Comcast Cable has partnered with Echo Environmental Holdings to utilize a new recycling solution for its customers' end-of-life coaxial cables. The technology developed by Echo Environmental breaks wires down into raw, new materials that can be reintroduced and resold, helping to reduce landfill waste.
Echo Environmental's plant has the capacity to recycle one million pounds of wire waste per month and will recycle approximately 70 percent of Comcast's cable and coax waste each year.
"Comcast works to continually recycle or divert cable equipment waste, and we have been in constant search for new technologies to maximize the recyclability and reusability of coaxial cable materials at end-of-life," says Tom Vogel, senior vice president of supply chain and logistics for Comcast Cable. "Echo Environmental's technology brings coax waste into the circular economy, converting coax into new materials that can be reintegrated into another product lifecycle."
Coaxial cables include multi-layered cords with a steel inner conductor, insulating layer, and conductive shielding. These cables can be made of 27 different polymers that require separation for use in new products. Traditional recycling attempts have been successful in recovering the metals contained in the wires, but not the insulation and jacket, which can end up in landfills.
In 2021, Echo Environmental created a new solution that creates high-polymer fractions from the insulation and jacket without hazardous chemicals or incineration, allowing these substances to be reintroduced directly into supply chains as raw materials.
