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New Yorkshire firm claims spot in UK WEEE top five

A newly established WEEE recycling company claims it is on the way to securing contracts for enough material to secure it a place among the UKs five largest WEEE reprocessors.

West Yorkshire-based Sunersol began trading in the last quarter of 2010 and this week (April 12) revealed it had already signed deals to collect and treat 20,000 tonnes of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE).

Sunersols safety, health, environment and quality (SHEQ) manager Steve Kilburn (left) and its certificate of technical compliance (COTQ) operations manager John Atkinson (right)
Sunersols safety, health, environment and quality (SHEQ) manager Steve Kilburn (left) and its certificate of technical compliance (COTQ) operations manager John Atkinson (right)
Collection contracts beginning this month will involve it sourcing and reprocessing WEEE from household waste recycling centres (HWRCs) in Wrexham, Wigan, Lincoln, Reading, Bracknell, Wokingham, Suffolk and Norfolk.

And, Sunersol says that the combination of this HWRC arrangements and other pending contracts scheduled to begin in the coming months will together place it in the UKs top five WEEE reprocessors.

The company claims to offer a complete system for dealing with WEEE from HWRCs by taking care of transport, administration, compliance and reuse and recycling.

It is also offering a service for collecting and recycling WEEE from businesses and other organisation and plans to establish a reuse operation, branded as The Electro Farm, later this year.

Sunersol handles all categories of WEEE, dealing with small domestic appliances and display equipment at its own 75,000 tonne-a-year capacity Mirfield reprocessing facility, while cooling appliances and gas discharged lamps are sent to an unnamed UK reprocessor for treatment.

A spokeswoman for the firm told letsrecycle.com that its vision and drive is to increase collection and recycling rates on WEEE as well as providing unique niche solutions for commercial WEEE recycling as well as reuse of WEEE.

Partnerships

Commenting on the companys work to date, she said: Sunersol has entered into partnerships with several waste management companies who operate HWRC sites as well as commercial WEEE solutions for recycling.

Sunersol handle all their own transport to ensure correct handling to maximise reuse and to ensure correct documentation and weighing of materials collected for recycling. The company operates 26 tonne and articulated trailers with demountable fork lift trucks as well as roll on roll off containers and articulated tipper trailers.

In terms of business WEEE, the company is launching a service whereby companies can arrange for a container to fill with electrical waste, which Sunersol will then collect and recycle.

It plans to offer these services through as-yet-unnamed waste management company partners and the spokeswoman noted that further details of this service such as the companies would be revealed in the coming weeks.

She added: The services include UK wide WEEE collections from commercial customers, a branded national reuse solution and also the collection for recycling of other dry recyclables including film, hard plastics and PET bottles.

Craig Thompson

The company has been set up with the involvement of Craig Thompson, formerly a director of Glasgow-based WEEE reprocessor Electrical Waste Recycling Group Ltd (EWRG).

In February 2010, EWRG was fined 140,000 for exposing workers at its Huddersfield facility to toxic mercury fumes (see letsrecycle.com story). Mr Thompson pleaded guilty to breaching hazardous substance regulations in the same case and was fined 5,000.

He left EWRG in October 2010, and Sunersols spokeswoman stressed that he had built upon his experiences and time at EWRG, and his involvement in the WEEE industry since 2003.

She noted that the company had already appointed a SHEQ, or safety, health, environment and quality, manager and was also out certification to ISO 18001 for health and safety. She said this would ensure complete health and safety management for the company, its employees and its processing.

Related links

Sunersol

Mr Thompson welcomed the launch of Sunersols collection operations. He said: Im delighted to begin collection operations with several large contracts in place. Sunersols recycling solution is unique in the UK where the safe and responsible disposal of WEEE is an ever increasing problem.

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