Retaining this independently recognised accreditation is a tremendous achievement for the business. It demonstrates our commitment to the development and success of our people whilst fully supporting our future expansion plans.

Did you know?

Celtic Recycling were the first specialist electrical equipment recycling company to achieve recognition as an ‘Investors in People’ organisation back in 2003 and still remain the only specialist electrical equipment dismantler/processor to hold this prestigious accreditation.

Photographed (left to right) Glyn Cox, Regulation Section Head, RWE Npower; Camilla Bollington, Health and Safety Manager, RWE Npower; Peter O’Rourke, Contract Manager, Celtic Recycling; Phil Allen, Aberthaw Power Station Manager, RWE Npower and Paul Hazelwood, Mechanical Section Head, RWE Npower.

Celtic Recycling is delighted to have been presented with an award for its ‘Contribution to Environmental Management’.

Voted for by a panel of judges including members of the RWE Npower senior management team and specialist outage contractors, the award recognises the efficient management of waste disposal undertaken by Celtic Recycling during a busy outage period.

Peter O’Rourke, Celtic Recycling Contract Manager at RWE Npower Aberthaw Power Station accepted the award and a cheque for £500 which was donated to Cancer Research UK. ]]> http://www.celtic-recycling.co.uk/blog/2012/02/celtic-recycling-scoops-environmental-management-award/feed/ 0 http://www.celtic-recycling.co.uk/blog/2012/02/celtic-recycling-secures-national-grid-approved-supplier-status/ http://www.celtic-recycling.co.uk/blog/2012/02/celtic-recycling-secures-national-grid-approved-supplier-status/#comments Mon, 27 Feb 2012 09:43:19 +0000 admin http://www.celtic-recycling.co.uk/blog/?p=308 Further to a recent tender process, Celtic Recycling has successfully achieved National Grid approved supplier status in respect of a four year framework agreement, for the disposal of Supergrid Transformers and associated equipment.

As Principal Contractor, Celtic Recycling will take responsibility for planning, managing and co-ordinating each project on behalf of National Grid, ensuring that hazards are identified and risks controlled accordingly.

Dedicated access road leading to heavy load bay

Structure for heavy load bay fitted with 2 x 63 tonne gantry cranes

Additional warehouse facility and weighbridge

Celtic Recycling is delighted to confirm that our development at Queensway Meadows, Newport is well underway and currently ahead of schedule for completion during the middle of April.

Located just off Junction 24 of the M4, the Newport site will complement our existing operations in Pyle, Bridgend and Barnsley, South Yorkshire.

Development of the 4.1 acre site includes the construction of two new industrial units, a security lodge and weighbridge. A dedicated access road from the public highway will lead directly to a new 10,000 sq. ft. heavy load bay installed with 2 x 63 tonne gantry cranes each fitted with 20 tonne auxiliary hoists; plus a 5,000 sq. ft. processing/storage area, and additional hot work facilities which historically have been undertaken exclusively at Pyle, Bridgend.

Other on site facilities will include:

• 24 hour site security
• Laboratory
• SF6 processing area
• Additional 13,500 sq. ft. warehouse capacity equipped with 20 tonne gantry crane

This is an extremely important project for Celtic Recycling, and this significant investment underpins our expansion plans as well as demonstrating our commitment to providing the industry with innovative recycling and waste management solutions.

Celtic Recycling is extremely proud of what has been accomplished to date, particularly during the current economic climate. We believe that our success is a direct result of our passionate belief in providing excellent, innovative customer service, together with a focus on the personal development of our people, as well as our no compromise approach to legal observance, particularly in matters relating to health, safety and environmental compliance all of which are of paramount importance within our industry.

As the company approaches its 20th anniversary of trading, we will continue to explore opportunities to develop our existing portfolio of services with a view to addressing the future needs of our customers, ensuring that we maintain our position as the market leader within our sector. ]]> http://www.celtic-recycling.co.uk/blog/2012/02/expansion-update-5/feed/ 0 http://www.celtic-recycling.co.uk/blog/2010/10/welsh-councils-encouraged-to-reveal-end-markets/ http://www.celtic-recycling.co.uk/blog/2010/10/welsh-councils-encouraged-to-reveal-end-markets/#comments Wed, 20 Oct 2010 08:31:09 +0000 admin http://www.celtic-recycling.co.uk/blog/?p=221 The Welsh Assembly Government is urging councils to divulge where their recyclable materials are sent for reprocessing after rejecting proposals to make this a legal obligation.

