from the engine and transmission assemblies and remove the cylinder head from the engine block.
Moores Metal director Andrew Burkinshaw has been impressed. “At the end of the Powerhand VRS 200 arm there is a rotating pincher, so you can easily and quickly remove the bonnet, wings and the doors,” he says. “The pincher is sensitive enough to find the ECU that enables you to rotate and extract the entire wiring of vehicle. Disassembling the vehicle rather than crushing means you can separate precious metals like aluminium, copper, and other materials such as plastics.”
He adds: “Following our previous experience of Case technology with the wheel loader, its reliability, and strength it made sense that we should purchase another Case machine. It is a zero tail swing machine that is ideally suited to the application on a space- restricted site because of its weight and size. In the changing landscape of vehicle dismantling, our new Case CX245DSR excavator allows us to segregate different metals for resale. Overall, the solution is more sustainable because separating out metals and plastics means that the materials that remain at the end of the process will be cleaner.”
