There are many benefits to recycling your old electronics – also known as e-waste, electronic waste and WEEE.
Discarded electricals are one of the fastest growing sources of waste – and a big threat to the environment and human health. Recycling old electronics is better for the planet and your pocket, putting valuable resources back into the economy.
Recycling equals a cleaner environment. If we recycled all our old electricals we would cut as much CO2 as taking 3.8 million cars off the road.
Each year, more than £850 million of precious metals could be salvaged from our old electricals – including enough gold to make more than 850,000 rings.
Recycling our old electricals would create hundreds of new jobs in electrical reuse and recycling – and save valuable raw materials like gold, copper and steel.
The average UK household could make £1300 from selling their unwanted electricals – imagine all that extra cash and shelf space!
Find out how singer Nicola Roberts came to wear a dress made from 315 metres of household wires.
How Megan took the hassle out of recycling old gadgets
‘My old games console stopped working – so did the hair dryer. I didn’t want to throw them away, but recycling seemed such a pain. Then a friend said why not collect them all up in a bag? Now we just put old electricals in a separate carrier bag until it’s full enough (for my dad) to take to the recycling centre. Simple as that.’
We could save a whopping 7.98 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions if we recycled all our small unwanted electricals instead of binning or holding on to them. That’s like taking millions of cars off the road.
