Viridor opens WEEE recycling plant in UK
March 19, 2010 at 4:14 pm
The problem of WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) is one that has been growing in recent years. As this waste cannot simply be thrown out with normal rubbish and sent to landfill, often a lot of it ends up in third-world countries for sorting.
Now a new WEEE recycling facility has been opened in St Helens by Viridor. The plant will recycle electrical products from all over the UK, taking in WEEE from homes and businesses as well as hospitals and schools.
Viridor claims that the plant will be capable of processing 40,000 tonnes of WEEE every year – that’s over six tonnes every hour. The products will be separated out into reusable materials such as glass and metal, which can then be used in new products.
This is the second recycling plant for the company, with the other one situated in Perth. The St Helens facility cost £9 million to construct, and is divided into two sections, one for fridges and one for smaller WEEE. Recycling small WEEE is a completely new area for the company.
The managing director of Viridor, Mike Hellings, is quoted on letsrecycle.com as saying that the company “can recover 90%” of the materials from the products that go for recycling.
In separate news, another new WEEE processor has been opened by EnvironCom in Grantham. This is the biggest facility in the UK, consisting of four plants, allowing it to process and recycle over 100,000 tonnes of WEEE a year.
Such advancements in the recycling of WEEE products will hopefully lead to the UK recycling its electrical waste much more efficiently in the future, so less of it ends up getting dumped in other parts of the world.
That is cooooollllll…. I LOVE recycling!!!