Don’t trash your old TV…

19 Jun 2009 The lifecycle of an unwanted fridge

So we know we can take our old electrical items to a designated WEEE collection facility at our local civic amenity site. But where do they go from there? We take a look at the lifecycle of an old fridge after it is left for recycling.

• The fridge will be transported to a WEEE reprocessing facility. Most waste electrical and electronic equipment from Cardiff, Newport and the South Wales valleys ends up at Sims Recycling Solutions’ flagship site in Newport, a £12 million facility which is able to reprocess 100,000 tonnes of material per year from vacuum cleaners, stereos and microwaves to DVD players, computers and fridges. It contains the largest fridge recycling plant in the world and has the capacity to process over a million end-of-life fridges every year.
  
• When the fridge arrives at Sims Recycling Solutions, all glass, wood, cables, mercury switches and the compressor units are removed along with other contaminants.
  
• The cooling fluids, which contain ODS (Ozone Depleting Substances) are drained off under controlled processes for sound environmental disposal.
  
• The fridge will then be loaded onto a conveyor belt where it is fed into the treatment process.
  
• This entire process is carried out in a sealed nitrogen-rich atmosphere. This serves a dual purpose – to reduce risk of explosion and to provide a means of capturing the ODS.
  
• A sieving technique is used to separate and extract the polyurethane foam from the other material to a typical size of 2mm. This foam is the insulating material in the cavity of the walls and the door of the fridge.
  
• The polyurethane foam is heated and dried to liberate the ODS.
  
• The CFC gases are released to the nitrogen atmosphere. This allows the nitrogen and the ODS to be separated. The ODS is collected for destruction and the nitrogen is recycled for further use.
  
• Electro magnets are then used to remove the ferrous metals from the plastics and non-ferrous metals remaining in the granulated material.
  
• Rapidly alternating magnetic fields, known as eddy currents, are used to remove the non-ferrous metals (aluminium and copper) from the plastics.
  
• The CFCs are shipped in canisters for sound environmental destruction.
  
• Approximately 90% of the fridge is recycled. The remaining plastic material is graded and sold on for use in the manufacture of a range of household products.