A fully self-contained site, Mercury House provides the company with 30,000 square feet of space, of which 3000 square feet is office accommodation. The rest of the site house Mercury's advanced recycling facilities. These include the capacity to process up to 40 million lamps per annum, on site distillation equipment for recovery of mercury from phosphor powders and a separate mercury decontamination area.
At the heart of the company's operations are two 5000R recyclers, one of which is fully operational while the second is due for installation by the end of 2005. This scheduling ensures Mercury will be fully ready for the anticipated increase in lamp recycling that will follow the implementation of the WEEE Directive next year.
Designed by Mercury and built in the UK, the PLC-controlled 5000R recyclers are able to process lamps at up to 5000/hour, while ensuring very low emissions to the atmosphere and the site - as well as very high levels of operator safety.
A key feature of the Mercury service is the advanced decontamination process employed at the site, leading to the recovery of the following materials for recycling:
- Ferrous Metals
- Non-Ferrous Metals
- Glass
- Mercury Bearing Phosphor Powders
- Plastics
- Sodium
As well as recovering mercury from fluorescent and other discharge lamps, Mercury Recycling is able to recover mercury from thermometers, sphygmomanometers, mercury tilt switches, button cell batteries and dental amalgam.
