How should I dispose of old/broken electrical products?

Good question. First things first. Don’t throw it in the bin. Here are a few things to consider:

Can it still be used by someone?

It may be old junk to you but it could be worth a bundle to someone else. I got rid of two Dyson vacuum cleaners because I don’t know how to fix them. But if you know your way around a vacuum cleaner, a couple of slightly broken Dysons are probably worth a lot to you. Solution?

If you think it’s worth something to someone as spares and repairs, or if it’s fixable, put it on eBay and sell it. If that’s too much hassle try freecycle.org and have someone come and pick up your old electrical goods for you.

Are you a business/organisation?

If so, you should have a procedure in place for disposing of waste electrical equipment. If you’re one of our customers you can simply give us a phone and we’ll arrange a collection of your Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE).

Don’t ever throw electrical products in the bin

You should never throw electrical products in the bin as they do not degrade well and often will contain hazardous chemicals; for example in batteries. Here are some useful web pages that explain what you should do with the most common electrical product related items:

Batteries

Information on recycling batteries

Tips:

• Use the mains whenever possible to reduce battery usage
• Don’t buy non-rechargeable batteries. Get a charger and buy some rechargeable batteries.

Computers

Computers lose their value quickly, making it difficult to sell them when you move onto a new model. If you don’t want to try selling your old computer and it’s still functional, why not give it to charity?

Donate your PC to charity.

Remember though; if there is sensitive information (e.g. customer information on your hard drive(s) you must properly erase this information before the hard drive leaves the security of your premisis.

Mobile phones

Mobile phones are another electrical product experiencing high levels of innovation. So what do you do when you can’t/don’t want to sell an old mobile phone? Give it to charity. Here are a few organisations that can re-use/recycle your old mobile phone and donate the money they make to charity:

• Green Source
• Cartridges for Charity
• Recycling Appeal
• GuideDogs.org.uk
• Mobiles.co.uk
• Help the Aged
• Mopay (charitable donation is optional)
• Fonebank and Oxfam

Alternatively, search for your charity of choice plus “mobile phone” in Google to see if your charity can take your old phone.

Does your school or office have a procedure for recycling electric products?

Maybe you could start a mobile phone and battery collection at work. The more people involved, the more worthwhile it will be. Most people have old mobile phones at home. Send an email around work to see whether anyone would like to nominate a charity to which you could donate your old mobile phones. Start a collection and get everyone to bring all those old phones they’ll never sell in.

Did you know you can also get paid for recycling old or unwanted mobile phones, even if they’re not working?  Click here to recycle your old phone for cash.