On 22 Jan, 18:15, Usenet Nutter
wrote:
On Fri, 22 Jan 2010 18:10:18 +0000, Dave Osborne

wrote:
Be advised that if you fancy weighing in your copper cables and you
notice that copper wire is £3800/tonne whereas 45% insulated cable is
"only" £1200/tonne don't be tempted to put your cable on the bonfire to
burn the insulation off. It's illegal[1][2] to do so and the recycler
will not be happy either, as he could get into trouble for receiving and
will give you a lower price than you might expect, if anything at all.
Insulated copper wire is recycled *not* by burning, but by grinding the
cables up and floating the plastic off.

So is it illegal to strip it out manually ..albeit possibly
impractical for anyhting less than small amounts .

It used to be a major strand of Remploy's business, I don't know
whether it still is.