Buy It Direct Group robotic TV recycling plant goes live

Online retailer Buy It Direct Group has opened a new robotic TV recycling plant.

Situated in Elland, West Yorkshire, this will process one million screens next year, with the company claiming that it will be the largest TV and screen recycler in the UK.

“We take in old TVs and laptops (anything with a screen in it) from council tips, from our customers or ones that have been collected from our clients’ customers,” CEO Nick Glynne said in a LinkedIn post.

“We use (expensive!) robots to cut out the screens and then use a sophisticated process to separate out all the reusable plastics and metals. It is modern urban mining.”

He added: “Great work by Craig Thompson (CEO at areera Intelligent Screen Recycling) who came to me with the idea earlier this year.”

“I loved Craig's disruptive concept - he proposed something radically new, a world away from how recycling is done in the UK. In just nine months we have this amazing technical operation up and running and we are disrupting the industry.”

“It is one of those rare win win win situations - we employ and develop staff, we save the planet and we build a sustainable, unique profitable business.”

New warehouse

Earlier this year, Buy It Direct Group signed a deal for a new warehouse - a 525,000 sq ft facility at EMDC, near East Midlands Airport.

“At 18 metres high, this well-spec'd building will give us nearly 90,000 extra pallet spaces for some of our appliances, bathroom products and furniture,” Glynne commented.

“The location is perfect for us as its is near our Mansfield warehouse which means our existing ops team can manage the new site. We also now have an ideal base to ramp up our two man delivery network.

“We're managing the project ourselves and have ordered all the kit needed for our fit-out so we can start despatching by the end of the summer.”

Glynne concluded: “Due to our growth forecast, this shed will be full within four years but in the meantime, at least for the next three years, we will have excess space to offer a pick, pack and despatch service to third parties, ideally for oversized goods.”

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