Viridor earns Europe-based electronics recycling certification

United Kingdom-based environmental services firm Viridor retained the WEEELABEX accreditation for its cooling process at its St. Helens, Merseyside, England, WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) facility. According to a Viridor news release, Viridor St. Helens was one of the first companies in the United Kingdom to achieve this certification in 2015 after undergoing an evaluation of its systems and processing of refrigeration treatment.

“This accreditation shows the efforts and investment the WEEE business is making in driving higher standards within the industry and with recycling and recovery rates,” says Tom Liddell, Viridor’s head of recycling and integrated assets WEEE, in a company press release. “These standards are continually reviewed, and for the most recent audit Viridor worked with technology partners Andritz and Herco to achieve even higher recovery levels of the air-polluting blowing agents used in fridge manufacture.” 

The approved authorized treatment facility originally chose to pursue accreditation to support a long-standing partnership with KMK Metals Recycling Ltd. in the Republic of Ireland.

“We have been supplying fridges in large quantities from Ireland to the Viridor recycling plant in St. Helens since 2003,” says Kurt Kyck of KMK in Viridor’s news release. “Operating to this standard is a statement of intent and provides producers of cooling appliances with the comfort that their environmental responsibility under the WEEE Directive is being achieved and measured.” 

Liddell says all European countries were mandated to meet the WEEE Directive, which sets targets for collection, recycling and recovery of all types of electrical goods. 

Wayne Copley, procurement director of the U.K. WEEE producer REPIC, adds that he understands the WEEELABEX auditing is a rigorous process following the flow of inputs and outputs through the WEEE treatment and beyond to downstream treatment and recycling. “Viridor continues to play a significant role in the U.K. WEEE reprocessing sector, and this shows it is keeping pace with the quality expectations of U.K. and multinational clients who want to see WEEE dealt with effectively, efficiently and sustainably.”

Viridor’s St. Helens WEEE processing facility features two Andritz technologies, including a fridge processing plant that went under reaccreditation that can process 600,000 units per year and an SDA plant that is capable of processing up to 50,000 metric tons of small domestic appliances per year.