Openreach Recycles UK Home Broadband Kit to Help Slash Plastic Use
Network access provider Openreach (BT) has today announced the launch of a new range of Optical Network Terminals (ONT) from Nokia – the wall-mounted optical modems that get installed in homes alongside their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP lines, which use re-engineered casings made from 85% recycled plastic.
The development was actually touched on a bit last month after we summarised a range of the operator’s forthcoming new ONTs (here), although at the time we didn’t know about the recycled aspect of their latest kit. The move is one of a number of initiatives under Openreach’s “Let’s Reach Zero” strategy — a commitment to reach Net Zero emissions in its operations by 2031.
The new ONT models – officially launching this summer (the first should start going out in late August 2025) – will aim to cut 100 tonnes of new plastic from the company’s manufacturing process, the equivalent of eight double-decker buses in weight. Openreach is working with partners such as Nokia, Adtran, Zyxel and Sercomm to manufacture the new ONTs – with casings made from re-cycled plastic pellets.
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The pellets come from a variety of sources based on the plastic family of polycarbonate (PC), including recycled casings for laptops, tablets or phones, personal safety equipment like face shields and glasses, medical devices, and from headlights, taillights and interior trims in the automotive industry.
Openreach has also re-designed the packaging that ONTs arrive in, working with Nokia, to reduce the amount of cardboard it uses by 30%. The space-saving this produces is allowing for 40% more ONTs to be delivered in every shipping container, helping to make its supply chain even more cost-efficient. Efforts are now being made to extend this approach to their other suppliers.
Abby Chicken, Head of Sustainability for Openreach, said:
“Our mission – to build the UK’s best full fibre future – will deliver a more sustainable, reliable network and serve as the digital platform for a greener economy. We recognise the environmental impact of building that future, and that’s why we’re committed to using fewer materials and reducing waste. Our new recycled fibre kit is a big step forward, removing 100 tonnes of new plastic from our supply chain every year.”
As we previously reported, some of the new ONTs they’re introducing have also been designed to support their future trials of 10Gbps capable XGS-PON full fibre technology, which appear set to initially support symmetric speed tiers at wholesale of up to 3.3Gbps. Openreach based FTTP broadband packages can be ordered via hundreds of retail providers, such as BT, Zen Internet, TalkTalk, Vodafone, Sky Broadband, Aquiss, iDNet, AAISP and many more.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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so i wonder how many people have taken the ONT when moving house. i guess intuitively you would
@clive peters: Openreach ONT’s have the wording, “Moving” Please leave me behind. As you suggest many customers will take everything except the kitchen sink. 🙂
It happens a lot. Not necessarily the ONT itself, but the power supplies. I work for an ISP and sadly, Openreach do not give us a way to send a customer a replacement power supply and instead insist on an engineer being arranged to go out and set it up. It leads to a few complaints as often Openreach engineers will remotely provision the connection if they see an ONT in their records.
Maybe the power supply should be USB C, so that if it’s removed or breaks it’s easily replaced
Now do it with their routers and other providers as well, routers are replaced a lot more than ONTs,
Net Zero emissions, yeah, pigs will fly.
Openreach doesn’t supply routers.
If of course you mean other companies in the BT Group, with no relation to Openreach, then you’ll find that they already refurbish and re-use equipment whenever they can.
Every company refurbishes their equipment to maximise the lifespan of them
Recycling old c**p, sorry meant equipment, is more about them saving money than anything else.
Yes, I did mean BT and yes I suppose they do reuse routers, or do they? Do they stick used routers in a nice new box?
Anyway, ONT are reused, this article said about the ONTs being made from 85% recycled plastic, routers should be as well.
Armchair cynicism. Of course it saves them money, it’s not exactly a secret. Just pointing out the facts in regards to what the ISPs already do.
Dave – does that include much of the kit that people like to believe is better than the ISP supplied equipment, including from the U and M brands? I’ve got an Edgerouter that really ought to be WEEE’d. It didn’t work well in its heyday.
I believe BT group require routers to be returned to them at end of service or if they are replaced/upgraded, else pay a charge.
they could even recycle more to get to their “net zero” target…no wooden telephone poles covered in toxic creosote, which nobody can use after its coated in this hazardous chemical.
Or, of course, we could use a less effective preservative and just massacre more trees.
Do they still use creosote? I thought it may be something different by now.
Even so, they have to put something on it, otherwise it will rot pretty quickly. The majority of poles stay for years, 50 years or longer.
What do you think would happen if they installed poles that haven’t been treated?
Think Eric, think
Again meaningless all about ticking boxes and claiming they are green.
How about doing something that really would help which is all providers have set equipment they use so 1 type on ONT & Router (router the companies can put brand on if they like)
Just to think the reduction this would do a lot of people would use this equipment for many years even if they switch providers it would also reduce costs.
Why are we still waiting for open reach to connect us to full fibre 3 months down the line
Full fibre is connected on our site with a connection on our lawn.