Jane Davidson, environment minister, WAG

 We must stop thinking of waste as something we need to dispose of and start thinking of it as a resource

 
Jane Davidson, environment minister, WAG 

The WAG is encouraging the 22 local authorities in Wales to make use of amendments to the waste database WasteDataFlow to report a range of end markets for recovered material – as opposed to just one destination as was the case in the past.

The mechanism to do this will be also be available to councils in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland when it comes into effect to report data for the period October to December 2010. This data will be made available in March 2011.

The WAG had previously considered proposals to make local authorities legally obligated to report end markets for material to encourage transparency and encourage material to be reprocessed locally.

However, plans tabled by Assembly Member Nerys Evans in February 2008 were criticised for the potential cost involved and loss of competitive advantage (see letsrecycle.com story).

The new amendments to WasteDataFlow have no binding obligation for councils to report the outcomes.

A spokeswoman for the WAG told letsrecycle.com that councils would be “encouraged” to make use of the opportunity as there is “no big stick” in the form of penalties backing up the initiative.

Environment minister Jane Davidson, who had supported Ms Evans’ attempts to drive councils to reveal end markets, welcomed this latest move to encourage councils to offer greater transparency over their recycling.

She said: “We must stop thinking of waste as something we need to dispose of and start thinking of it as a resource. By keeping as much as possible of this waste in Wales local authorities can generate much-needed funds, while Welsh industries won’t need to look overseas for raw materials.

“It is still better to recycle overseas than to landfill at home. But it is greener and makes more financial sense to process recycling here in Wales where Welsh local authorities, businesses and jobs can benefit.”

Reporting

Proposals for greater transparency around recycling appeared again in the Wales Municipal Waste Sector Plan – which is intended to feed into the Towards Zero Waste strategy for Wales. In the Sector Plan, it was identified that there was a need for local authorities to “report more accurately”.

Under the previous WasteDataFlow system, councils had to report the final destination of their waste which was categorised by facility type. However, under the new system, councils will be able to put a company and site name against the end location for the material in the question.

The WAG, Environment Agency Wales and the Welsh Local Government Association are working closely with local authorities to help them to make the most of the new system.

In its response to the government’s call for evidence for the review, which ended last week (October 7), the Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee (LARAC), said it believed that local authorities were generally best placed to decide how to deliver waste services in their area, which it claimed fitted well with the government’s localism agenda

Giving councils powers to fine residents for failing to recycle was among the measures suggested by LARAC

But, it warned that a combination of reduced targets for individual councils, financial constraints and the separation of waste from carbon drivers could reduce recycling service provision.

“Unless these issues are addressed by the government, ‘localism’ without appropriate drivers will reduce the incentive for some communities to increase recycling,” LARAC said.

The issue of how councils can improve their recycling performance in the current economic climate and how the waste review will impact on this is set to be one of the key topics addressed at next month’s LARAC Conference and Celebration Awards, which are being held in Liverpool on November 3 and 4.

Writing to the body’s members this week, LARAC chair Joy Blizzard said: “There is little sign that life in the public sector is going to get any easier, which is why the entire focus of LARAC 2010 is how to deliver recycling in the most efficient way possible.”

Powers

In its response to the review, LARAC said that, among the new powers government should consider for councils were to be able to make charges for waste management and recycling services, which it claimed would make the decision on charges “locally democratically accountable”.

It also highlighted the role that additional powers could play in achieving the waste review’s aim of minimising illegal waste activity, claiming that: “To fully embrace a zero waste concept suitable sanctions are needed against those that continue to undermine LA’s and local communities recycling efforts.”

“In this respect, additional powers would be welcomed that encourage recycling, perhaps for use of the fixed penalty scheme for failure to recycle, or to place correct materials in the correct bins.

“Local authorities would use these powers only as a last resort, however,” it added.

LARAC said that, in this area, the government should also give councils new powers to “sequester” revenues from enforcement actions, alongside a general increase in penalties for environmental crime.

Incentives

In its response, LARAC also advocated that the government should take an approach to incentives for recycling which would reflect its philosophy of localism.

It claimed that, in light of this, “local authorities are best placed to respond to local needs, perceptions and opportunities, and should be given powers to respond to these, including powers to choose what incentives are most appropriate for their communities”.

The coalition has been a strong supporter of the ‘carrot’ rather than the ‘stick’ approach for incentives, endorsing the US-devised recycling rewards scheme RecycleBank (see letsrecycle.com story), while also proposing to remove councils’ ability to run ‘pay-as-you-throw’ schemes (see letsrecycle.com story).

