Briggs Equipment makes a positive impact at Avanti Environmental
Avanti, one of the UK’s largest environmental management companies, have recently received 21 new Hyster trucks to five sites across the UK.
Avanti work directly with their customers in order to examine and map all waste types in order to provide re-use, recycling and recovery options in line with legislation and best practice.
The nature of the environment posed a number of areas for consideration when specifying the new trucks.
As each of the sites deals with different types of waste, each has unique requirements. One of the sites based on Knowsley Industrial Park near Liverpool, deals specifically with liquid waste which could have any value on the pH scale. This means that fumes from the waste have the potential to combust, meaning careful thought had to be given to the safety of the environment.
To address this challenge, some of the machines for use in that area were specified with Pyroban protection. Being under a canopied area but with consistent air flow, the site was classified as a ‘zone 2’ area, meaning the atmosphere may contain a mixture of flammable substances. This system uses active gas detection to identify risk in the environment, resulting in immediate shut down of the forklift until the risk has passed.
Another of the sites, based nearby, deals with solid waste. Due to the many types of solid waste received on site, various attachments were required to handle it safely and efficiently. Previously, an engineer had to attend site every time they wished to change the attachment, which slowed the operation.
The solution for handling various materials efficiently, was to specify quick-release clamps on seven of the machines, to enable the attachments to be changed on site by the team members without calling an engineer to site. The team have been trained to change the attachments and it can be done in less than 15 minutes, meaning there is no delay in completing the task in hand.
The health and safety of both machines and staff working alongside the machines needed to be protected. Due to the nature of the sites, dust and debris being sucked into the cooling fans can be a common problem in these environments, damaging the machines and increasing cost of maintenance. Mesh belly pans were fitted to filter the air flow into the cooling fans.
From a staff safety perspective, man and machine work in close proximity, so to help avoid accidents, Pedestrian Awareness Lights were fitted to provide a bright blue visual warning to pedestrians for oncoming vehicles.
Chris Vasey, Group Operations Director at Avanti Environmental, said; “After a rigorous tender process Briggs Equipment was selected to provide our locations with new FLTs. In selecting the ongoing supplier our prime considerations were safety, support and cost in that order and Briggs won on all counts.”
“The efforts of the Briggs team and the time invested by them in ensuring that the equipment quoted met our needs was very detailed and the ultimate delivery and roll out well organised.”
“The quality of the equipment, the control systems and the specialist partners involved give me great confidence that our business will realise safety improvements, maintenance savings and associated production efficiencies over a long and fruitful relationship.”