Major recycling investment for West Midlands

5.08.14pm BST (GMT +0100) Wed 7th Apr 2004

Liz Lynne, MEP for the West Midlands, chilled out at a recycling centre last week to discover what happens to the 200,000 fridges that are discarded in the region every year.

Fully kitted out in a fluorescent jacket, hard hat and heavy duty boots, Liz Lynne was taken on a tour of the specialist recycling plant at Darlaston, which devours up to 60 fridges an hour and extracts the harmful CFC gases they contain for safe disposal.

The dedicated facility, operated by European Metal Recycling ltd, was installed over 12 months ago to meet the requirements of new European legislation aiming to reduce the release of ozone-depleting CFCs and related compounds into the environment.

Graeme Carus, Development Director at European Metal Recycling ltd, explained the company was actively developing new methods of recycling an increasing range of products:

"Over recent years a range of EU Directives have been put in place to ensure old consumer products are treated in a more environmentally friendly way and higher recycling rates are achieved, we are actively involved in research to continue to improve these processes and increase recycling rates."

"We see the legislation as an opportunity to develop several of our larger facilities into centres of recycling excellence. At Darlaston, our flagship site in the Midlands, we are planning to install further specialist equipment to remove the fluids and other contaminants from old vehicles before they are recycled, together with new equipment to recycle waste electronic products and related plastics."

Already significant investments have been made to improve the infrastructure at the facility at Darlaston, including the specialist equipment to recycle fridges, improved concreting and drainage systems and a new warehouse for the trading of non-ferrous metals.

The company is also actively pursuing plans to establish a connection to the facility from the rail network, which would remove up to 40 journeys by road every day.

Liz Lynne praised the efforts of the company in meeting the requirements of European legislation:

"Most of the key environmental legislation in the last decade has come from European Union. That is why it is important to be able to talk to people at plants like EMR to see how the legislation works in practise.

"It is important for our environment that companies such as EMR continue to safely recycle the mountains of fridges, cars and electrical items that we throw away each year.

"The Government has been too slow to react to EU Directives on the environment which has given companies problems in trying to implement the new legislation. It is time they worked with the recycling industry to help them achieve a better environment for us all."

Background:

1. The End-of-Life Vehicles Directive came into force in Europe on October 21, 2000 and European member states were required to implement the rules by April 21, 2002. The UK Government only started to bring the requirements of the directive into domestic law in November 2003.

2. European Metal Recycling Ltd, or EMR, operates a national network of 60 facilities, including five in the West Midlands region. The company recycles over 10 million redundant consumer durables in the UK each year, including 1.1m vehicles sourced from local authorities, scrap merchants and car dismantlers.

3. The West Midlands region produces 900,000 tonnes of scrap metal every year, with people discarding over 200,000 clapped-out cars, 200,000 fridges and 100,000 tonnes of electrical items.