How much?

How do we solve the problem of WEEE? Because it is a problem, isn’t it? In our throwaway society we upgrade to the latest gadget as soon as we possibly can, but we are not quite so good at getting rid of the old stuff. A few weeks ago I expounded on a theory of mine that there are hundreds of thousands of tons of supplanted electrical equipment hidden away in cupboards and drawers all over this country, in homes as well as businesses.

Let’s quickly recap the theory. In my flat I have several old phone handsets, an old Virgin television box, a CD/radio, several old alarm clocks, a video player and a broken electric razor. Plus assorted cables for things I no longer own, let alone use. Say 20 kilos? Now the annual target for WEEE collection in the whole of the UK is 490k tons and there are 25 million homes in the UK. If every one of those homes matched my little haul that is 550k tons, over one year’s total collections. And we have not even gone into business WEEE yet. I reckon there would be an equal amount.

According to WRAP about 600k tons of electrical equipment are produced or enter the UK every year, so we are recycling slightly less than we make.

Yes folks, the pile of crap in your cupboard is getting bigger, not smaller! And I would like to thank Thomas Crapper for that word. I have used it a lot in my life. But isn’t that a little scary? I reckon we have about one million tons of WEEE hidden away.

Even if you disagree with my maths and halve that number, it is HUGE. Using some figures WRAP came up with, I just worked out that one million tons of WEEE is worth about £150m. And quite a lot of it is still in good working order. It is just redundant where it is now.

eReco ran an amnesty over Christmas, promising to take our local residents WEEE, render it all data safe if necessary and recycle properly. It was a great success on a local scale. We are planning some more events, and would love to arrange one with you, wherever you are in the UK. Just get in touch if you are interested. But today, I want to pick at this problem.

Why won’t we dispose of it? A quick trip down the local amenity tip and it is gone. I can understand why people might hesitate to get rid of a laptop or a phone, because of the personal data issues, but a video player? A CD/radio?

They work. That’s why. That’s my excuse. I need the video player in case I have an urgent need to play a video at some stage. I do still have some video’s too somewhere. The Virgin box works too. I know they don’t want it back, because my dear old Dad checked, since he is in the same boat.

I am not a hoarder. Not usually. But just because it has a plug or takes a battery I seem to treat WEEE differently to all my other junk. I really don’t know why. But the facts are pretty simple. If we could recycle that one million tons of hidden WEEE we could do a lot of good in this world.

And oh yes, companies like eReco would make some money. Because that is part of the problem too I realise. Despite the fact that I could try and sell my old video player if I wanted to, and discover that...surprise surprise...it isn’t worth anything at all, I am reluctant to give it to anyone else with the skills and the time to recycle it and turn it into some money.

Illogical. Waste has been a business for some time and yes, people profit from it. The problem is that we don’t think of this stuff as waste. Even if it is broken. I had a customer that decided to sell his two old printers on eBay rather than pay £50 to have them collected. He had to set up an account, take photographs and spend time putting it all online. Let’s be generous and say it took him an hour. They did not sell. He tried a free service but he did not have enough for them to collect for free. They quoted him £75. He hummed and hah-ed for another two months before he gave in.

The fact is that until we need the space it is easier not to face our demons. But we really should grow up and do the right thing. One million tons...I can’t get that figure out of my head.

eReco – A Cure for Piles

Hoarding is a disease. And we are all guilty of it, for no good reason really. Yes you are. Somewhere in your office building or factory or lockup or whatever, there is a pile of old junk which you could recycle. You know it and I know it.

Something I hear regularly is ‘I haven’t got much’ or ‘I haven’t got enough to bother with yet’ but that is a pathetic excuse. If it is at home, it’s in a cupboard, or in the shed, or in a corner of that garage that is too narrow for your car.

My point is that there are hundreds of tons of WEEE hidden in that garage. We are holding back the progress of sustainability through apathy. You would not do it with glass or paper, so why dither just because it has a plug?

Well, I’ll tell you why. It’s just different. When a bottle is empty, you recycle it. The bin men come once in a blue moon and take it away for you. In business terms, you put it in your skip and the same sort of thing happens. They have even turned the process into a reality TV show for goodness sake (Bin there, done that or something of that ilk).

But for both consumers and businesses alike, recycling electronic gadgetry requires effort. For a consumer it means finding the local amenity, the sort of chore we all hate. Garden waste is much better because in the spring you can take some sort of pride in cutting back your bit of jungle and showing off to all the other chaps with small trees sticking out the back of their cars that you have been at one with nature for the weekend, but disposing of that old PC tower is just dull.

So we pile it up. And we need something to happen to make us take positive action. You will be amazed how often we phone someone, arrange to make a small collection, and then find the list of stuff to be collected growing before our eyes. It is the sector equivalent of having a skip outside your house for a week. In the dark of the night it seems to fill up with all manner of junk.

I have a cure for piles. Unless you are based so far off the beaten track that the chances of a van passing your door are about as likely as Tony Blair saying sorry, call us. Funnily enough, we don’t always fill our vans to the gunnels. I know they don’t actually have gunnels but I am sure I am making my point.

If you call us and your requirement is non-urgent, we will get it when we are passing and therefore charge you accordingly. You may even get a better deal because you are helping us reduce our carbon footprint and make up a decent load. 

And you will feel so much better.

No one likes having piles.