1. Pretreatment
Refrigeration units are offloaded and temporarily stored on an impermeable surface with sealed drainage before pre-treatment. Units are taken direct from delivery and entered into our rotation system. When being processed they are placed on roller conveyors at the entrance to the De-gassing Room. As the units approach the de-gassing machine they are placed on a tilting conveyor and the units manipulated until a suitable extraction point (usually the compressor fill-pipe) is at the extreme lowest point of the refrigerant system. This ensures that all the oil is extracted first, purged by the pressure of the refrigerant, and then the refrigerant itself is extracted where they are then heated and separated.

2. Processing
The fridge recycling process is overviewed using our monitoring system and PLC. Fridges are transported via conveyor belt through three airlocks before entering the fragmentiser. After passing through the airlocks fridges are loaded onto the fragmentiser hydraulic door where they are raised up into an enclosed chamber. Once inside the chamber the hydraulic door is closed and the fridges are released into the fragmentiser where they are reduced into approx 50mm fragments. After leaving the fragmentiser the foam is extracted and sent to the foam grinder. Here it is reduced to sand like substance before being pelletised. This process release’s the CFC’S blowing agent contained within. The fragmentiser room is under continuous vacuum where the air is diverted to our solvent recovery unit which captures and recovers the CFC’s in full compliance with our Waste Management Licence.

3. Recovery
We then pelletise the foam to a size reduction of around 10-1. Fragged steel is separated and recovered using a magnetic drum where it is then sent for reuse. Aluminium, copper and plastic is recovered using our eddy current systems and then sent off site for reuse in the manufacturing of new products.