Wilcox Textile Reclaimers Selects HMF's Truck-Mounted Hydraulic Loader

The Wilcox family have been recycling textiles since 1895 and the current owners are from the fourth generation to run the business. Its computer-controlled, 50,000sq ft production facility in Bilston is the most modern and productive of its kind in the UK.

Every week family-owned Wilcox Textile Reclaimers collects three-quarters of a million kgs of clothing from 2,500 collection points nationwide, the majority of them charity shops and textile banks. Loads are then returned to the company’s production facility in Bilston, West Midlands, where items are reclaimed and processed, with some 30 million kgs being exported each year to Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe.

Wilcox operates a fleet of 55 commercial vehicles, ranging in size from 44-tonne tractor units to light vans used to make urgent collections. Six years of reliable and cost-effective service from its previous HMF cranes meant the UK’s leading recycler of unwanted clothing had no hesitation in returning to the Danish manufacturer for its latest truck-mounted hydraulic loader.

The line-up includes 15 highly specialised crane trucks, all of which are based on 18-tonne Iveco chassis. These vehicles are fitted with remote radio-controlled 10-tonne/metre HMF cranes and high-sided alloy tipping bodies by Leeward Truck Bodies, of Darlaston, West Midlands. The bodies have automatically retractable covers by Harsh, which also supplied the underfloor tipping gear.

The cranes are used to lift bottom-opening textile containers which can weigh as much as 800kgs when full, and empty their contents into the truck body.

The operator’s latest crane is its second from HMF’s new model range. The 1075-K2 is fitted with a bottle bank-type attachment for lifting the textile containers.

HMF’s technical specialists played a key role in drawing up the specification for the first of Wilcox Textile Reclaimers’ crane vehicles to enter service, some six years ago. And as the operator’s Managing Director Martin Wilcox confirms, it has proved so successful that it remains unchanged to this day.