What do you do with your old toaster?

Electrical and electronic waste (Waste electrical and electronic equipment, aka WEEE) is increasing by around 5% each year, making it the fastest growing waste stream in the UK.
It is important that WEEE does not end up in your bin.

Each year in the UK we go throw away over 1.2 million tonnes of electrical and electronic waste.

Many of the electrical items that we throw away can be repaired or recycled.

Some recently introduced regulation aims to reduce the amount of this waste going to landfill and improve recovery and recycling rates. Great idea but a bit of a daft name since Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment is shortened to WEEE. Which means that your broken Nintendo Wii is WEEE.

Basically every manufacturer of WEEE has to pay into a scheme to manage the reuse or recycling of electrical equipment.

Under WEEE, manufacturers and retailers of technology are forced to pay a percentage of the total recycling costs of the equipment — depending on how much they sell or produce.

So what should you do with your WEEE

Please do not bin it.

1. If you are buying new equipment to replace an old appliance ask the store you are buying it from about their take-back scheme. Or have a look on their website, have a search under WEEE on the sites search box and you should find the right page.

2. Could you give away your unwanted equipment to friends or family or charity.

3. Take any electrical equipment you no longer want to you civic amenities site. They should make sure that if the items are recycled properly.

4. Phone your council and ask if they can arrange collection of large appliances.

WEEE is not just BIG items like fridges – its toasters, flashlights, mobile phones, mp3 players, laptops – everything electrical.

The manufacturers are paying for the schemes so you might as well take them up on it and help to make sure less goes to landfill.

What happens to the WEEE once it is collected?
It is dismantled down to the main materials, the bits are sent for reprocessing and these are eventually reused.

• Post to:
•  del.icio.us
•  Digg
•  Newsvine
•  Nowpublic
•  Reddit