by John Rinfret
Businesses with fluorescent lighting (or new energy-saving CFL bulbs) can turn to Balcan Engineering Limited’s lamp crushing range to deal with recycling their waste lighting. The award-winning Lincolnshire, UK-based company has vehicle-mounted portable crushers which capture harmful mercury and safety transport the crushed components off to be recycled. Balcan also manufacture static lamp crushing plants for export. Find out more below ...
 The high-quality clean glass cullet which is produced from the Balcan Recycler |
Thirty years ago, the maintenance engineer at Southampton General Hospital phoned me (John Rinfret, the managing director of Balcan Engineering Limited) to inquire if any of his models of bottle or vial crushers could be adapted for use with fluorescent tubes. When asked why, he replied, ‘because I have a lot of them!’ This summed up the merits of crushing and reducing the volume of waste lighting. It also triggered the idea that I should design and develop a range of crushers specially for safely handling the highly toxic and hazardous materials contained within most types of fluorescent tubes and light bulbs.
Knowing very little about these dangers, apart from those concerned with crushed glass, I sought advice from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and the Department of the Environment (DOE). I was quickly told that most lamps (specifically fluorescent tubes and low pressure sodium lamps) contained mercury and cadmium (no longer used) which were extremely toxic, even in the very small quantities contained in these tubes. Incorporating the advice from these two governmental departments, I was responsible for producing the first crushers for lamps that were properly designed for their purpose.
The HSE required my original leaflets to carry details of the hazardous nature of the contents of these older tubes and bulbs – they considered the public naïve but they also needed this information to be included so they could send copies of the leaflets to their inspectors.
Upon discovering the finer detail of these hazards and the immense harm (to both humans and the environment) that a very small amount of mercury could cause, I undertook a public relations programme to make industry and the public aware. As a result I believe I was responsible for the present awareness of the hazardous nature of mercury – because the manufacturers tended to play down hazards associated with the contents of their bulbs, claiming that the amount of mercury was too little to be of any danger. To date, no manufacturer has suggested that this claim is overstated.
 A typical drum of mixed lamps awaiting processing |
By 1990, Balcan had developed a collection and disposal service for the debris from clients’ crushers which it took to licensed landfill. The company quickly discovered the benefit of fitting crushers into the vans to reduce the volume of tubes that had not been crushed. This service expanded into a general ‘on-site crushing and disposal service.’ However by the mid 1990s it became evident that the WEEE (Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment) regulations would ultimately be introduced.
Balcan had long recognized the environmental and economical merits of loading considerably more pre-crushed light bulbs into vehicles, compared to when they remained whole. The company also recognized if it was to continue with its service it would need to adapt it for recycling too – however it was unable to find any manufacturer of equipment that could accept either whole or pre-crushed fluorescent tubes. As a result the company applied itself to the design of such plant, as it had done for the design and manufacture of other types of its equipment.
Balcan’s business today
Today Balcan is exporting its acclaimed technology to companies around the world – as more businesses search for environmental and cost-cutting solutions to waste management.
Balcan, which received the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in 2006 for its lamp recycling plant, recently supplied lamp crushing/recycling plants to Portugal and Australia, and a mobile lamp crusher to Cuba where authorities expect to collect and recycle four million waste fluorescent tubes and compact fluorescent lamps/bulbs (CFLs). The company is also in advanced talks with other companies to export plant to countries including Brazil, Greece and the United States.
 The lamp recycler from Balcan |
The company supplied a unit, complete with several crushers, to an environmental consultancy, Morandmor LDA of Rio Meao in Portugal, which already collected lamps as part of its waste recycling operation. However, because the company did not have its own recycling equipment it had to take the fluorescent tubes/bulbs to another recycling company whose plant would only accept whole unbroken lamps. Now, using the Balcan recycling plant, the Oporto-based company is in complete control of the recycling service it offers and is able to quote more competitively because of the extra lamps it can transport/crush. The company says this allows it to achieve significant economies when collecting and shipping lamps from various Portuguese Islands, including Madeira and the Azores.
Balcan is also supplying plant to Dolo Matrix, a company in North Sydney, Australia. It operates a similar service to that in Portugal – but it found the same problems with outdated recycling plants to which it takes its collection of lamps. Due to the size of the country and the long distances between the cities, which produce most of the waste lighting, the costs of transporting whole fluorescent tubes is considerably greater. The company expects to achieve considerable savings by pre-crushing the lamps and using the Balcan equipment.
 21,000 four foot whole fluorescent tubes packed on pallets, taking up the whole lorry |
Cuba had been looking for a solution to waste light disposal. It approached Balcan following its discussions with Philips Lighting – who advised Cuba to consider the merits of a Balcan
The pre-crushing of lamps is now being widely recognized as the best method of dealing with waste bulbs because of the environmental and cost benefits that are increasingly important to waste management companies.
The merits of Balcan’s service were recognized some years ago when Balcan supplied two crushers to Turner Diesel Ltd, Glasgow, who act as electrical contractors and service the Army in the Falklands. They use these devices because of the considerable savings they have been able to achieve when shipping waste back to the UK for recycling.
