The construction of Enviropol as a revolutionary step in the processing of small end-of-life electrical equipment in Central Europe. This is a good way to describe the operation of the Enviropol plant in the Jihlava industrial zone during the past ten years.

“Enviropol is celebrating its tenth anniversary and we are proud to say that in terms of its working environment, technical facilities, the amount of WEEE it processes and the quality of its outputs, it really is a revolution in electrical equipment recycling. We process end-of-life mobile phones, tablets, computers, lawnmowers, mixers and other household appliances,” comments Enviropol manager Martina Palicová. While it was previously not possible to track the individual flows of materials, as downstream processors and resellers were part of the process, “nowadays we can each individual appliance’s journey from the first step in its processing to when it is finally reused,” adds Palicová.

This is known as downstream monitoring, in accordance with the requirements of the European WEEELABEX standard. This means that associations of electrical appliance processors oversee aspects such as ecological and safe technological processes, separation quality, staff health and safety, and other factors. Enviropol has successfully defended this certification for several years now.

The experts started planning the Enviropol plant in 2011, while work on the construction itself began in 2012. Landscaping the site was a particularly demanding task; the individual halls were gradually added, and there are now seven in total. Enviropol became fully operational in 2013. The environment is a major priority, which is why a wastewater treatment plant was built at the site. In order to reduce noise, Enviropol also reorganised its internal logistics and invested in less noisy electrical equipment.

The basic technology used to process end-of-life electrical equipment comes from Switzerland; the individual components were then manufactured in different parts of the world. “Currently, we are constantly striving to improve separation quality, resulting in higher purity of the individual output fractions. At the same time, the amount of WEEE we process is constantly increasing. Up to 150 tonnes of end-of-life appliances are processed at Enviropol every day, which, thanks to recycling, do not end up in landfills,” says the plant manager. A major turning point came in 2019, when Enviropol purchased a new WEEE sorting line – the so-called Smasher. This technological improvement upped the daily capacity to 150 tonnes a day, as mentioned above.

In 2013, there were eight labourers and four administrators working at Enviropol, today the company employs around a hundred people.