LARAC gave qualified support for the government’s approach, stating that: “In general LARAC support the concept of ‘rewards’ as a motivational tool but recognises that they do not incentivise everyone. There is also a danger that such schemes may become incentives for people to consume more.”

The association has already expessed its concern over the government’s apparent support for one scheme ahead of alternative ways of encouraging recycling (see letsrecycle.com story)

Concerns

Among the areas of concern or in need of action that LARAC also highlighted in its response were:

• To define ‘zero waste’ fully to avoid confusion with ‘zero waste to landfill’ – LARAC said the term ‘working towards zero waste’ would be more appropriate;
• The need for further measures to encourage investment in waste treatment and recycling as PFI comes to an end;
• Support for using skills and knowledge from private sector organisations and local communities to undertake roles traditionally carried out by public sector bodies – such as incentivising groups to bring fly-tippers to justice;
• Changing licencing for civic amenity sites to encourage their use for trade waste as well;
• Ensuring that any voluntary producer responsibility deals are monitored and reviewed to make sure they are not compromised by ‘freeriders’;
• Removing regulatory barriers to re-use and developing re-use networks;
• Making sure waste policy is “more closely aligned” with policies on health promotions and social exclusion – such as a link between healthy eating and food waste reduction.

LARAC’s response also sees it echo concerns raised by other local authority figures about the effect that a move away from alternate weekly collections could have on both council costs and recycling rates (see letsrecycle.com story).

When the government published the terms of reference for the waste review in July 2010, it said it would work with councils to increase the “frequency and quality” of collections (see letsrecycle.com story).

But, in its response, LARAC warned that “any imposed move away from systems such as AWC, back to traditional weekly residual waste collections would not only raise significant budget pressures at a time where reducing the fiscal deficit is a key priority, but would also go against the localism agenda and could only have a detrimental effect on waste minimisation and recycling rates.”

The government is set to publish the first results of the waste review next spring.

The research, which was carried out by environmental consultancy Axion Consulting, aims to help WRAP understand the recycling outlets for flat panel displays (FPDs), as there are currently no automated commercial processes in the UK and Europe.

However, due to an increased uptake in items, WRAP anticipates that the number of FPDs in the WEEE waste stream will rise “dramatically” in the next few years, requiring a suitable recycling outlet.

In particular the trial looked at the presence of mercury in the cold compact fluorescent light in the ‘backlighting’ system for LCD TVs, laptop computers and desktop monitors. The existence of this mercury means that end-of-life FPDs are classed as hazardous waste.

The study took the form of four demonstration trials. The first looked at the manual disassembly of FPDs, then the shredding of FPDs, the optical sorting of shredded FPDs using TiTech optical sorting technology and mercury decontamination.

The manual disassembly, which took place at Bruce Metals in South Yorkshire, was intended to remove the mercury content from the FPDs. The stripping of the items also allowed the researchers to investigate the potential harm and exposure of workers in a commercial operation.

Mercury

Mercury remained a key issue throughout the trial, with it being stated that there were a number of backlight breakages in the manual disassembly element of the trial. And, as the trial was undertaken without significant time pressures, it was suggested that a commercial operation would face a higher level of backlight breakages.

The conclusion of the WRAP study highlighted that employees at an FPD recycling facility would be subjected to levels of mercury “higher than is acceptable”. However, it suggested that this could be reduced with personal protective equipment and local extract ventilation.

Furthermore a suitable washing medium to remove mercury from the FPD items could be not found in the trial, with results from the large-scale trial proving inconclusive. And, even under laboratory conditions, there was an uncertainty as to whether mercury could be completely washed from the shredded FPDs.

In a bid to improve on this, the researchers then used Aqua Regia – a strong acid – to attempt to remove mercury from the FPDs. The acid removed more than the water washing technique but only 56% of mercury added to the shredded material could be accounted for in output fraction.

The research concluded that more work would need to be done to establish a wash capable of removing high levels of mercury in a commercial process, as well as a greater understanding of where the washed mercury goes and alternative methods for its removal.

Facility

Addressing the potential for delivering a large-scale FPD recycling facility, the research states that a 20,000 tonnes-a-year capacity facility would potentially cost £3.798 million to develop, which would be capable of processing five tonnes of FPDs each hour.

