A campaign to repair, recycle, and ethically scrap electricals in Glasgow aims to take in some of the 527 million small electrical items owned by UK homes, many of which would otherwise be thrown in the trash.
The Recycle your Electricals campaign utilizes local resources such as mend and repair shops, conscious consumers, and state campaigns to get devices to those that need them. It also retrieves valuable materials out of machines that don’t work anymore.
The campaign, run by waste electricals non-profit Material Focus, is supported by the Glasgow city council and the Remade Network. The drive has received a significant response. It’s basically a massive reshuffle of the distribution of electrical goods as it focuses on repairing, donating, recycling, and reselling.
Sophie Unwin, the Director of Remade Network, said:
For too long, consumers have been blamed for not re-using and repairing enough when the facilities don’t exist for people to make better choices.
Remade Network is contributing their Tech Drop service, which allows people to bring anything with a plug or battery that will fit into a carrier bag to any one of their sites. In addition, the network gives residents the option of “ethical binning,” with Remade sorting out the inconvenient details.
This process has enabled them to donate 1,000 desktop PCs from government offices to low-income households with no access to the internet via 50 local charity groups. As a result, the social enterprise has diverted 250 tons of CO2 so far.
According to Material Focus, the cost of the materials contained within unwanted electricals amounts to approximately $24 billion (£17 billion). On top of that, most of these materials have to be dug out of the earth at ultra-high costs to companies and the climate in the form of CO2.
Scott Butler, Executive Director at Material Focus, explained:
This project is vital to ensuring that we make good use of our old electricals. Whether they are re-used or recycled—these items contain valuable materials that will otherwise be lost forever. Our research has shown that in the UK, we are hoarding over 527 million small electrical items, an average of 20 per household.
In addition to Glasgow City Council funding, Material Focus and Remade Network receive money via a UK scheme known as Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) which sets limits to which manufacturers must create products to ensure they are recyclable. Any manufacturer who refuses to comply is punished with a tax (a compliance fee) that goes to a fund, which supports groups like Remade and Material Focus.
Material Focus’ recycling locator is convenient, as it has more than 2,500 points where people can bring in their old e-waste. As many as 127,000 people have already used this service.
One of the main reasons E-waste is a growing problem worldwide is that there isn’t a large-scale solution. However, the Recycle your Electricals campaign is looking to change that. Collecting old electronics, harvesting them for valuable components, and selling them to manufacturers for cheap or giving them to those in need is a great way to keep precious minerals in the ground and prices low in the shops.
Another initiative that is diverting valuables to those in need is Middleton’s Village To Village Foundation. In late June, the CBS Evening News featured a South Carolina man named Eliot Middleton who transformed lives by repairing damaged cars and giving them away.
Middleton, who owns a barbecue restaurant, lives in a rural area with no public transportation, no taxis, or Uber. Therefore, if you don’t have a car, there are limited options for those with children or physical conditions.
With this in mind, Middleton, a trained mechanic, began recovering donated cars in his free time. Before the CBS report, he had donated 32 vehicles to rural families since last September. However, after the report aired on TV, Middleton received a flood of donations, including over 800 cars.
A surge of cash also poured into his Gofundme page ($129,000), and thousands of people wrote comments offering their aid and services to support his mission. One person even donated a flatbed truck so that he could move all these cars from all over the country. “My phone started exploding from all over the place,” he told CBS reporter Mark Strassmann.
Middleton’s sister is helping him organize the overwhelming response on his phone and his ‘Middleton’s Village To Village Foundation’s Facebook page. “Whatever glowing feeling is inside me, it just transferred from that TV screen and went inside them. It’s soul-soothing,” Middleton said.
Middleton talks more about his mission in the video below.
