At a Glance
The customer is one of Australia’s leading waste management providers with extensive operations throughout Australia. One of their waste management facilities located in New South Wales accepts and processes hazardous goods, including end-of-life gas cylinders.
However, when cylinders received are not completely empty and contain residual gas, they can’t be processed for metal recycling. Over the years, the facility received hundreds of used cylinders containing a mix of ozone depleting and high global warming potential substances, but didn’t have the appropriate equipment and training to safely recover these waste substances.
Challenges
Customer unable to recycle metal from used cylinders due to ozone depleting substances content
Mitigate environmental impact by preventing potential gas leaks from decommissioned cylinders
Benefits
Best practice refrigerant recovery enabling safe and efficient recovery of harmful ozone depleting and high global warming potential refrigerants prevented potential leaks into atmosphere
Recycling of decommissioned gas cylinders
Solution
A-Gas Rapid Recovery®, a mobile high-speed refrigerant recovery service, was commissioned by the recycling facility to recover waste gas from the end-of-life cylinders.
Rapid Recovery® trucks are equipped with Neutronics Refrigerant Analysis technology to identify refrigerant gases.
All local compliance documentation is provided including a detailed certificate of recovery showing the quantity of refrigerant recovered and the equivalent CO emissions avoided.
As part of the complete recovery process offered by A-Gas Rapid Recovery®, recovered refrigerant is returned to A-Gas’ dedicated facility for processing.
Results
Over 800kgs of ozone depleting and high global warming substances were identified, and safely and efficiently recovered from hundreds of various sized and aged decommissioned gas cylinders, preventing potential leaks into atmosphere. Once empty, the cylinders were clearly labelled, enabling the facility to send empty cylinders to be processed for metal recycling. The recovered refrigerant was sent back to the A-Gas Laverton site for processing.
“It’s so important that any refrigerant residue from decomissioned systems including cylinders are safely recovered and responsibly disposed of, to ensure there’s no potential for it to be leaked to the atmosphere.”
Daniel Tanaskovic , Sales and Operations Manager, A-Gas Rapid Recovery, Australia
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