SWEEEP Kuusakoski leads by example with lead recovery furnace

Date: 5 February 2013

WEEEP Kuusakoski is tackling a global challenge thanks to a commercial world first. The company has invested £2m in developing the world’s first commercial scale glass furnace making it possible to recover lead and pure glass from the leaded cathode ray tube (CRT) glass in old televisions and computer screens.   The new facility recovers one kilogramme of lead from each of the 4,000 CRTs it can process a day by heating the granulated leaded glass to 1,000 degrees centigrade. As a result of the investment, SWEEEP Kuusakoski is able to reprocess approximately 10 tonnes of CRT glass a day, from 60 tonnes of CRTs.The new furnace was officially opened on Friday 30 November, by the Rt Hon Michael Fallon, MP and Minister of State for Business & Enterprise.

He was joined by His Excellency Mr Pekka Huhtaniemi, the Finnish Ambassador to Great Britain; and Mr Gordon Henderson, MP for Sittingbourne & Sheppey. The 150 guests also included representatives from the recycling industry and local authorities, as well as the company’s senior management.

Speaking at the opening, Rt Hon Michael Fallon, said: “SWEEEP Kuusakoski’s new furnace will help tackle the growing global recycling problem of how to recycle old televisions and computer screens.

“Their continued success, employing more than 150 people, is great news for Kent. The green economy is at the heart of our economic recovery and the UK recycling industry has a very important role to play.”

Justin Greenaway, contracts manager, SWEEEP Kuusakoski “Innovation in industry is part of the UK’s heritage and this is still very much the case with the opening of the SWEEEP Kuusakoski waste TV glass recycling furnace.

“Waste TV glass is a global issue and the UK recycling industry is at the forefront of providing the solution. The drive for greater resource security is an opportunity for sustainable economic growth and it is pleasing to be part of this.

“Through the work with our technical partner Nulife Glass, we have successfully commercialised a UK developed technology and can now recover large quantities of lead that would otherwise have harmed the environment.”

The company has gained end of waste status from the Environment Agency on the cleaned x-ray sorted panel glass. It has successfully established sustainable markets for the recovered lead, the front of screen glass, and the former leaded glass from the rear of the screens, generated from the recycling process.

The new furnace is the result of a high level development collaboration between SWEEEP Kuusakoski and inventor Simon Greer, and is powered totally by green energy. To ensure the company minimises it own impact on the environment it has recently installed a photo-voltaic system which generates approximately 50KWp, enough to power 12 households for a year and saves approximately 28 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year.

600450 SWEEEP Kuusakoski leads by example with lead recovery furnace glassonweb.com

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