Recycling electronics and other stuff what really happens?

usignuolo

There have been a series of adverts on tv recently banging on about the need to recycle household small electrical and electronic goods. Don't take it to the dump for landfill, take it to your recycling centre, that sort of thing. So today we did just that.

We have been having a post Christmas clearout and turned out a scanner, printer and a pc, which have been upgraded. When we arrived at the recycling centre we were directed to a section called "Small appliances" and instructed to leave them there. There was a large notice saying that appliances left would be inspected and where appropriate, recycled.

We put them down and my OH wandered over to the main landfill area to chuck out some more stuff (the centre is divided into lots of different areas). While I waited a bored looking youth, employed in the centre, pushed up a trolley to the amassed electrical appliances and loaded the larger televisions onto it. Then he threw everything else into a large skip just behind him, labelled small appliances. That done he he wheeled the trolley over to the main landfill site and threw the televisions onto it.

So why bother? And I can't take my stuff to the next council's tip sorry recycling centre, as they won't let you in there unless you can prove you are a ratepayer for that council or resident there.

What is going on? Anyone care to guess? I should say that our council is supposed to have a good reputation for recycling.

Mr_Toad

usignuolo wrote: »

There have been a series of adverts on tv recently banging on about the need to recycle household small electrical and electronic goods. Don't take it to the dump for landfill, take it to your recycling centre, that sort of thing. So today we did just that.

We have been having a post Christmas clearout and turned out a scanner, printer and a pc, which have been upgraded. When we arrived at the recycling centre we were directed to a section called "Small appliances" and instructed to leave them there. There was a large notice saying that appliances left would be inspected and where appropriate, recycled.

We put them down and my OH wandered over to the main landfill area to chuck out some more stuff (the centre is divided into lots of different areas). While I waited a bored looking youth, employed in the centre, pushed up a trolley to the amassed electrical appliances and loaded the larger televisions onto it. Then he threw everything else into a large skip just behind him, labelled small appliances. That done he he wheeled the trolley over to the main landfill site and threw the televisions onto it.

So why bother? And I can't take my stuff to the next council's tip sorry recycling centre, as they won't let you in there unless you can prove you are a ratepayer for that council or resident there.

What is going on? Anyone care to guess? I should say that our council is supposed to have a good reputation for recycling.

The appliances are smashed into small pieces then processed. Magnets remove ans steel and ferrous metals then specialist 'rare earth magnets remove other metals which are sent for smelting and reuse.

Aluminium is removed and recycled and the plastic remains are also separated out and recycled.

Printed circuit boards contain copper and other metals, including small amounts of gold which can also be recovered by specialist recyclers.

Large appliances are recycled in a similar way but there is more manual intervention to pick out things like motors.

Televisions are a different matter and quite labour intensive. They have to be broken down manually and sorted into their component parts.

Plastic cases are shredded and go to plastic recycling plants. The glass screens have to be separated, the front contains the coating that gives the picture, the back part of the screen contains lead. Once the materials have been separated from the glass the glass itself is melted down and can be used to make more TVs or pretty much anything that needs glass.

There are also the coils that direct the beams which are copper then there's the circuitry, see above.

From the sound of it your centre doesn't have the capability to recycle TVs and is dumping them rather than send them somewhere that can.

Just about everything in an electrical appliance can be recycled and reused it's just that historically we never bothered, we simply dumped stuff in holes in the ground.

That's starting to change as we run out of places to dump stuff and realize that stuff like copper and other metals are too expensive to just throw away.

usignuolo

Thanks for that - very interesting.

Lleucu

Dont forget freecycle :Tfor your unwanted tech items. I went to the recycling centre recently and was sad to see so many perfectly ok non flat screen TVs.

I advertised a Sony Trinitron (perfectly OK) TV on freecycle and got loads of replies. I have also got rid of cables, printers, old but functioning laptops minus their hard discs,speakers, mini music centres, coffee machines and many other consumer items.

For TVs and monitors, I get loads of replies, my only concern about freecycle is that it favours car owners and so I will deliver if the person is car less.