Tour of fridge and plastics plant
On the 5th April, six YBMR members visited AO Recycling’s facilities in Telford.
The YBMR was warmly welcomed by AO’s Business Development Manager, Chris Caffrey who gave YBMR a brief introduction to AO and its circular ambitions, before giving a tour around its fridge plant.
The YBMR were shown the entirety of the facility, which displayed some of the newest separation equipment, capable of processing upwards of 25,000 appliances a week. It was also great to discover around 4-5 percent of appliances that reach AO’s facilities are repaired and resold for reuse for a small fee, offering those on smaller budgets a low-cost option.
After a lovely lunch, the group were then shown around AO’s plastics plant, which provides further downstream separation for fridge plastics. Here we were fortunate enough to be guided round by Nik Baker. Nik gave us a true insight into AO’s plastic separation process, showing us all the various machinery, including over-bound magnets, flotation tanks, density separators, electrostatic separators and optical sorters. It was clear to see that AO pride themselves on, and do, recover as much recoverable plastic as possible from their input feed.
The visit truly emphasised what the YBMR is all about – learning more about the metal and waste industry, and developing a wider network. If you can, do visit their site; AO’s facilities certainly comes YBMR recommended.
Cameron Leitch - Policy and Public Affairs Executive, BMRA Secretariat Lead - YBMR