RECOUP Visit the LNER Circularity Hub at Peterborough Station Courtesy of Really Recycle.

Last week RECOUP along with members of the PECT team, was invited by Ethar Alali of Really Recycle to a tour of the first of its kind, LNER Circularity Hub based at Peterborough station.

The tour started with a look at the manual sorting operation, where rubbish collected on the LNER trains running from London to Edinburgh, is dropped off at Peterborough station. There the waste is picked through, and contamination is removed before being separated into grades such as food waste, plastics, metals, and coffee cups, etc.

Then just next door is where the magic happens…

The Really Recycle sorting system uses a size sort to separate most of the materials into grades without using a wet density separation. The team at Really Recycle found that most plastics applications tend to be similar sizes, so bottle caps made of HDPE, and bottles made of PET for example can be separated and sorted by size ready for granulation

Once granulated, they are fed into an extruder that generates a filament. Through a lot of experimentation, the team have found different blends of materials that enable them to hit melt flow index targets to achieve a strong and smooth filament for many applications.

The filaments can be used in an Automedi Nano 3D printer to create any number of items from a design catalogue. One example being plugs for LNER trains that the operator was not able to order, so Really Recycle took a mould, and loaded the design to enable LNER to print their own.

The LNER Circularity Hub doesn’t stop at just recycling. They use the technology to repair items that come to them in a repairable state. Examples being station paddles used by train managers. LNER sent two damaged ones to the hub to be recycled, not realising that the hub staff would instead repair them, and send them back to service, saving LNER over £100 per paddle.

The Really Recycle system is a unique opportunity for companies to recycle waste that would usually end up being incinerated, or going to landfill, whilst also producing useful items, in turn saving the company money.

The LNER Circularity Hub is an example of how companies can transform their hard to recycle waste into useful assets or merchandise, rather than letting it go to waste.

You can find out more about Really Recycle at www.reallyrecycle.com

The RECOUP team is skilled at solving challenging recycling and waste management problems. If you have a problem that has been driving you round in circles, maybe RECOUP can help you.

Contact us at enquiry@recoup.org to find out.