Cable Recycling Service
What do you do with obsolete legacy cables or even just the surplus from a new installation? It's an important environmental consideration with material consequences on the bottom line.
As part of our efforts to mitigate the environmental impact of our products, we look to how the materials can be reused and recycled at end of life. It's no longer about cradle to grave - it's now from cradle to cradle. Our cable recycling service includes site collections and responsible recycling.
Our aim is to recycle over 99% of the materials within a cable, reducing the burden on landfill and realising an economic benefit for our customers in the process.
Cable Recycling Facility
Our cable recycling equipment strips and separates the various cable components so that all materials can be recycled and, ultimately, turned into something new. The process allows the efficient recycling of copper, aluminium, steel, and most cable compounds for insulation and sheathing materials, including PVC.
Our cable recycling facility also recycles all cable packaging materials, including wooden drums and pallets, plywood reels, cardboard reels, cardboard boxes, and plastic films. These are chipped, compressed, bailed and sorted. Any wooden drums or pallets beyond repair are chipped for use in biomass or in animal bedding. The copper and aluminium are separated and melted for reuse in suitable applications, and the shredding plastic polymers go to making matting for children's playgrounds amongst a variety of other uses. We even shred cardboard to provide packing materials, recycling and reusing wherever we can.
For our Customers
We collect using our electric fleet where possible - as a scheduled backhaul to a site delivery (because that's the greenest way) - the following items:
- Copper and Aluminium conductor cables of all types, core sizes, and constructions (including SWA armoured)
- Wooden Pallets (for repair and reuse or recycle)
- Wooden Cable Drums (for reuse or recycle)
- Wooden Reels and Plys
The legacy cables and associated products you're looking to recycle can come from any supplier, but note that we can only accept unpainted drums (or those painted in 'Eland orange'). They need to be mould and mud-free. We do not currently take damaged cable reels and plys.
For Third-Parties
Our cable recycling service is also available to third-parties for cables with core sizes greater than 16mm2, where the overall copper content is greater than 10,000kg in weight. We will arrange collection in full loads from a single location.
Talk to us about how we can help with your cable recycling needs.
WEEE Regulations and Cable Disposal
From a compliance standpoint, the WEEE Regulations apply across Europe to electrical cables and their disposal. In practice, it means unwanted and unusable cable waste - a combination of metals and polymers that need to be disposed of responsibly.
With cable standards requiring virgin materials to be used in manufacturing, both in the conductor metals and the insulation and sheathing polymers, there are valuable materials that can be retrieved and reused when the cables themselves are no longer required.
We support sustainable operations, including end-of-life cable disposal. Cable recycling is one part of how we make a difference.
ESG & Sustainability
We're working to make positive changes to our environment, our operations, and the communities we work in.
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