Are waste cable recyclable?

Waste cable is recyclable to copper and plastic, as its components.

The cable is made of one or more insulated conductors and an outer insulating protective layer. The main conductor material used is copper. A waste cable refers to a cable that has been unusable due to obsolescence, is damaged by high current voltage flow, or is inoperable due to negligence in production and processing. The used cable is only partially damaged physically, and the copper and plastic contained inside it can be completely recycled and reused.

The recovered copper can be used to make new cables, or it can be re-melted to produce copper products after purification. Because of its good electrical conductivity and thermal conductivity, it has a wide range of applications in the industry and can be sold at a very good price. Therefore, not only the resource reuse is realized, but also the environmental pollution caused by the random discarding of the waste cable is avoided.

Waste cable

Recycling waste wire and cable, we mainly want to obtain the non-ferrous metal copper inside, so no matter which method, the ultimate goal is to separate the copper and the wire. And with this result, there are different waste wire and cable treatment methods of peeling, burning, freezing, crushing, etc, existed in the market .

1. Peeling

The method adopts an artificial method to peel off the skin of the wire and cable, which is low in efficiency, high in cost, and the working environment of the worker is poor;

2. Burning

The method is a traditional method of burning the plastic skin of the waste cable and then recovering the copper therein, but the generated smoke is extremely polluted, and at the same time, the surface of the copper wire is seriously oxidized during the incineration process, and the metal recovery is reduced. Rate, this method has been strictly prohibited by governments.

3. Freezing

This method uses liquid nitrogen as a refrigerant to make the waste cable brittle at extremely low temperature, and then breaks and vibrates to separate the plastic skin from the copper wire segment. The disadvantage is high cost and difficult industrial production.

4. Crushing

The method adopts the method of pulverization and sorting, and separates the copper and plastic by the processes of coarse crushing, iron removal, fine crushing, specific gravity sorting, electrostatic sorting, etc. thereby avoiding the adverse effect of the incineration method on taking copper to the environment, and realizing double recycling of plastic box metal, comprehensive utilization. The method is applicable to a wide range of materials, and can process not only thick square lines and cable lines, but also raw materials such as automobile lines, motorcycle lines, electric vehicles, network cables, communication lines, home appliance disassembling lines, and electronic wires.

Waste cable recycling machine

If you have other questions, welcome to contact DOING. We are pleased to provide you more information about cable recycling.