£750,000 granulator to help recover and recycle copper

The granulator represents an investment of around £750,000 and is the only one of its size in East Anglia.

It allows the scrap metal side of the business to process cables to recover the copper which is then sold all over the world.

The plastic and steel are also recovered and sold to international markets.

The cable granulator will be up and running in February and will be able to process 84kg of cable per minute and will be running 8 hours a day.

David Dodds said: “Our aim is to recover, recover, recover. The more we can extract from our scrap products the more we can recycle. Copper is an extremely valuable commodity and one of the cheapest metals to be recycled with massive environmental benefits. In order to extract copper from raw material the energy required is approximately 100 Gigajoule per tonne, that is 16 barrels of crude oil. Recycling copper uses much less energy, about 10 Gigajoule/tonne, that’s only 10% of the energy needed for extraction. This energy saving leads to the conservation of valuable reserves of oil, gas or coal and reduces the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere.”

Adrian Dodds who managed Sackers general waste recycling facility when the first machine (Air Density Separator) went in 6 months ago said: “it’s a great addition to the other plant which we put in in the middle of last year. The Air Density Separator cleans stones and soil from the general waste which means it’s clean enough to be recycled. The granulator compliments this nicely and we are recycling more and more which is great for the environment.”

The business has two waste plants. One specialises in scrap metal and the other deals with general waste, predominantly commercial waste through its waste contracts.

Scrap metal is sorted in Great Blakenham and the waste recycling is in Needham Market.

The business has grown significantly over the past few years and is able to recycle more than 90% of all waste that enters the premises.