Major recycling company proposes £5m investment in Kent

One of the UK’s leading Electrical Waste Recyclers is planning to invest £5m to grow its operations in Swale – adding additional jobs – and to reduce the country’s growing mountain of electrical waste.

SWEEEP Kuusakoski, adjacent to Milton Creek in Sittingbourne, processes Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and employs 180 people plus a further 40 agency staff, making it one of the district’s largest employers. The investment would create the equivalent of more than 30 full-time jobs at Sweeep, plus support others in its supply chain.

The company is currently responsible for recycling about 25% of all the UK’s small electrical appliances, including everything from electric toothbrushes, toasters and kettles, to vacuum cleaners and lawnmowers, as well as PCs, monitors and televisions, at one of the most sophisticated and environmentally-robust recycling facilities in Europe.

Operating under tight environmental legislative controls as an Approved Authorised Treatment Facility, SWEEEP Kuusakoski uses a combination of manual sortation, mechanical processing and high-tech automated sorters to separate the numerous commodities within waste electronics.

Of the 41,000 tonnes of waste processed by SWEEEP Kuusakoski every year, 96.55 % is recovered and recycled. Its Sittingbourne facility is 100% powered by renewable energy to reduce its impact on the environment.

Barry Walker, CEO of SWEEEP Kuusakoski, said: “This is a major vote of confidence in our Sittingbourne team. If approved by Kent County Council, we will be able to expand beyond our existing five-acre site. It will enable us to increase the volume we can process through existing operations, as well as adding additional processes to allow greater purity and recovery on commodities from existing outputs. It would also allow for growth into both battery and solar panel recycling fields.

“We welcome the recent tightening of the WEEE and international shipping regulations of hazardous waste and our company is ready to tackle the growing electrical and electronic waste generated across the country while recovering valuable rare earth resources.”

It is estimated approximately 498,000 tonnes of electricals are sent each year to approved electrical recyclers, with a further 103,000 tonnes wrongly disposed in domestic bins and 187,000 tonnes illegally exported.*

In addition, UK households are estimated to hoard around 880 million unwanted and unused small electrical items, equivalent to 30 per household and up from 20 items four years ago.*

The company operates 24/7 and separates valuable materials like copper, plastic, ferrous and aluminium from complex waste streams. Its ring crusher pulverises the material and then additional techniques are employed to separate the different commodities.

The investment will enable SWEEEP Kuusakoski, which is a Finnish-UK joint venture, to reorganise its existing site to continue to meet ever tightening environmental requirements and improve the health, safety and wellbeing of its workforce.

For further information on the company visit: www.SweeepKuusakoski.co.uk