Live Simply – Tips from St. Joseph’s Dinnington
Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) is one of the fastest growing waste streams. In 2020 the world produced 50 million tonnes of electronic waste (e-waste) E-waste includes anything with a plug, cord, battery or an electronic component such as kitchen appliances, mobile phones, computers, TVs, electrical and electronic tools. These can all be either recycled or reused.
Why is it important to recycle electrical items?
A huge amount of electrical items are purchased each year and currently only a small proportion of items, particularly small items, are collected for recycling. Many of us are not aware that items such as irons, toasters and mobile phones can be recycled. These items have a tendency to sit in a cupboard or drawer and gather dust, instead of being put to better use. Discarded or hoarded household electricals costs the UK economy £370 million every year due to lost valuable raw materials such as gold, copper, aluminium and steel.
Electrical items contain a range of materials that can be separated for recycling and used in new products, such as plastics and precious metals including gold and copper. All this saves resources and energy for example – it takes a tonne of ore to get 1g of gold, but you can get the same amount from recycling 41 mobile phones. Making one new desktop computer and monitor uses over 240kgs of fossil fuel, 21kgs of chemicals (including rare non-renewable elements), and 1.5 tonnes of fresh water. Reusing and recycling Waste Electrical and Electronic equipment as much as possible saves precious resources and a significant amount of energy.
How can Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment be used?
Electrical items contain many different parts which, once recycled, can be used again in a variety of new applications. For example, the copper motor in a hover mower can be turned into copper pipe, copper wire, and winding wire for motors in new electronic products. Precious and semiprecious metals can be extracted from mobile phones and their batteries can be recycled. There are other useful parts which can be re-used such as aerials, battery connectors, LCD screens, lenses, microphones, phone housings, screws, SIM card assemblies and speakers.
How much Electrical and Electronic waste does the UK produce?
The UK is the second-highest producer of e-waste in the world, if recent trends continue; the UK will become the world’s biggest contributor by 2024. The nation throws away 1.50 million tonnes of E-waste every year, on average each person in the UK buys three new electrical items and produces 23.9 kg of e-waste – a third of our body weight! Only a fraction of these items is sent to be recycled – that’s a lot of e-waste.
In addition 39 million tech items are hoarded in homes around the country outdated, broken, unused and unloved, including £1.5 billion worth of working laptops that could be resold. Nearly every household has at least one old charger and yards and yards of old cables and wires.
How to recycle broken or unwanted electrical items
Items that are still in working order can be re-used; many charity shops accept electrical items. Electrical and electronic equipment is accepted at Local Authority Waste Recycling Centres and at many retailers including B&Q, Curry’s and Boots. The items are then taken for repair or reprocessing and the raw materials are distributed to create brand new things.
Note - Unwanted electrical items should not be put in the bin!!!!!!!!!!!!
For more information see:
www.recyclenow.com/how-to-recycle/electrical-item-recycling
www.elytus.com/blog/e-waste-and-its-negative-effects-on-the-environment.html
