Join our investigation into reuse at UK recycling centres 🕵️

[james]

Update (Feb, 2025)

This project has now ended. You can find our results here. And you can access the dedicated forum category here: Beyond Recycling of E-Waste

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Last year, we spent a week examining every electronic and electrical device brought into a household reuse and recycling centre in West London. As you may remember, we tested hundreds of devices destined for the recycling shredder. And, shockingly, we found that almost half of them could have been reused instead

As we noted at the time, while lots of products should be recycled, many shouldn’t be anywhere near the recycling bin. Instead they should be living a longer, or a second life in the hands and the homes of people that can use them. By focusing exclusively on recycling, we’re wasting more than we need to. Based on this study, we estimated that over 30,000 perfectly reusable small electrical and electronic products could be “wasted” in recycling skips at Household Waste and Recycling Centres (HWRCs) – every week.

Our experience in West London left us with a lot of questions. But one that’s stuck with us is this…

How many recycling centres actually offer reuse options for electrical devices in the UK?

We know that in some parts of the UK, waste authorities and waste management companies are testing out ways to separate reusable items from waste. We’ve even seen some of these in action. But industry insiders tell us that reuse remains rare, especially for electronic and electrical products. If true, this means we’re missing a huge opportunity to reduce waste and make the most of the products we have.

Right now, it’s hard to assess the state of reuse because there is surprisingly little public information about how common these initiatives are across the country. So now we plan to look into this ourselves and we need your help!

Help us answer this question

We’re looking for volunteers to join us for Project BREW – a deep dive into the world of Household Waste and Recycling Centres.

Together we’ll investigate how many offer opportunities to reuse products, and we’ll have conversations with the staff on the ground about their work and the barriers they may face to moving beyond just recycling.

Don’t worry if you don’t know anything about waste management yet. We’ll brief you on everything you need to know.

All you need to take part is an internet-connected device and a sense of curiosity!

If you’d like to learn more, come along to our information session on 2024-05-30T18:00:00Z

Register here

[Nigel_Rose]

I recently attended an open evening at the Renew Centre in Trafford, Greater Manchester which is run by Suez, who run all the tips and do rubbish collections. They do a limited amount of repair/upcycling alongside re-use. The only repair they do is simple swapping out of components. I have no idea what percentage of electric waste this represents. They don’t recycle sewing machines as they don’t have anyone with the expertise so they have agreed to give them to me so I can service/repair them and pass them on.

[james]

That’s great to hear Nigel! Hopefully that’ll mean more sewing machines finding their way back into circulation!

A few of my Restart colleagues went up to visit SUEZ’s Renew Hub last year. From what they said, it sounds like an impressive operation, albeit one that doesn’t focus too much on repair (as you say). I think it would be fascinating to better understand the challenges of scaling up repair at these kinds of facilities. Hopefully we can touch on this during this project!

[Ian_Barnard]

Hope you’re recording the session as I can’t join live

[james]

Hi Ian,

Yep, the plan is to record the session. Because we’ve had so many people express interest, the easiest way to make sure you get the recording is to register for the session anyway (which I see that you have).

I’ll send the recording out to everyone who signed up along with details on how to get involved

[Dave]

I can’t make it either, but I’ve registered. Looking forward to the recording & info.

[David_Michael_Willoughby]

James,
I am a member of the public living in WIltshire (Salisbury) and here I find that the county council actively prevents members of the public from removing ANYTHING from their recycling centres. It could be a piece of small electronic equipment which might be used for repair or re-use, or a piece of timber which could be re-used in a current DIY project.
Despite application to the officer in charge of re-cycling at the council offices I have been prevented by the local council employees on more than one occasion from removing an item from our recycling centre. In addition I have been prevented from placing a notice at the recycling centre requesting that members of the public might contact me before disposing of a particular item so that I could use part of it to repair my own device.
There is no attempt to put usable items on one side for the public to re-move for re-use. Although, going back twenty or thirty years this was my experience when living in a different part of the country.
Surely councils should be encouraging re-use and recycling and by doing so reducing the amount of material that goes to landfil.
Does anyone have any ideas about suggesting our local council should do so.
Regards David Willoughby.