It said the plant could consist of:

• A three-shaft shredder;
• 8mm flip-flop sieve to remove the fines;
• Mercury washing stage to recovery mercury;
• Dryer to dry the shred prior to separation;
• Air ballistic unit to remove the thin films;
• Magnet to remove ferrous metals;
• Eddy current system to remove non-ferrous metals and circuit boards;
• TiTech x-tract machine to remove glass/film composite; and
• TiTech PolySort to separate polymers

However, the study claimed that there were issues relating to capture rate of plastics found in FPDs, with near-infrared sorting equipment used in the trial unable to detect a commercial viable level of the black plastics present in the FPD items.

Source: www.letsrecycle.com

We are soon to take delivery of a number of new gas powered Fork Lift Trucks which are recorded to have zero waste emissions through a recycling valve system which prevents the release of unburned gas.  We try to reduce the impact we have on the local environment where ever possible.

Brand new state of the art offices and high-tec training room underlines the company’s proven commitment to the training and development for all staff. 

Celtic Recycling’s continuous development of skills and experience is one of the reasons that Celtic Recycling has such a commendable record in Health and Safety. 

Storage, dismantling and recycling will be just some of the services on offer at the Newport site. We would however, be more than happy to listen to customer needs with regards to hazardous and non-hazardous waste recovery and disposal. 

Planning permission for phase 2 is close to being granted which will see additional warehouse space for processing large electrical equipment with crane capacity of up to 120 tonnes. Queensway Meadows Industrial Estate is strategically located near Junction 24 of the M4, with excellent road links to the motorway network.  

Please feel free to contact Iain Kerr – Newport Depot Manager with any questions iain.kerr@celtic-recycling.co.uk 

Click here to view the location map

Alan Matthews is a chartered Health and Safety practitioner. Alan’s previous employer was AREVA T&D SPL, Stafford. Whilst at AREVA Alan was the senior health and safety advisor for the Ormonde off-shore wind farm project. In recent years Alan has been involved in health and safety issues on a variety of projects ranging from engineering, construction and major water utilities projects.

Alan will be responsible for ensuring that Celtic Recycling maintain and build on their current excellent standards of health and safety throughout all their undertakings.

In the coming weeks Alan will be setting in place an audit programme for site based activities. This will help form the building blocks for the company’s process of continuous improvement.

Peter O’Rourke has been involved in the waste industry for over 10 years having worked as a HGV, Car, PSV and Plant Instructor for a training provider in Swansea, South Herts Waste training assessor and Group training manager for the Verdant group facilitating the training requirements of over 800 staff.

Peter is now employed as Waste Management Coordinator running the Aberthaw site and facilitating the control and safe movement of wastes within the Company.

The group – which campaigns on behalf of a number of reprocessors and social enterprises for better quality of recyclables- claims that definitions to date have been confusing.

CRR calls for “clearer” recycling terminology

It is now suggesting the terms ‘kerb-sorted’ and ‘MRF-sorted’, which denotes when recyclables are sent to a materials recycling facility (MRF), to differentiate between what it sees as the two main collection methods.

The body – which has been a firm advocate of sorting recyclables at the kerbside – hopes that the new terminology will counter the perception by some that householders have to put more effort in when putting out recyclables which are then sorted at the kerbside.

For instance, it says that the word ‘commingled’ is often used to describe material which is destined for a MRF when this material is often sorted at the kerbside instead.

Mal Williams, chair of the Campaign for Real Recycling (CRR), said: “There has been some confusion of terms in the past and as more and more people and organisations tune in to the need for quality in recycling, clearer terms are needed.

“Nearly all householders put their recyclables in a receptacle of some kind outside the house and there is a subsequent need for sorting of the material. That much is common to almost all systems and the effort from the householder is much the same.

“We make the point that some systems allow for quality control and feedback at the kerb, which results in better quality material. It seems logical to us to say ‘kerb-sorted’ and ‘MRF-sorted’, which neatly describes both the systems and the materials in one go, and this is what we recommend.”

Aylesford

The new terminology was welcomed by Andrew Perkins of Aylesford Newsprint, which is an indirect member of the CRR through its membership of the Paperchain campaign.

“We certainly know the difference when we see the tonnage. Calling it simply by where the sorting takes place is logical and appropriate. Industry bodies such as CIWM should be leading in coining suitable, everyday terminology for these now universal activities. There is too much misunderstanding at the moment.”

Joy Blizzard, chair of the Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee, added: “This is a helpful suggestion and I hope it will bring some clarity to an issue that has been surrounded by a lot of complex terminology.”

Source: www.letsrecycle.com