Warwickshire County Council, Gwynedd County Council and the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral have all begun recycling their used fluorescent and sodium street furniture lights with Manchester-based Mercury Recycling since November 2002. The Wirral is also recycling lights from its council buildings through the same company.
The company, which also recycles mercury-containing materials such as button cell batteries and old health authority equipment, provides the councils with special containers. It then collects these and distils mercury from the lamps for re-use by light manufacturers Phillips, in Hamilton, and Sylvania, in Shipley. Sodium bulbs are reacted with water under a controlled process in order to remove the sodium – which could otherwise react with water to produce hazardous sodium hydroxide if landfilled.
Chief executive of Mercury Recycling Simon Lebor said: “We are making a distinct impression in this market sector with many local authorities realising how important it is to use specialist recyclers for the disposal of mercury bearing waste.”
Hazardous
Fluorescent and sodium lamps are classed as hazardous waste under the new European Waste Catalogue which was published in August 2002. Therefore, such lamps can only be landfilled in 'hazardous' landfill sites. The need for councils to find alternatives to landfill for such materials will become more pressing as the end of co-disposal – when many landfills currently operating as hazardous are expected to become non-hazardous, in July 2004 – draws near.
The glass from the used tubes is collected by Berrymans, and used in the manufacture of container glass and can also go to the aggregates and shot blasting industries. Graham Mitchell of Mercury Recycling explained: “We'd; love for the glass to go back to making fluorescent tubes, and we are currently undertaking trials with British Glass on this.”
Mr Mitchell said it was difficult to gauge the tonnage of materials expected from the new contracts as street lighting tended to be replaced on a three-year cycle. However, the total number of street lamps in Warwickshire is 50,000, in Gwynedd, 21,500 and in the Wirral, 41,000, plus another 2,000 lamps from the council offices.
Mercury Recycling declined to reveal the value of the arrangements with the councils – which are open-ended and do not have set end-dates – or the value of recycling per lamp.
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