Carrollton, Georgia-based wire and cable products maker Southwire Co. LLC is now using cable spools and reels made from 100 percent reground, reclaimed and recycled plastic materials. The company, which can use up to 20 percent copper scrap when making the copper wire that goes inside its cables, reports that its recycled-content plastic effort equates to 10 million pounds [5,000 tons] of recycled plastic every year.
In its 2022 sustainability report, Southwire reported on a goal to use 100 percent recycled materials in its packaging by next year, stating, “In 2022, we supported this goal with an initiative out of our 12 for Life [program] to recover and reuse plastic reels,” says the company.
Reuse efforts for reels have proven useful, and Southwire noted that a vendor it work with, historically, would discard empty reels, many of which were still in good condition. “Now, we repurchase used reels from the vendor, buying them back at a greatly reduced cost. In 2022, our reels initiative enabled more than $200,000 in savings and helped Southwire divert 78,000 pounds [39 tons] of plastic from landfills.”
On the copper front, the Southwire refinery uses “a solution system to break down large pieces of copper.” During that process, the solution flows over copper filter paper, which collects pieces of copper dust. That paper is sent to a metal recycling partner to recover the dust and “Southwire also sends all bare copper scrap back to our copper rod manufacturing plant in Carrollton, Georgia, where it can be melted down and reused.”