Each year within the UK millions of lamps are sold and need to be disposed of. Due to the nature of these they cannot be disposed of as general waste, they are classified as Hazardous. Changes in legislation have made it more difficult to dispose of Hazardous waste. Here at Nottingham we recycle redundant fluorescent lamps. This process recycles in the region 99% of the lamp and we generate in the region of 10,000 per year
The Recycling Process
Firstly, the fluorescent lamps are stored safely to be recycled and then collected
They are the crushed in a rotating drum and the glass, metal and phosphorus powder is collected, whilst a vacuum removes the mercury vapour
All material that was collected is then separated into individual streams
The glass is re-used as raw materials for glass wool insulation
The mercury is re-used in scientific instruments
The decontaminated powder is used as a filter material in concrete products
