1.5-2T/H RDF Pellet Machine in Indonesia

Why a Textile Factory Decided to Become Its Own Fuel Supplier

This customer, let me call him Pak Agus (not his real name), runs a wet processing plant. Textile dyeing and finishing use a lot of steam. His plant has two older fire tube boilers, each rated at 5 tons of steam per hour.

He was burning sub-bituminous coal from South Kalimantan. The delivered price in Bandung had hit 2.4 million rupiah per ton. That is roughly 150 USD. Do that math for eight tons a day, 300 days a year. Almost 360,000 USD annually just for fuel.

His idea was simple. Instead of buying fuel, why not make fuel from the waste that is already piling up around his factory and the nearby industrial estate? Bandung generates thousands of tons of industrial waste every week.

Textile trimmings, rejected synthetic fabrics, plastic packaging from raw material deliveries, even old conveyor belts. Most of it goes to the Sarimukti landfill, which is almost full anyway.

He already owned a small shredder. He used it to destroy rejected finished goods. What he lacked was a densification machine that could turn shredded fabric and plastic mix into something that burns like coal. That is when he found our RDF pellet machine in Indonesia through a distributor in Surabaya. He did not need a full production line.

No hammer mill, no dryer, no cooler. His raw material came in at around 12% moisture because tropical humidity is brutal, but his waste was mostly synthetic fibers that don't absorb much water anyway. All he needed was a reliable ring die pellet press that would not choke on long fibers.

The Real Raw Materials They Are Feeding Into This RDF Pellet Mill in Indonesia

Let me break down what actually goes into their feedstock. It is not like European RDF plants that carefully sort and homogenize. This is messy, cheap, and effective.

About 45% comes from their own factory floor: polyester trim waste, nylon scraps, cotton-poly blend rejects, and empty chemical drums that have been crushed.

Another 35% comes from neighboring factories: a sneaker factory that throws away vulcanized rubber offcuts, a plastic packaging plant with tons of LDPE film waste, and a small automotive parts maker that discards non-recyclable ABS plastic.

The remaining 20% is municipal-derived: old clothes from a local thrift store that could not sell them, shredded car tires from a nearby retreading shop, and some wood pallets that have fallen apart.

They pre-shred everything to under 40mm using an old dual-shaft shredder they bought secondhand from a recycling yard in Jakarta. No magnetic separation. No air classification. Just brute force. Then it goes into a simple horizontal mixer where they add about 5% waste motor oil to boost the calorific value. That oil comes from a used oil collector who pays them a small fee to take it. So they actually get paid for part of their feedstock.

The pellet size coming out of their MZLH520 is 14mm. Why so big? Because their boiler grate spacing is coarse. They tried 8mm and 10mm pellets initially, but those fell through the grate before fully burning. The 15mm pellets sit on the grate longer, burn more completely, and produce less fly ash. They also make 18mm pellets on request for a nearby cement plant that is testing RDF as a partial coal replacement.

What Equipment Did They Actually Buy? Two MZLH520 Units

After going back and forth for two months, Pak Agus signed for two MZLH520 RDF pellet machines. No conditioner. No extra fat or binder addition system. Just the base unit with the forced feeder and the breaking feeder. Why two units? Simple answer: redundancy and capacity.

His boiler consumes about 800 kg of coal equivalent per hour. If he runs one MZLH520 at 1.5 tons per hour, he can replace almost all his coal. But RDF pelletizing is not stable. Material inconsistency causes die blockages. Roller bearings wear faster.

A single machine will inevitably have downtime. With two machines, he runs both at 70% load. If one jams, the other still produces while they clear the blockage. His effective output stays around 2.2 to 2.5 tons per hour combined.

Here are the specs for the MZLH520 they installed:

• Main motor power: 132 kW. This is important because synthetic materials are harder to extrude than wood. A 90 kW motor would struggle.
• Breaking feeder: 3 kW. Their fluffy shredded fabric needs this. Without it, the material bridges above the die.
• Forced feeder: 1.5 kW. This pushes material into the die holes. For RDF applications, this is non-negotiable.
• Ring die inner diameter: 520 mm. The larger die surface area helps with heat dissipation. RDF generates more friction heat than biomass.
• Production per machine: 1.5 to 2.0 tons per hour on paper. Realistically, with their messy feedstock, they see 1.2 to 1.5 tons.

They also bought spare ring dies. Two of them. One with 14mm holes, one with 18mm. They learned the hard way that RDF dies wear twice as fast as wood dies. Four to six months instead of a year.

Where Is This RDF Pellet Machine in Indonesia Located and What Fuel Does It Replace?

The installation is in the Rancaekek industrial area, about 30 km east of Bandung. That zone has over 200 textile and garment factories. The local government has been complaining about waste for years. Now one factory is turning that waste into thermal energy, and other factories are watching closely.

The pellets go directly into Pak Agus's boilers. He replaced 85% of his coal usage within three months of commissioning. His steam cost dropped from 480,000 rupiah per ton to 310,000 rupiah per ton. That is a 35% reduction.

And here is the kicker: the landfill tipping fee he avoids is another saving. He used to pay 150,000 rupiah per ton to dispose of his factory waste. Now that waste becomes fuel. So he saves on disposal AND fuel at the same time.

He is not selling pellets to anyone else yet. That might come later. Right now, he is focused on making his own operation cheaper. But three other factories in the same industrial park have already asked to buy pellets from him. If that demand grows, he will add a third MZLH520.

Shipping From Qingdao to Tanjung Priok Port

All our machinery from RICHI leaves from Qingdao port. For Indonesia, the main gateway is Tanjung Priok in North Jakarta. That is the busiest and most well-equipped port in the country. The shipment for Pak Agus included two MZLH520 units plus spare parts.

We packed each machine in two 40-foot open-top containers because the main body is too tall for standard containers. Sea freight took 18 days, pretty fast for Southeast Asia routes. Customs clearance at Tanjung Priok added another 9 days. Indonesian import procedures have become stricter in the last two years.

Every industrial machine now requires a surveyor report and an import license number. Pak Agus used a local customs broker in Jakarta who specializes in manufacturing equipment. That saved him at least two weeks of headaches.

Why Did He Choose Our RDF Pelletizer in Indonesia Over European or Local Machines?

He looked at three options. A German-made machine from a well-known brand. A Chinese flat-die machine from another exporter. And our MZLH520 RDF fuel pellet machine.

The German machine was beautiful. But it cost three times more, and spare parts had to come from Europe with a six-week lead time. For a factory that cannot afford to shut down for a month, that was a dealbreaker.

The Chinese flat-die machine was half our price. But it had no forced feeder. The export agent told him it could handle fabric waste. Pak Agus did a test with his material on a similar machine in Surabaya. It jammed within 15 minutes. The flat die has lower compression and less tolerance for fibrous materials. He walked away from that deal.

He chose us because of three things. First, the forced feeder design. We have it. The flat-die machine did not. Second, the hardened ring die for synthetic materials. Third, the local support through our distributor in Surabaya who stocks spare parts. He visited the distributor's warehouse before ordering. That sealed the deal.

RICHI Machinery—shipping from Qingdao, China—is proud to support Indonesia's textile industry. RICHI—your partner in RDF pelletizing.