Bremen’s light packaging recycling centre rebuilt and expanded

The globally active German company specialized in the planning, production and assembly of turnkey sorting plants, Stadler Anlagenbau, carried out the reconstruction of the Sortierkontor Nord (SKN) lightweight packaging facility in Bremen, Germany. After two fire incidents in 2022 severely damaged parts of the plant, SKN – operated as a joint venture between Nehlsen and PreZero Recycling Deutschland – tasked Stadler with the redesign and rebuild of the affected sections with a focus on future-ready safety, automation, and operational reliability.

The facility, originally designed and commissioned by Stadler in 2021, is one of Europe’s most modern sorting plants for lightweight packaging. It processes around 120,000 tons of material per year from the dual collection systems in Bremen and the surrounding federal states. With the rebuilt plant, commissioned in early 2025, SKN has restored its original throughput and significantly raised the bar in terms of fire protection, sorting stability and preparation for automated battery extraction – an increasingly critical challenge for the waste and recycling industry. The reconstruction process was unlike a conventional plant build: around one-third of the machinery area was destroyed, and despite extensive preservation measures, further damage to standing equipment occurred during the complex insurance settlement process. Stadler integrated state-of-the-art sorting technology into the existing structure, while meeting significantly higher safety requirements.

“Fire incidents in light packaging plants tend to cause immense damage because hazardous components such as lithium-ion batteries are often concealed in the material stream,” explained Tom Schmitt, Sales Manager at Stadler. “In redesigning the Bremen facility, our priority was to ensure stable sorting performance while significantly increasing fire safety. This involved architectural changes, new system layouts, and the integration of technologies inspired by our latest projects.”

A central change in the new design was relocating the first classification steps – air separation, magnetic separation and 2D Flex sorting – into a hall structurally separated from the main machinery area. This spatial redesign increases fire protection by isolating these key critical early process stages, reducing the plant’s overall vulnerability to fire-related incidents. The addition of a second 100-cubic-meter fire extinguishing water tank, together with modern fire-protection systems including sprinklers and integrated fire suppression lines on equipment such as trommel screens, further enhances fire safety.

The rebuilt sections of the plant now feature an optimized flow that reduces material bottlenecks and inefficiencies of the original setup. Three trommel screens, previously positioned in a single area and connected by long conveyor belts, are now arranged opposite each other for smoother, more accessible operation. Films – one of the highest-volume fractions – are now sorted fully automatically, with the option of integrating a third sorting stage in the future. SKN now produces transparent LDPE and mixed-film fractions with improved consistency and reduced manual handling. The plant continues to deliver twelve high-purity mono-material fractions, including PP, PET, PE, PS, mixed polyolefins, paper-cardboard-carton, aluminum and additional composite materials. At the same time, the redesign enables the future integration of automated battery extraction technology similar to the system installed at PreZero’s Sollenau facility, which can detect and remove batteries.

“Restoring and securing the sorting capacity was our first priority,” said Benjamin Kreie, Managing Director of Sortierkontor Nord. “But together with STADLER, we went far beyond reconstruction. The modified sorting technology, the creation of more monitored fire sections, and the possibility to integrate battery extraction all raise the plant to a new level – safer, more robust, and better suited for current and future waste streams.”