BT Group PLC (LSE:BT.A) has received £105 million for recycling old copper wires retrieved from its fast-fibre upgrade programme.
Network subsidiary Openreach said: “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.”
The £105 million was an upfront payment from metal recycling partner EMR for surplus copper cables replaced by fibre optic connections.
Openreach said it recovered 3,300 tonnes of copper in the year to 31 March 2024 with estimates that the programme could eventually see 200,000 tonnes of copper, worth currently about £1.5bn at spot prices
Annual copper demand is projected to grow from 25 million metric tonnes today to about 50 million tonnes by 2035.