Recycling of Electrical Goods
by Andrew Barr
How are small household electrical appliances recycled?
There are two different ways that small domestic electrical appliances can be recycled.
Here we look at one of the main processes used in the UK:
- Small domestic electrical appliances are collected from household waste recycling centres and taken to a recycling plant, where the appliances are sorted into batches
- The appliances go into a hammer mill which smashes the WEEE into small fragments
- These are passed along a conveyor to a magnetic separator to remove most of the ferrous (steel) metals. At the same time, suction is applied to draw off any lightweight debris, such as dirt from vacuum cleaners and grass cuttings from lawnmowers
- The non-ferrous and non-metallic fraction passes over a rare earth magnet to remove more metals, and on to an eddy current separator to remove the aluminium content and other metals
- At various points on both the ferrous and non-ferrous conveyors, manual picking stations are used to separate motor armatures comprising both ferrous and non-ferrous metals
- These picking stations also remove any batteries that must be removed in accordance with the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive
- The non-metallic, mainly plastic fraction falls into a bin, where it is collected and transported onward to a plastic recycling company in the UK for further separation and refinement
- The metals that have been separated are bulked up and either sold to smelters in the UK or exported to accredited reprocessors overseas
End products made from recycled small electrical appliances
- Metals (ferrous and non-ferrous)
- Plastic
- Circuit boards - These often include precious metals which are recovered by specialist companies
- Cables
- Batteries
- Cardboard
- Electric motors
Where can I recycle electrical appliances?
Just type your postcode into the recycling locator and select which material you would like to recycle.
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Recycling
