The recovery of CFCs from the insulating material is the most significant aspect of any refrigerator/freezer appliance recycling process, as only about one third of the CFCs in an appliance are in the cooling circuit. By far the largest fraction of these ozone-depleting substances is that which was used as the blowing agent to create the insulating foam.

In this processing stage, the pre-treated appliances are shredded and the various component materials are partially separated from one another. All CFCs released during the shredding and separation operations are collected by passing the gases over active carbon filters. The CFCs are later desorbed from the filters, liquefied and stored.

This processing stage is generally referred to as Step 2 of the demanufacturing process and SEG has developed Step 2 technology which can be used either in the form of a stationary installation or as a mobile processing plant. Which version is most suitable will depend on the customer's needs and the local conditions.

Materials recovered during Step 2:

Steel
Non-ferrous metal / plastics mixture
Polyurethane granules
CFC

The mixture of non-ferrous metal and plastics is then sent for further processing to SEG's Materials Sorting and Production Centre where high-purity fractions of aluminium and polystyrene are retrieved.