Woking, Surrey Heath and Swale borough councils are all working with waste contractor Biffa to offer residents the opportunity to recycle small WEEE alongside household waste and recycling collections.
Woking borough council was the first council to begin WEEE collections, launching its collection scheme earlier this month. Surrey Heath and Swale borough councils are scheduled to begin collecting in April 2012.
Funding for the collections has come from the WEEE Local Project Fund, set up in March 2011 by the Distributor Take back Scheme and overseen by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (see letsrecycle.com story).The fund was opened to support projects that will boost WEEE recycling rates, with cash set to be available from April.
Biffa is covering the start-up costs for the collections in Woking, as the council was keen to launch the service ahead of next years start date.
Landfill
Residents in Woking were provided in November with specially labelled pink bags as well as information about the collection scheme and items that can be recycled.
The council is encouraging householders to leave items such as hairdryers, mobile phones, cameras, or any small battery or mains operated items that are broken or no longer in use in the bags next to their recycling or refuse containers on collection days. The bags will then be collected by refuse crews, who will place them in under-body cages fitted to collection vehicles.
While only a limited number of the pink bags have been distributed, residents have been told that if they use all of the bags they have been given, crews will accept WEEE in any carrier bag if it is left out next to waste or recycling bins on the scheduled collection day.
The collected WEEE is taken for processing by electronics recycler MDJ Light Bros, where it is shredded and mechanically separated into component parts. Woking council hopes that between 200 and 350 tonnes of WEEE will be diverted from landfill per year, with around 500kg already collected under the initiative.
Valuable
Woking councils portfolio holder for waste and recycling, councillor Beryl Hunwicks, said: WEEE is one of the fastest growing waste streams, and we need to ensure it doesnt go to landfill. That would be a tremendous waste of WEEEs valuable materials which can be reused, recycled and remanufactured.
This new collection scheme will further enhance the councils successful recycling service, and support our mission to push the recycling rate from the current 54% to over 60%
Currently the majority of councils will accept WEEE at Household Recycling Centres, but many small electrical items such as toasters and hairdryers will end up in residual waste, and subsequently landfill. The Environment Agency predicts that currently over a million tonnes of WEEE is thrown away each year in the UK.
Surrey Heath and Swale borough councils are currently working with Biffa to plan how the collections in their areas will take shape when they launch in April.
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