At Watkins Property Services we are 100% committed to the Environment. As a result, we dedicate time to organise and separate non-recyclable and recyclable material from all our demolition work. Over 80% of the material we gather is recycled and re-used to help reduce the rubbish that ends up in land fill.

Metals Plaster Plastic Glass Concrete Brick Cable

Metals

The salvage and re-use of metals such as lead, copper and steel not only makes economic sense, but it’s great for the environment.  Processed metals and many alloys require less energy to recycle than to mine and process, therefore we are conserving our raw material resources for the future in doing so.

Lead can be recycled from old car batteries and the copper can be recycled from hot water systems and some older car radiators.  

Any Brass that is retrieved from old household fittings can be restored for re-use. Steel building studs and lighting fixtures are composed of steel and can be recycled as well.

Aluminium, once in metallic form can be recycled indefinitely. Recycling aluminium uses only 5% of the energy that is originally needed to produce primary aluminium from the raw material bauxite. This not only conserves our planet’s limited raw material resources but also provides a 95% energy saving in coal and emissions into the atmosphere.

Plaster

Plaster Recycling uses post-consumer plasterboard waste, reconstitutes the materials into useful products, and provides the raw material for new manufacturing.

The waste plasterboard and gypsum that Watkins Property Services removes from demolition sites usually go through the following stages in the recycling process:

1. Inbound wet and dry loads of waste product are usually cleaned of metal, plastic and other debris.
2. The raw material gypsum waste is loaded into a large feed hopper and then fed onto a conveyor belt, where an electromagnet removes ferrous metal fragments.
3. The material is then conveyed to an enclosed processing area that separates the paper liner from the gypsum core.
4. The recyclable gypsum is usually trucked back to plasterboard manufacturers, where it is combined with new or synthetic gypsum to make new plasterboard.
5. Usually the paper that is separated from the Plasterboard can be recycled in a separate paper process.

Studies have shown that new plasterboard can include in excess of 25 percent recycled gypsum. Also, recycled gypsum combined with synthetic gypsum produces desirable consistency levels in the manufacture of new gypsum-based products.

Plastic

	Polyethylene terephalate (PETE)
	High density polyethylene (HDPE)
	Unplasticised polyvinyl chloride (UPVC) or Plasticised polyvinyl chloride (PPVC)
	Low density polyethylene (LDPE)
	Polypropylene (PP)
	Polystyrene (PS) or Expandable polystyrene (EPS)
	Other, including nylon and acrylic

Glass

Of all the construction materials, glass has been recycled on a larger scale for longer than any of the other recyclable materials.

Glass automated recycling plants have revolutionised what happens to the glass that Watkins Property Services recycle from your home or business. Mixed glass pieces that would have been destined for landfill are now recycled in a highly automated process: The glass recycling process produces an end product called 'cullet'.

This crushed glass material is often mixed with virgin glass materials to produce new end products. Advances in technology are paving the way to enable recycling of a wider range of glass materials with end use applications in construction, drainage and absorbent materials.

Concrete

Concrete aggregate collected from demolition sites is put through a crushing machine, often along with asphalt, bricks, dirt, and rocks. Crushing facilities accept only uncontaminated concrete, which must be free of wood, paper and other such foreign materials.

Metals such as rebar are accepted as they can be removed with magnets and other sorting devices and recycled elsewhere. The remaining aggregate chunks are then sorted by size and larger chunks may be put through the crushing facility again. Smaller pieces of concrete are typically used as gravel for new construction projects.

Sub-base gravel is laid down as the lowest layer in the road with fresh concrete or asphalt poured over it. Crushed recycled concrete can be also used as dry aggregate for brand new concrete if it’s free of contaminants.

Watkins Property Services see many benefits of recycling concrete, rather than dumping or burying it in a landfill. The trouble with concrete debris is that it can't be compacted, and it doesn't decompose, and in fact it makes up 40 per cent of all landfill. 

Keeping concrete debris out of landfills saves space and the use of recycled material as gravel reduces the need for gravel mining.  As those who generate the concrete waste pay a fee to have it recycled, the use of recycled concrete as a construction material is of viable economic benefit to the wider community.

Brick

Bricks can be crushed into rubble for many different uses. Recycled bricks can also be used in new construction and many retailers are now supplying high quality recycled brick products for the construction industry.

Cable

Watkins Property Services can recycle most electrical cabling and wiring collected from demolition sites.

The cable is first stripped of its PVC insulation by cable stripping companies who recover the metal content (copper or aluminium) of the cables through a process called ‘granulation’. 

The liberated insulation is then put through a process where the plastic is purified through a flotation process, to remove residual copper, as well as polyethylene insulation that is floated off. After purification, the PVC is washed, dried and then passed through a rotating inclined freezing tunnel where the plastic is cooled to -30C.

The chilled plastic then goes through a mill in which the PVC is pulverised while other polymers are largely unaffected. The stream is subsequently filtered over a screen through which the majority of the PVC falls.  The PVC powder is then compounded in an extruder with additives such as virgin PVC, stabilizers, plasticizers and impact modifiers as required.

Finally, the PVC is melt filtered through mesh filters to remove particulate contamination such as grit. 

The resulting PVC can then be used for a wide variety of recycled products ranging from plastic bottles to hose fittings.