Situated in our Hazardous Waste Transfer Station at Ewelme in Oxfordshire, our AeroPak aerosol reprocessing facility is capable of recycling around 9,000 aerosols an hour. This makes the AeroPak the world’s most advanced closed loop aerosol recycling system.
Setting new standards with the industry, the AeroPak delivers significant cost savings and environmental benefits for our customers.
Built at a cost of £3 million, our state-of-the-art aerosol recycling facility is helping to transform the way aerosols are disposed of in the UK and Europe.
There is barely an area of industry, retail or commerce which doesn’t utilise aerosols in one shape or form. Now we’re delighted to provide our customers with industry-leading technology that provides them with a much more cost efficient, safe and environmentally-friendly way to manage recycling and reprocessing of waste aerosols.
With our focus being on driving valuable resources and materials up the waste hierarchy and to promote increased recycling, this facility makes that goal a step closer.
With a throughput of around 72,000 aerosols a day, based on an average eight hour shift, this aerosol recycling facility has the potential to reduce disposal costs by up to 30%, largely due to the large volumes that it can process.
Employing Best Available Technology for the disposal of waste aerosols, the AeroPak uses specialist compaction technology which operates within an inert nitrogen atmosphere. The AeroPak also features a highly efficient extraction system, which is linked to the facility’s Regenerative Thermal Oxidiser (RTO), resulting in it having minimal effect on the environment.
This means that every single component is recycled or reprocessed in a completely sealed and totally safe oxygen free environment, with zero emissions released into the atmosphere and any risk of fire is kept to an absolute minimum.
This provides significant advantages over other aerosol disposal methods such as shredding, which can not only cause potential fire hazards if harmful gases or vapours are released from aerosols that are not completely empty, but also fail to recycle the propellants.
Our aerosol recycling facility enables metal from the cans to be sent for recycling; while liquids (such as hairspray, deodorants or paint) are separated for specialist recovery or recycling; and the propellants (such as butane or propane) are collected and used to fuel in-house operations and/or generate electricity.
How does the AeroPak’s aerosol recycling process work?
Loading
Up to 9,000 aerosols an hour are loaded into the AeroPak’s feed hopper
Compacted
The aerosols are compacted within in a completely sealed and totally oxygen free environment, with zero emissions released to atmosphere and minimal risk of fire
Aeropak
The AeroPak enables 100% recycling of metal from the cans, while 100% of the liquid content is separated for specialist recovery and recycling. Up to 100% of the propellant is also recovered.
Processing
The metal cans are compacted in dense bricks, which are dried in a dedicated room, heated using excess heat from the RTO, with the capture of all vapours.
Separation
The liquid and the propellants are separated in a vapouriser tank, with the liquid being pumped into storage containers and the gaseous propellants being recompressed into large LPG cylinders.
The AeroPak offers a much safer way to dispose of aerosols when compared with other methods such as shredding. The aerosols are compacted in a completely sealed and totally safe inert nitrogen atmosphere. By compacting them in an oxygen free environment, any risk for fire is kept to an absolute minimum.
The increased volume of aerosols that can be recycled through the AeroPak helps to drive down costs, with the potential to reduce disposal costs by up to 30%.
Every single component is recycled or reprocessed enabling our customers to improve their own environmental credentials e.g. help to achieve their ISO14001 targets.
The AeroPak also helps to drive materials up the waste hierarchy and meets the demands of the circular economy, promoting increased recycling and recovery rates.
The AeroPak isn’t limited to simply reprocessing aerosols; it can also recover tins of paint, oil filters, varnishes, ink and small gas cylinders, allowing its impact to be felt much more widely across the manufacturing sector.
It has also created significant interest from the pharmaceutical sector, after achieving a world first in being able to recover the specialist gases from asthma inhalers, enabling their recycling, along with the metal containers.
As well as being able to recycle the aluminium canisters, the AeroPak is also able to recover the valuable R134a propellant gases contained inside. Once cleaned and analysed, these high quality gases are sold to air conditioning manufacturers, where they are highly-sought after for use in air conditioning units. This is a win-win for both the pharmaceutical company and the air conditioning manufacturer, and for the environment.
The UK is third only to the USA and China in world production of aerosols, with some 1.4 billion aerosols produced each year by companies in Britain.
Given that the cans are made from high grade steel or aluminium, recycling can save up to 95% of the required raw materials and energy.
The capture of both the liquid products and gaseous propellants, with either their direct recycling or recovery as a fuel, preserves resources and reduces the need to refine new hydrocarbons.
The direct recycling of the metals, products and propellants also supports the circular economy.
The AeroPak processes waste from a range of sources including aerosol manufacturers and fillers, retail and warehousing, other waste management companies, as well as separately collected aerosols from the public.
With a daily treatment capacity of approximately 40 cubic metres, this represents a significant asset to the UK’s ability to manage its own wastes.
Due to its unique capability, it also reaches further afield, importing inhalers from a pharmaceutical company in France and Spain.
Until the AeroPak was available, almost all waste asthma inhalers were either landfilled or incinerated, leading to the potential release of ozone depleting propellants and the loss of resources.
Primary end users are any organisation that produce, use or collect waste aerosols. These include numerous commercial organisations, other waste management companies, local authorities and the public.
Finally, Grundon is also an end user, because the propellant gases in the aerosols (usually butane or propane) are collected and used to fuel in-house operations and generate electricity.
The AeroPak represents Best Available Technology and helps to transform public perception of the waste industry, increasing positivity and driving up rates of recycling.
The AeroPak uses specialist compaction technology working in a nitrogen atmosphere, along with complex gas management and liquid handling systems.
This enables the separation of the 3 main components of aerosols; the can, the product and the propellant.
The liquid and the propellants are separated in a vapouriser tank, with the liquid being pumped into storage containers and the gaseous propellants being recompressed into large LPG cylinders.
The plant is almost completely sealed, although where emissions are possible e.g. around the feed hopper, a high velocity extraction system captures any vapours. These are firstly scrubbed by activated carbon, before passing to a Regenerative Thermal Oxidiser (RTO). This uses high temperature ceramics to thermally oxidise any potential pollutants, converting them into carbon dioxide and water vapour.
The AeroPak also has a purpose designed and built adaption that enables it to capture and compress the ozone depleting propellants from medical inhalers. Once contained in specialised gas cylinders, these are then consigned for direct recycling.