Recyberica Ambiental S.L.: recovering components from WEEE

Recyberica Ambiental logo
Type of organisation or company
Country
Spain
Language for original content
Ongoing
Yes
Description

Recyberica Ambiental S.L. is a Spanish company that manages, processes and recycles waste electrical and electronic equipment.

They specialise in recycling air conditioning units, and the oils, refrigerant gases and condensers that they contain. Refrigerant gases have extremely high global warming potential - for example, the potential of common refrigerants like R-410A is 2 088 times higher than that of carbon dioxide, meaning that just 1 kg of this gas has a warming effect equivalent to over 2 tons of carbon dioxide. These gases need to be removed, regenerated for reuse or eliminated. The oils are also extracted, and metal and plastic fractions are recovered for reuse.

The project manages hazardous and non-hazardous electronic waste, breaking the various items down into fractions. Recovered materials such as copper, iron and aluminium are returned to the production system as raw materials.

Recyberica also runs a Centre for Preparation for Reuse which extends product life cycles and promotes circularity. The reconditioned items are donated to non-profit organisations with guarantees and all data deleted. By focusing on resource recovery rather than disposal, they've created a closed-loop system that not only prevents hazardous substances entering the environment but also reduces the need to extract virgin materials.   

Main results
  • Recovering materials is far less energy and resource intensive than extraction. For instance, recycling aluminium saves 95% and recycling copper 85% of the energy that would have been used to extract it. Recycling ferrous materials prevents 0.97 tons of CO2 per ton. 
  • Since 2008, the project has managed over 40 000 kg of refrigerant gases.