African demand keeps recycling company booming

Jul 31 2008 by Karen Dent, The Journal

A philosophy of ‘reuse, recycle and return’ is helping a North East company keep schools and hospitals cool in West Africa, as Karen Dent discovers

THE “insatiable” demand for fridge components in Ghana is driving a Northumberland recycling company’s ambitions to create 30 jobs in the next two years.

Cooler Recycling Solutions takes commercial refrigeration units from high street giants like Marks & Spencer, the pub industry and big beer brands, strips them down and refurbishes the useful parts such as compressors, condensers and fans to be used again.

The innovative business, based in Haltwhistle, currently employs 36 people but aims to double its workforce and boost its turnover from £2.5m to £10m by 2010 on the back of demand for its services.

“We export thousands and thousands of compressors, condensers and fans to West Africa, mainly to Ghana. They’ve got an insatiable need. These are used in schools, hospitals and the food industry,” said business director Mike Storey.

“We sell a compressor at £6 that would normally cost £180. There are all sorts of other metals that we make our money on. We are selling four container loads a month to Africa. We take on all the big end-of-life retail display units. Nearly all of our business is blue chip compressors, all the major pub chains and brand names like Carlsberg and Fosters. Our philosophy is reuse, recycle and return. If we can refurbish, we can put it back on the market but some of the brand owners want it destroyed.”

The business is keen to refurbish as many components as possible to allow them to have a second life in countries where they are a much-needed resource.

But many companies consider parts like compressors only for their scrap value – an attitude Cooler Recycling Solutions is keen to change.

“West Africa has always had this problem for fridge compressors. We try to encourage other companies to let us have their compressors to test, to stop exporting them as scrap and to encourage them to come through us,” said Mr Storey, who runs the company with former Northern Counties boxing champion Courtney Clift.

“Most people send them to China as scrap. We are trying to bring the attention of the environmentalists to it and get them to follow our lead. We resist sending them to the likes of Pakistan and India, because they want them to break down for scrap. We have pictures of little kids breaking them down in the streets for scrap and burning the oil in them.”

The business has linked up with Lloyds TSB Commercial to provide funds for its further expansion. It has invested more than £500,000 in its refurbishment line to cope with the number of coolers coming into the factory. It deals with more than 1,000 coolers in a typical week, a number that has been boosted by the recent changes to regulations governing how and where “end of life” electrical and electronic equipment can be disposed of.

The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) regulations mean that manufacturers are responsible for taking back equipment and disposing of it in an environmentally-approved manner, to reduce the amount being dumped in landfill sites.

“It’s going up. We are registered for degassing and have licences from the Environment Agency to take WEEE and the take back scheme introduced by Defra. All the manufacturers and producers have to be signed up,” said Mr Storey. “In a typical cooler is a fan that cools the condenser, compressors and also copper coils that are scrapped, and stainless steel and mild steel. The things that can’t be reused we sell as scrap.”

Cooler Recycling Solutions is now keen to spread its recycling message abroad and will be attending the Brau trade fair in Germany in November.

Mr Storey said: “There is a saturation point because obviously, there is only so many coolers coming out of the big pubs and clubs, so we are looking at the export market.

“We are looking at Germany, Scandinavia and the rest of the European market. We see a big growth here because we can produce what we are doing here because they are not doing it there.” The business’s next step is to expand further into the market to refurbish components from boilers, heating and ventilation systems.

We export thousands and thousands of compressors, condensers and fans to West Africa