Developing new processes
Because the recycling process operates much more efficiently with dry lamps, it is easier to knock the phosphor-bearing powder off the surface of the glass debris. Balcan in 2000 replaced its highly effective water spray (which had been recommended to them by the HSE) with an electrically operated Activated Carbon Filter. This filter is also fitted in their vans alongside the crushers.
 The van-mounted lamp crusher safely reduces bulbs down to a fifth of the volume, so helping transportation |
Balcan received the Cuban order from Energoimport, based in Havana, for the lamp crusher fitted with the special activated carbon filters, to safely control mercury emissions from the phosphor powder. Energoimport is an importer for the Government-owned Electric Company that has been working with the Government for more than 10 years. The crusher has a modification, which allows it to be mounted in the back of vans from where it can be easily operated.
Recognized for the benefits
Considerable savings in the cost of shipping crushed debris to Balcan in the UK for recycling can be achieved, because of the reduction in volume achieved compared with whole lamps. Balcan estimate this can be as little as 20% of the original volume.
Balcan believes that The Queen’s Award for Enterprise and the Government-backed UK Export Services were important contributory factors in attracting considerable overseas interest in its plant and services.
David Moore, secretary to the Prime Minister’s Advisory Committee from the Queen’s Awards office, who recently visited the Horncastle company as part of his annual tour to promote the awards, said: ‘Balcan Engineering is a good example of a successful recipient of the award, and we hope that this may encourage more companies to enter the awards in future years.’
The Balcan plant accepts both whole and pre-crushed light bulbs – in particular, waste fluorescent tubes, mercury-bearing gas discharge lamps and compact fluorescent lamps and bulbs (CFLs) – these go through either van-mounted crushers pre-transportation so lamps can be reduced in size, or can be sent to Balcan’s recycling and crushing plant in Horncastle. This allows up to five times as many vehicle loads of crushed lamps to be transported than if the lamps had remained whole.
The economic and environmental merits of Balcan’s design has aroused considerable interest from abroad, particularly in countries where waste has to be collected over large areas. These interested companies confirmed that the Queen’s Award drew their attention to the Balcan equipment, and subsequently gave them confidence to place their orders. The companies are already in the recycling industry and were particularly impressed by the advanced capabilities of the recycling equipment and its ability to cleanly and effectively separate the heavy plastic components which are used in modem CFL lamps.
They found that other recycling equipment, such as that used by other companies, could not handle the extra volumes of plastic generated from these new types of lamps because their plant had been designed to mainly handle fluorescent tubes.
According to Balcan, the Environment Agency and other authorities concerned with waste constantly express concern about the dangers from bulbs that become broken during storage and transportation. They worry that the escape of small amounts of vapour from the mercury contents of the lamps may pollute the surrounding area. It is now recognized by these authorities, that by properly and safely crushing lamps the Balcan way and by sealing the debris in their plastic sacks or drums, that this obviously, easily and economically overcomes the problem.
Interest and development
Balcan is helping Eurostar reduce the volume of its large quantity of waste fluorescent lighting tubes by 80%. Eurostar uses a large number of two foot long (61cm) fluorescent tubes that fail due to vibration from the eight Eurostar trains operating from its Temple Mills Depot in Leyton, London, each month. The number of waste tubes is expected to increase as the service between London and Paris and other European capitals gains momentum.
The Balcan Low Loaded Lamp Crusher supplied to Eurostar fits over a 45 gallon (204 litre) drum, into which it safely discharges its crushed debris. Eurostar have opted to use the company’s recycling services at Balcan’s plant in Lincolnshire, which enables Eurostar to achieve a significant environmental saving and reduce its carbon footprint by reducing the volume of the whole lamps by safely crushing them down by a factor of five.
Balcan has had proof of its claims of pre-crushing – one week the company received two large deliveries of lamps on flat-bed articulated lorries. One delivery contained 21,000 four foot (1.22 metre) whole fluorescent tubes packed on pallets, taking up the whole lorry. The second delivery on the same size of lorry contained 140 drums containing 84,000 four foot crushed tubes.
For the past six months all models of lamp crushers have been fitted with a spring-closure plate across the base; models of lamp crusher supplied the Eurostar by Balcan are now fitted with a spring-closure plate to prevent the escape of mercury vapour from the crushed debris into the atmosphere (when power to the crusher is switched off it stops the electrically operated dry filter unit from operating). This overcomes the concerns of the EPA (Environment Protection Agency) in Washington about vapour escaping from US-manufactured Drum Top Mounted Lamp Crushers.
Last year Balcan introduced a smaller recycler – The Multi Purpose Compact Lamp Recycler (MPC4000) – which was developed from the company’s original design. The simple, uncomplicated and unique design of this new unit is the subject of a patent application and is an advance on more expensive recyclers on the market. It can handle and process a greater variety of newer types of bulbs which use a much higher proportion of plastic components – a service not provided by other designs of recycling equipment, according to Balcan Engineering.
With a low retail price, there is no other plant capable of competing with it, either on cost or quality of the resultant glass cullet, according to Balcan. With such versatility, Balcan expects it will widen the market for recycling plant and enable many small companies to offer a competitive lamp recycling service.
John Rinfret, Balcan Engineering Ltd, Horncastle, Lincolnshire, UK
e-mail: jr@balcan.co.uk
