Aurubis, TSR team up to recycle cables

Aurubis AG, Hamburg, Germany, and TSR Recycling GmbH & Co. KG, Lunen, Germany, have signed a joint venture agreement that will unite the cable dismantling activities of Aurubis subsidiary Cablo Metall-Recycling und Handel GmbH, Fehrbellin, and those of the TSR site in Gelsenkirchen to recover copper granules and plastics.

TSR will hold a 60 percent stake in the joint venture, named Cablo GmbH, and manage the company from an operational perspective, while Aurubis will hold a 40 percent stake. All the employees of the Aurubis subsidiary Cablo in Fehrbellin, in the German state of Brandenburg, will be part of the new joint venture as well as cable preprocessing employees of TSR from its Gelsenkirchen site in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Cablo in Fehrbellin has specialized in recycling copper and aluminum cable since 1949 and produces a wide variety of metal granules, Aurubis says in a news release announcing the joint venture. The company also fabricates plastic products from cable insulation.

The TSR branch in Gelsenkirchen operates two cable granulators and processes various types of cable, similarly recovering different qualities of copper granules.

“Sustainably closing the loop is Aurubis’ core business and area of growth,” says Roland Harings, CEO of Aurubis. “When it comes to cable recycling, we view TSR, one of our long-term suppliers of input materials, as the ideal partner to continue developing the vital recycling business. With the joint venture with TSR, we will boost the volume of input materials and create solutions for the plastic materials that accumulate during recycling, which pose a substantial challenge in the recycling of cable waste.”

He continues, “The separate recycling strengths of both partners will complement each other perfectly in the joint venture: TSR contributes a broad network of branches that collect the materials, as well as its existing logistics and its preprocessing expertise; Aurubis brings along extensive metallurgical processing knowledge for a wide variety of recycling raw materials to recover different metals. Together, we will continue optimizing the recycling processes.”

Bernd Fleschenberg, chief operating officer of TSR, adds, “As a recycling company, we are committed to bringing the circular economy to life. With our joint venture, we now have the opportunity to join our sourcing, production and marketing know-how in one company to produce high-quality recycling raw materials for reuse in industry, thus closing loops even more effectively along the entire value chain.”

He says, with the objectives of the European Commission’s Green Deal in mind, “our joint venture makes a crucial contribution to enhancing the circular economy—and serves as a role model for other material flows as well.”

The closing of the transaction is planned for Q1 2021, Aurubis says.