The FRM project
The FRM project addresses the issue of how to deal with fridges and freezers that have reached the end of their service life, as well as other large household appliances that fall within the WEEE directive such as washing machines, tumble driers etc.
The WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) directive is currently being transposed into regulations relating to the disposal of old electrical and electronic equipment, and measures to encourage an increase in recycling. Up to 90% of WEEE is currently land filled, incinerated or recovered without any pre treatment to remove hazardous CFCs.
The project team of Evans Logistics, TPA Trituratori and Filtermedia Limited developed an idea and design for a novel and innovative method of pre-treating, recovering and recycling elements from the WEEE to a quality in excess of any existing systems. The system design ensured that none of the harmful gasses present in fridges and freezers escaped into the atmosphere during the recycling process.
The system was designed to produce contaminant free outputs, taking away the need for secondary reprocessing and increasing the commercial value of the recovery organisation.
The project team needed to take the system they had designed and actually build it to prove that the ideas they had incorporated would actually work. This was done through the FRM project with support from the LIFE-Environment programme.
The project had the following specific objectives:
- De-manufacture fridges and freezers, recovering the materials using optimal treatment with the lowest possible risk to human health and the environment
- Eliminate the disposal of fridges and freezers to landfill or incineration, thus contributing to a reduction in the generation of dioxins, florins and PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls)
- Increase the level and quality of recovered materials for recycling, creating an alternative source of materials for manufacturing as an option to using virgin products
- Develop a new industrial process to recover for recycling the problematic waste streams from large household appliances classed as WEEE that is environmentally friendly and commercially viable
- Develop an innovative solution to overcome technical and financial obstacles of SMEs within the waste recovery and recycling industry
- Demonstrate a solution that takes the research and development results and incorporates them into a system that will be capable of widespread implementation and market introduction
