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Exeter metal recycling facility rail link reopened after eight years
A train carrying recycled steel has departed from Sims Metal Management’s Exeter recycling facility for the first time in eight years. The EWS locomotive arrived at the site in Marsh Barton Trading Estate at 7.30 am on Thursday morning to be loaded up with recycled steel destined for Sims' dockside facility in Newport, Gwent.
Cranes at Sims Metal Management's Exeter metals recycling centre load scrap metals onto train wagons for export.
Crane operators, working from dawn until dusk, took almost ten hours to load the material into the train which eventually left at 17.30 for the five hour journey to Newport where the material will be exported to manufacturers in the Far East for reuse in making new products.
The decision to return to train transportation was taken after the company decided to invest in new equipment which will increase the volume of scrap metal which the Exeter site can recycle each year. Sims Metal Management’s Exeter Site Manager, Gary Cleave said: “As a result of investment in new processing equipment, we anticipate that we will be recycling greater volumes of material over the next twelve months, all of which will need to be sent to our dock facility in Newport and to steel works in the UK.
“We decided to reopen our rail link and send the material by train as it is the most environmentally friendly mode of transport. To transport the material by road would have required at least thirty lorries undertaking a 200 mile round trip, covering around 6,000 road miles. By using rail instead of road, not only are we reducing carbon emissions from lorries, but by removing lorries from the road altogether we are also helping alleviate traffic congestion on our busy roads.”
A second transportation is taking place this week and as volumes of material recycled at the site increase, the company hope eventually to send one train load of steel from Exeter to Newport every week of the year. This would equate to an annual saving of 300,000 road miles and 1,500 lorry journeys.
Last year Sims Metal Management processed over 13 million tonnes of material globally. Through manufacturers re-using the recycled material rather than virgin material, 23.5 million tonnes of CO2 was prevented from being emitted into the atmosphere.