Legal Brief
Kwik-Fit Accelerates Recycling
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Kwik-Fit Fleet is at the forefront of a ‘green’ revolution following the opening of its £10 million National Distribution Centre.
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From this - Shredded tyres in a truck at Kwik-Fit’s National Distribution Centre...
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The recently opened 245,000 square feet Northamptonshire complex - the size of 10 football pitches - is the hub of a major operation that has taken parts recycling to a new level.
A 69-strong fleet of newly acquired trucks deliver tyres to centres daily, and in a process known as ‘reverse logistics’ return to the National Distribution Centre reloaded with worn out tyres, removed tyre casings and scrap catalytic converters.
The industry first ‘one-for-one exchange’ results in trucks travelling fully loaded thus saving up to three million miles a year and an estimated 3,000 tonnes of carbon in reduced emissions.
Once back at the National Distribution Centre a specially installed machine shreds more than six million tyres a year removed from company and privately-owned cars and vans.
Following shredding, the rubber is transported from the site for use in artificial sports and equestrian surfaces, in children’s playground surfaces, as a fuel in the cement industry, replacing aggregate as landfill engineering, and in the manufacturing of portable rail crossing and carpet underlay.
The development means that specialist tyre waste collectors now collect from the National Distribution Centre instead of calling at individual Kwik-Fit’s centre thus cutting thousands of journeys a year so easing traffic congestion and cutting vehicle emissions.
With tyre consumption per vehicle increasing and the number of cars and vans on the UK’s roads also rising, the volume of tyres removed and sent for recycling will rise significantly in the coming years.
Not only are yesterday’s tyres being put to good use, but the ‘reverse logistics’ transport initiative introduced by Kwik-Fit means that its 670-strong network of centres nationwide no longer store hundreds of used tyre casings in internal and external compounds.
The development has not only freed up valuable site storage space, but fire risk has reduced and with it the environmental damage associated with waste rubber fires.
Head of Kwik-Fit Fleet Mike Wise said: “We view worn out tyres not as rubbish, but as the raw product for something else.
“Amid ever-growing awareness around company and individual environmental and waste recycling responsibilities it is essential that major organisations, such as Kwik-Fit, lead by example and display their corporate social responsibility credentials.”
Indeed, Kwik-Fit, Britain and Europe’s largest independent fast-fit company, has for many years been at the forefront of ensuring that tyres and other worn out vehicle parts - catalytic converters, brakes, shock absorbers, batteries - as well as oil and other fluids are reprocessed.
In addition to tyres, some 40,000+ tons of tyre casings are remoulded and others, along with tyres, are also shredded or crumbed. The steel cord in casings is extracted and re-used in steel making.
Other material recycled includes:
“The opening of the National Distribution Centre has enabled Kwik-Fit to not only improve our recycling effectiveness but improve efficiencies in our transport operations that will save up to three million miles a year and an estimated 3,000 tonnes of carbon in reduced emissions.”
A 69-strong fleet of newly acquired trucks deliver tyres to centres daily, and in a process known as ‘reverse logistics’ return to the National Distribution Centre reloaded with worn out tyres, removed tyre casings and scrap catalytic converters.
The industry first ‘one-for-one exchange’ results in trucks travelling fully loaded thus saving up to three million miles a year and an estimated 3,000 tonnes of carbon in reduced emissions.
Once back at the National Distribution Centre a specially installed machine shreds more than six million tyres a year removed from company and privately-owned cars and vans.
Following shredding, the rubber is transported from the site for use in artificial sports and equestrian surfaces, in children’s playground surfaces, as a fuel in the cement industry, replacing aggregate as landfill engineering, and in the manufacturing of portable rail crossing and carpet underlay.
The development means that specialist tyre waste collectors now collect from the National Distribution Centre instead of calling at individual Kwik-Fit’s centre thus cutting thousands of journeys a year so easing traffic congestion and cutting vehicle emissions.
With tyre consumption per vehicle increasing and the number of cars and vans on the UK’s roads also rising, the volume of tyres removed and sent for recycling will rise significantly in the coming years.
Not only are yesterday’s tyres being put to good use, but the ‘reverse logistics’ transport initiative introduced by Kwik-Fit means that its 670-strong network of centres nationwide no longer store hundreds of used tyre casings in internal and external compounds.
The development has not only freed up valuable site storage space, but fire risk has reduced and with it the environmental damage associated with waste rubber fires.
Head of Kwik-Fit Fleet Mike Wise said: “We view worn out tyres not as rubbish, but as the raw product for something else.
“Amid ever-growing awareness around company and individual environmental and waste recycling responsibilities it is essential that major organisations, such as Kwik-Fit, lead by example and display their corporate social responsibility credentials.”
Indeed, Kwik-Fit, Britain and Europe’s largest independent fast-fit company, has for many years been at the forefront of ensuring that tyres and other worn out vehicle parts - catalytic converters, brakes, shock absorbers, batteries - as well as oil and other fluids are reprocessed.
In addition to tyres, some 40,000+ tons of tyre casings are remoulded and others, along with tyres, are also shredded or crumbed. The steel cord in casings is extracted and re-used in steel making.
Other material recycled includes:
- Around 1.5 million exhausts removed annually are collected by contractors and used on the worldwide scrap metal market along with spark plugs, shock absorbers, zinc balance weights and hundreds of thousands of brake pads, brake discs and hydraulic cylinders. Brake callipers are re-used by manufacturers.
- Precious metals such as rhodium, palladium and platinum are extracted from more than 650,000 old catalytic converters removed annually.
- Thousands of batteries are reprocessed with the lead extracted and re-used, battery casings are reprocessed as plastic and acid is treated and disposed of in line with hazardous waste regulations.
- Almost 500,000 litres of waste oil is reprocessed and used as marine oil and as fuel in a number of factories including steelworks.
- Aluminium from oil and fuel filters is compacted and used to fuel aluminium smelters and the waste oil reprocessed and used as industrial fluid along with waste brake fluid.
- Thousands of litres of anti-freeze are sent to specialist chemical extraction processors.
- Air filters are disposed of with general waste via local authority wheeled bin collections. Paper and cardboard waste is separated for reprocessing.
“The opening of the National Distribution Centre has enabled Kwik-Fit to not only improve our recycling effectiveness but improve efficiencies in our transport operations that will save up to three million miles a year and an estimated 3,000 tonnes of carbon in reduced emissions.”
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