W&S Recycling Support This Year’s Celebrations For International E-Waste Day
International E-Waste Day returns on October 14th 2024, and to celebrate, Material Focus has launched “The Great Cable Challenge.”
The campaign aims to collect one million cables in an attempt to reduce the amount of e-waste.
This is a nationwide campaign targeting households, local authorities, retailers, schools and community projects across the UK and aims to encourage everyone to tackle the millions of cables that sit unused, in drawers and cupboards across UK households.
What is International E-Waste Day?
International E-Waste Day is a pivotal day in the waste industry, and is key to raising awareness of electrical and electronic waste - the fastest growing waste type across the globe.
The day is used by many across the industry to educate those about the waste stream and encourage people to take action and recycle their old and unwanted electrical items.
Why Should We Be Recycling Electrical Waste?
Cables are made up of at least 20% copper, a precious metal, which when simply sent to landfill is lost forever.
However, we rely heavily on this metal, particularly for our phones, transport, medical equipment and our green energy future. Therefore, we need to be careful how we utilise the world's natural resources and encourage more recycling so that we can reuse the material.
Currently, the average household has between 4-5 unused cables gathering dust in “drawers of doom”. On top of this, we often hoard broken cables, which add to this number. Research by Material Focus also indicates that we could save 5,000 kg of copper from landfills if every one of us recycled at least one cable.
By recycling or donating old cables and other electrical equipment, people can give them a new lease on life. This is the goal of the Great Cable Challenge.
How Can You Get Involved?
The Great Cable Challenge is open to anyone, and we encourage you all to take part. One small action could make a big difference.
It is easy. All you need to do is follow these steps:
- Bag up your unused and broken cables, as well as any old and unwanted electrical items from your “drawer of doom”.
- Find your local drop-off point using Recycle Your Electricals' Postcode Locator
- Head to your local collection point and hand over your items
That is all you will need to do!
How Organisations Can Take Part
This campaign isn’t simply targeting everyday people and trying to get them to rummage through their drawers of doom.
Material Focus also wants organisations across the nation to take part too.
There are a couple of ways you can do this:
- Set up a pop-up cable collection - offices, universities, schools and community halls or groups can become drop off points, making it easier for employees, residents or students to recycle their electrical items and cables.
- Help promote the campaign - any organisation can use the Material Focus’ communication materials to raise awareness of electrical waste and encourage everyone to take action.
If you are an organisation looking to take part in this campaign, Material Focus has created a campaign toolkit that you can use to help you.
W&S Recycling Participation
At W&S Recycling we provide an affordable electrical waste recycling service to the entire South of England, recycling small and large electrical waste items; from fridges and freezers to phones, TVs and computing equipment.
If you have domestic electrical waste, all you need to do is find your local recycling centre and drop the items off.
If you have commercial electrical waste, we can collect your waste from your site, or you can drop it off to one of our sites. If you aren’t sure if you can recycle your electrical waste, don’t hesitate to get in touch with our team today by calling 01202 675564.
Alternatively learn more about Material Focus’ International E-Waste Day campaign “The Great Cable Challenge” on their website.
