Mercury recycling within the UK & Europe will significantly reduce as mercury becomes outlawed.
With the EU adopting the RoHS (Reduction of Hazardous Substances) mercury recycling will and has significantly reduced. Over the years, mercury use in batteries and hospital equipment has dissappeared in the UK. Now the chloro-alkali industry is reducing the use of flowing mercury in favour of cell membranes. Mercury imports & exports from the EU are also to be banned and added to this, the lighting manufacturers working towards mercury free bulbs, means that new investment in mercury recycling products to obtain the mercury, especially from lamp powder, may not be a commercially viable option.
In order to get mercury from the powder it is necessary to heat it to a predefined temperature, for a considerable length of time (upto 24 hours). The Balcan lamp recycling facility uses a specialist company (who deal with all types of mercury waste) to do this on their behalf, but have been told out of approx 1000Kg of mercury bearing phosphor powder, only 0.5Kg of mercury is obtained.
Balcan believes that the additional recycling required to obtain the mercury just from the phosphor powder, collected during its lamp recycling process, is more harmful to the environment and not cost effective. However, if the system can used with different types of mercury waste the recycling costs involved maybe offset artifically by the easier to recycle and more heavily contaminated mercury wastestream.
Balcan's Philosophy:
Having looked at costings we believe it is not financially viable, or commercially sensible, to invest in specific mercury recovery equipment specifically for mercury phosphor powder from lamps. There are all the associated costs with energy, running and licencing from the authorities to generate such a small amount mercury (1/26th litre per 1000 litres) with little to no commercial value. Balcan believes using a specialist company in this field to be the best for all parties.
