BT to Extract 200 Tonnes of UK Copper Cable in 2023 UPDATE

As the UK rollout of full fibre (FTTP) broadband gathers pace, BT are increasingly turning their attention to the challenge of how to extract all of that valuable copper leftover from their legacy phone network. Initial trials have already taken place, and they now expect to extract over 200 tonnes of copper cable this year.

The complete extraction of BT and Openreach’s legacy cables and kit will be a slow process because some parts of the UK are still likely to need them for many years longer, while consumers also have to be given time to migrate. Nevertheless, Openreach’s new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network already covers 10.27 million premises, and they aim to reach 25 million by December 2026. But they recently hinted that this might grow up to 30 million by 2030 (here), which would only leave a tiny portion of premises stuck on ancient copper, or even aluminium, lines.

The process of moving end-users away from copper and on to fibre optic infrastructure is already underway and that will only expand over the coming years, albeit very gradually. BT recently stated that it remained “confident” of being able to “recover” an estimated 200,000 tonnes of copper from their old legacy network through the 2030s.

In terms of value, we’ve seen a lot of wild figures over the years, although it’s worth remembering that the extraction process alone will cost a fair bit of money. In terms of the raw material value, at the moment some traders report that 1kg of copper is worth about £7, which suggests that 200,000 tonnes might be worth £1.4bn, but this varies with time and issues of purity also have an impact (we’d allow a range of £800m to £1.6bn).

However, we should point out that the BT Group aren’t merely looking to recycle old coppers cables, but also older electronic equipment from their fixed line and EE mobile network. “We’re looking at ways to remove, reuse and recycle our old legacy networks, such as the PSTN (public switched telephone network) and 3G, which are some of the larger drivers of energy consumption,” said Matt Manning, BT Group’s Head of Circular Economy.

In an effort to reduce BT Group’s e-waste, the operator has now created an Exchange Clearance Operation (ECO) programme, which involves recovering, recycling, and reselling equipment from old telephone exchanges, “allowing us to close-down those ageing, inefficient networks and to downsize the number of buildings we have.”

Matt Manning said:

“To do this we have teamed up with N2S2 and TXO3, European leaders in recycling telecoms equipment and enabling re-use. TXO has offered BT Group its invaluable expertise in promoting internal re-use, as well as its ability to resell equipment into the global market, keeping equipment in use.

We’re also embracing innovative processes. Working with N2S we are exploring the potential of bioleaching – a process used to extract and recover precious metals from technology equipment, for re-use.

This year alone, the programme will extract over 200 tonnes of copper cable, (equivalent to the weight of over 140 Ford Focus cars), will see over 2,000 tonnes of lead batteries recycled and will generate £4m with these combined activities in addition to recycling & resale of redundant network equipment.”

At the end of the day, the operator’s old copper does have plenty of value, albeit probably not as much as some people expect. We have also asked Openreach for an update on the trials they undertook last year to “better understand the costs associated” with extracting their old cable, since this will have a significant bearing on the final benefit returned.

UPDATE 2:40pm

Just to clarify. The Exchange Clearance Operation (ECO) programme is a BT Group initiative rather than Openreach and the copper being recovered will be from BT kit in the exchange, although it all feeds into the same overall task.