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Does your old electrical contain batteries or bulbs? Remove these before recycling. Delete any personal data from smart devices, and take out memory and SIM cards.
Could your unwanted electricals be passed on, or fixed? If not, recycling your electricals is the best thing to do. Now preparing them is simple.
Does your old electrical contain batteries or bulbs? Remove these before recycling. Delete any personal data from smart devices, and take out memory and SIM cards.
Find a bag that you can use to store all your old electricals until you can go to the recycling centre – or until collection day, if you have one.
Check our easy recycling locator to find your local repair, reuse or recycling points.
Recycling locatorAnything with a plug, battery or cable can be recycled. That includes phones and laptops, as well as older entertainment devices such as VHS recorders, DVD/CD players and tape decks. But you might still have home movies, albums and mix tapes on older formats that you’ll want to access after you’ve recycled or donated your device. Check out our pages on backing up VHS, cassettes and DVD/CDs and backing up SD cards, mobile devices and computer files.
Paul Lewis runs through a simple three-stage process for deleting data from your devices
Or you can download our guide to data deletion below. Remember it’s your responsibility to wipe data from your smart devices before passing them on or recycling them.
3 easy steps for peace of mind
Start by backing up the data from your device and any memory cards. Usually this means saving your photos, contacts and so on to the cloud or to a personal computer.
Next, wipe all personal data from your device, and reset to original settings. This is called a factory reset. The manufacturer’s website will tell you how to do this.
Finally, remove any SIM and memory cards from the device. Now use our handy locator to find your nearest repair, reuse or recycling point.
Remember, it’s your responsibility to wipe data from your smart devices before passing them on or recycling them. Check out our FAQ on how to delete your data or hit the button below to download our handy guide.
Simple – delete any data, take out batteries, bulbs and memory cards – and pop the devices in a bag until you can go to your recycling centre. See our 3-step guide to preparing your items, above, before using our recycling locator to find your nearest recycling point.
Good question. It’s easier than you might think. See our 3-step guide to deleting your data, above. Or for more detailed guidance, see our article on deleting data safely from smart devices.