Over the past 5 years, the leakage of the publics’ waste electronics to unauthorised recyclers has become an increasing problem acrioss the country. Waste electronics being left outside homes is often being illegally collected and taken to unauthorised waste sites. Waste collected in this manner avoids being recorded as WEEE; this means many thousands of tonnes of waste electronics disappears every week undetected with the potential to be illiegally exported or processed in the UK giving rise to dangers to both human health and the environment.

The only way to tackle these illegal activities is to give access to more public WEEE recycling points. Bradford County Council has taken up the fight against these irresponsible activities by initiating a project whereby WEEE collection containers have been placed at public locations throughout the city to ensure recycling is made as easy as possible. The collection containers, provided by national recycler, WasteCare Group, provide a safe and practical method to dispose of unwanted WEEE.

The UK disposes almost a million tonnes of WEEE per year and because of legislation which came into force in 2007 we are encouraged not to dispose of our small electrical items in the normal household bin, but take back to designated collection facilities such as these WEEE Banks, CA sites and retail take-back schemes.

Once deposited, the electrical items are recycled at WasteCare Group’s regional recycling and reuse facilities. All electrical items are tested and wherever possible prepared for reuse, items not suitable for reuse are recycled and recovered through WasteCare’s Approved Authorised Treatment Facilities (AATF).

The first batch of WEEE bins have been placed at supermarkets, libraries and public car parks throughout the City.