Reusing, Reselling and Recycling Our Assets Through Investment Recovery
Our Investment Recovery recycling operation constantly looks for better ways to minimise the assets we send to landfill. Since inception, Investment Recovery has partnered with Operations to identify material leaving service and maximise production. This partnership derives continued value and use from copper and aluminum waste.
US
In the US, Investment Recovery processes 25 million pounds of material annually. Our wire-chopping machine – which allows us to convert used or unneeded wire into recyclable copper and aluminum pellets - has now been in place for five years. Additionally, thanks to new technology and employee insight, the granulator can now process more conductor material than before. Our experts worked with the original equipment manufacturer Sweed, and Ramboll engineering firm to implement the new functionality.
At our Greenpoint, NY and Everett, MA locations, to simultaneously reduce the landfilling of wastes and increase recycling of used materials, we decontaminate natural gas pipeline and other non-porous metal surfaces. Investment Recovery’s “pipe washing” operation utilises a proprietary wash solution that has proven to effectively clean gas pipe so that it may be recycled as scrap metal and re-used.
Investment Recovery is exploring more new modifications to expand production through benchmarking with peer utilities. The expansion will increase the circularity of materials, generate additional revenue for the company, and support emissions reductions.
UK
In the UK, our refurbishment plant reused 97 tonnes of copper and bronze and 11.5 tonnes of aluminum in FY25, which saved over 500 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Our Refurbishment team is currently looking at ways to reuse our assets to minimise the amount of scrap metal produced.
Our Lifecycle team is exploring more new modifications to expand our refurbishment work through assessing some of the more modern disconnectors and circuit breakers on our system to increase the reuse of materials, which will further reduce our carbon footprint.
Additionally, our Oil Management Unit (OMU) carries out oil handling activities for substation teams. This includes hazardous waste treatment at two centres permitted by the Environment Agency. In 2024, we recycled a total of 2.9 million litres of oil at our Waste Treatment Centres at Dartford and Doncaster, and recycled an additional 11.6 million litres of oil in situ in transformers out at our substations. Most of our recycled oils go back into substation assets, with the surplus oils being sold to 3rd parties for further recycling. These parties then blend our recycled oil into their products, which are also used in electrical assets, creating a circular system.