Can I recycle cable insulation?

[HappyHippyDad]

Now I have my wonderful cable stripper I am left with lots of PVC insulation. I am loath to just put it in the bin. Can this be recycled? What do you guys do with your left over insulation?
If I had left the insulation on and had it weighed in then the PVC insulation would have been recycled therefore I'll have a to have a rethink on the stripping process if my plastic has to go to landfill.

 

[DPG]

Call me a sceptic... but... it depends how you measure it. I'm a very firm believer in the old adage "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

You'll find a lot, if not most, areas recycle waste. Our waste that would previously have gone to landfill is converted to a format suitable for using by Ferrybridge power station, where they have shut down the coal burning side now. This method also saves the council money, as it costs much more to send the waste to land fill.

You'd be surprised how much waste is now recycled.

 

[Lister1987]

Problem is that it's never truly recycled, you can argue that it results in fewer pollutants compared with making plastic from scratch but it's not truly carbon neutral recycled.

 

[DPG]

Nothing can be fully 'carbon neutral ' recycled though. Any process takes energy. But the material is not buried in the land to be re-mined - it is ready for re-use after recycling.

 

[Zerax]

You'll find a lot, if not most, areas recycle waste. Our waste that would previously have gone to landfill is converted to a format suitable for using by Ferrybridge power station...

Not sure I'd count 'burning it' as recycling... but I guess as long as it's done cleanly and doesn't go to landfill... it's a good thing.

My issue with the whole recycling topic is that when most people think of recycling, they imagine that it's processed into something that has a practical use. I fear that the reality is substantially different.

 

[DPG]

Not sure I'd count 'burning it' as recycling... but I guess as long as it's done cleanly and doesn't go to landfill... it's a good thing.

My issue with the whole recycling topic is that when most people think of recycling, they imagine that it's processed into something that has a practical use. I fear that the reality is substantially different.

Look at the recycling of plastic bottles and tin cans. 20 years ago these would have been buried in the ground like everything else was. Not now.

 

[Zerax]

Look at the recycling of plastic bottles and tin cans. 20 years ago these would have been buried in the ground like everything else was. Not now.

Yeah yeah yeah... I'm not saying we don't do any recycling... just that generally it's not what people think it is. Glass, metals and PET bottles are the easy ones...

Another example of a recycling 'con' was Starbucks coffee cups which used to say on the side "100% recyclable"... which was true... however there was only 1 plant in the country that had the technology to do it... and only saw <0.1% of all the coffee cups.

I think they're in the process of changing the design to make them more generally recyclable... which is good, but they had to be called out in the media for that to happen.

IMHO, I don't think we've found the right model to deal with plastics waste yet... all the time plastics are so cheap to produce and so easy to use, manufacturers will continue to use them in abundance. Putting the onus on local authorities to then collect it all up and recycle it simply doesn't work. But how do you change this model ? How do you make the producers and users of plastics more responsible 'up front' ? Taxes ??

 

[ipf]

There are ways.
Did plenty of work for one small firm in the 90's, mostly repairing and maintaining machinery. They took any waste pvc, including cable insulation. Loads of it, all colours, was chopped into very small pellets in a big round slicing centrifuge and came out grey. The pellets were then fed into two big, long, extruders, coming out as a hot black gunge. That was cooled to a certain temperature, cut, whilst still soft and then manually fed into presses, coming out as large black traffic cones......orange and white covering applied before they totally 'went off' and hardened.
The firm went down after a few years and I've often wondered how big that particular industry was.

 

[nicebutdim]

This local company has been recycling plastics into various products for 20 odd years.

 

[ipf]

Yes, there are such companies, I know. I suppose it's all about cost and profit, as is usually the case.

 

[Burtones]

Now I have my wonderful cable stripper

What one did you get and do you think it's worth the time stripping the insulation?

 

[HappyHippyDad]

What one did you get and do you think it's worth the time stripping the insulation?

I got a cheapy £20 one from eBay.
It depends on your definition of 'worth'. If you are purely talking about money then no, it's not worth the time (works out to around £3 p/hour) unless perhaps you're just doing 6mm+ size cable.
However, I quite enjoy doing it. Radio on, sunny day, cup of tea and a bit of stripping... so then it's worth it.
Although now perhaps it's not, due to the recycling issues as that will be on my mind when I'm stripping it!

 

[westward10]

There used to be a factory in Northampton which had a skip outside for the public to put their polystyrene in. I'm not sure what they did with it but this product is difficult to recycle and ends up in landfill so at least they played a small part in stopping that.

 

[Zerax]

There used to be a factory in Northampton which had a skip outside for the public to put their polystyrene in. I'm not sure what they did with it but this product is difficult to recycle and ends up in landfill so at least they played a small part in stopping that.

Great to see... I wish local authorities would organise themselves better and provide this sort of thing.

But it's a difficult sell... even on the micro level... the development that I live on is run by a management company, of which I am a director. I tried to convince the rest of the board that we should scrap the existing 4 individual bins per property for a bank of shared bins that would allow us to better separate recycling and reduce plastic waste. It all fell on deaf ears.