BT Recoups £105 Million By Recycling Copper Cables

BT has recovered a tiny amount of its heavy investment transitioning the United Kingdom from a copper-based network to the full fibre utopia.

The Guardian reported that BT has received £105 million in return for 3,300 tonnes of extracted copper cables, amid £15bn rollout of full-fibre broadband to 25 million homes in the UK by January 2027.

BT had confirmed in September 2023 that it was finally putting the ‘stopper on copper’, by halting the sale of new copper-based telephones lines as part of the move to full fibre.

Recycling copper

BT of course inherited the UK’s public switched telephone network (PSTN) network from its predecessor (the General Post Office). Copper at the time was a versatile material that served as the backbone for the UK’s PSTN.

Want to know more about the history of BT and Openreach? Read Silicon UK’s Tales in Tech History article

As BT and Openreach continue to sink billions of pounds into the full fibre build, the Guardian noted that the carrier has struck a deal with a recycling company and sold it copper granules created from surplus copper cables that are being replaced by its new full-fibre network.

The £105m transaction is the first of its kind, the Guardian noted.

Openreach recovered 3,300 tonnes of copper in the year to 31 March 2024. It reportedly struck a deal with a bank and global recycler EMR to support the extraction and recycling of copper cable from its network until 2028.

The carrier reportedly said that while its copper extraction programme continued and was being seen as a commercial revenue stream for BT Group, it was too early to provide any financial outlook on the copper value.

“As we look to recover and reuse scarce resources like copper in line with our commitment to sustainability, we estimate that as we replace old copper networks with fibre, we’ll be able to recover up to 200,000 tonnes of copper through the 2030s – in line with customer migrations,” Openreach was quoted as saying.

Valuable commodity

Despite being a very old material, copper is still a very valuable material that is widely used in data centres, electrical equipment, and electric vehicles.

Indeed, copper is so valuable that it has become virtually unusable in countries such as South Africa and India, due to the high numbers of thieves stealing the copper cables to sell for scrap value – a problem that also occurs in the United Kingdom (to a much lesser extent).

In August 2022 for example, Yorkshire police arrested four men in connection with the theft of a BT cable at the BT cable junction box on the B6265 between Little Ouseburn and Green Hammerton (northwest of the city of York).

BT does have protective measures in place, including the use of smart water, to protect its copper cables.