[Nigel_Rose]

We may run into problems with purdah for the 6 weeks before the election. Councils can interpret this very broadly

[james]

Hi David,

Thanks for sharing your experience here. We’ve found exactly the same thing. It’s largely the result of regulations around how Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment (WEEE) can be treated and often combined with technical questions relating to the contracts that local authorities have with waste companies that process it. In general, once something has been designated as ‘waste’, it can’t be removed (unless it can pass certain ‘end of waste’ tests).

@David_Michael_Willoughby

Surely councils should be encouraging re-use and recycling and by doing so reducing the amount of material that goes to landfil. Does anyone have any ideas about suggesting our local council should do so.

Couldn’t agree with this more! And this is very much the driver behind this new project. We want to get a better sense of how many local authorities are doing reuse (and what types), better understand the reasons it’s not more common, and identify ways we can push for changes that incentivise it.

@Nigel_Rose

We may run into problems with purdah for the 6 weeks before the election. Councils can interpret this very broadly

Good point Nigel. We’re hoping purdah won’t affect us too much, but it is possible. We’ll definitely need to take this into account when planning this stage of the project

[Mark_Stewart]

Hi James,
Will the study also look at the recycling of WEEE as well as the reuse? I suspect a lot of it goes into landfill or incineration rather than recycling. Our tip has a few seperate streams for batteries, Fridges, TV’s but nothing for small electricals. The staff might pick out a few choice items they find for the reuse shop but unless is it scrap metal it just goes in with the rest. We do have a small electricals kebside collection and it would be intersting to know what happens to these,
Mark

[james]

Hi Mark,

We’ll focus pretty exclusively on reuse for this study, as the scope is already quite ambitious and we’re most interested in diverting WEEE away from the waste stream in general. Kerbside collections may also be a bit outside the scope, though I believe much of these items end up at HWRCs in any case.

Hope that makes sense!

I’ll be in touch with everyone soon with next steps

James

[james]

For anyone who missed the information session about this project a couple of weeks ago, you can now find the recording and a summary of what we covered here:

Help us research reuse in the UK

We’re also organising a welcome call for everyone who’s signed up this coming Monday 2024-06-24T18:00:00Z

If you’re interested in getting involved, you’re more than welcome! Simply reserve a spot here.

[philip]

Hi James - Still interested, but can’t make it on Monday evening. - Philip

[Ian_Barnard]

Maybe you answered this already; I don’t want to possibly duplicate time spent on researching reuse/waste in my area around Exeter, so hopefully there’s way we can make sure there’s no nugatory effort`?

[Tess_Goodwin]

Hi Nigel, I run the ML12 Repair Cafe Project and one of my longer term aims is for us to be able to be able to offer sewing machine repair. Do you know of anywhere either on line or in person, where someone could learn the skills required for this?

[james]

Hi everyone -

@philip - ok, no problem. Thanks for the heads up! I’ll send around a summary and recording as usual for those who can’t make it.

@Ian_Barnard - indeed! We will have a system where everyone can “claim” a local authority (or aiuthorities), so that should avoid any duplication.

@Tess_Goodwin - Our go-to person for sewing machine repair training is Jennie Caminada from Cheekyhandmades in London. She’s fantastic and has run online training for us in the past (here’s a recording of most recent one we did with her)

[philip]

@Tess_Goodwin and of course, the Wiki page on sewing machines is a fairly complete capture of what I leaned in a skillshare by Jennie in 2016. (My Instructable covering the main points is close to an incredible 200,000 views.)

[Nigel_Rose]

Hi Tess. The video that James suggests is a good start to sewing machine maintenance. There are a couple of books online, lots of excellent youtubers and also some forums which are very helpful. Email me on rosejeffmo@gmail.com and I’ll send you a list. Ideally you do need someone who makes a specialism of it as it can be difficult to diagnose problems without a reasonable amount of experience. However, basic maintenance sorts out most problems.

[james]

Hi everybody!

For those of you who couldn’t make the intro session yesterday, feel free to join the project group right here on the forum.

Doing so will give you access to the dedicated BREW forum category, where you’ll find more info and instructions for getting started: Beyond Recycling of E-Waste

[Nigel_Rose]

FYI article about Re-use based on the Reuse Network report in Resource.co newsletter. https://resource.co/article/government-urged-prioritise-reuse-sector-circular-economy-strategy