Weee Facts
Weee and Batteries - The Problem
It is estimated that over one million tonnes of Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment (WEEE) is discarded in the UK each year and is growing three times faster than any other waste type* .
WEEE is basically anything made with an electrical plug or batteries (dishwasher, fridge, freezer, kettle, iron, telephone, lawnmower, TV, PC, DVD, electric toothbrush, hairdryer...the list is endless).
Even with the EU WEEE directive in place (which aims to make electrical producers and distributors responsible for the cost of safe disposal of WEEE) as householders we are still permitted to place small WEEE (and batteries) into our rubbish bins- and inevitably do. What many people don’t realise is that it ends up in landfill or being incinerated. Many of us thought that these items would be extracted from our rubbish bins when they were emptied – wrong!
There are no accurate figures on the amount of WEEE that ends up in bins but Councils acknowledge it is a problem. Local Authorities have to cover the cost of disposal - landfill is a limited resource and costs are rising all the time. Between 2009 and 2012 Landfill Tax is expected to increase by a staggering 50%. This rising cost ultimately gets passed back to us all in Council Tax.
Dumping WEEE wastes valuable, and increasingly limited, natural resources. It also wastes energy. As an example, producing steel from recycled metal saves 75% of the energy needed to make steel from virgin material.*
WEEE isn’t biodegradable and will be sitting in landfill for generations to come. WEEE contains up to 38 different chemical elements some of which are hazardous.
In the UK we only recycle 3-4% of our consumer batteries yet many of them contain heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury, Heavy metals can leak into the ground causing pollution and endangering wildlife*.
So, not collecting WEEE costs us all money, wastes the world’s depleting natural resources and creates pollution.
* Statistics sourced from the Environment Agency
Our Solution
Midex has been recycling electrical equipment from businesses for over 15 years.
In November 2008, realising that a large amount of domestic WEEE was going to landfill, we decided to try and do something about it and midexcollect.IT was born. It is a unique FREE** door to door collection service for WEEE and has recently been extended to include batteries.
No other company offers this service in Europe.
In the first 6 months of trials, midexcollect.IT targeted 320,000 households and removed over 400 tonnes of WEEE from the Surrey/Hampshire borders.
midexcollect.IT compliments existing Civic Amenity and Recycling facilities (as not everyone has a car or the means to take items to the tip). We are also able to help less able members of the community which we do on a daily basis.
We strongly believe that in terms of CO2 it has to make sense for an organised collection in preference to tens of thousands of individual car trips to a local tip each year.
** The only items we charge for are fridges and freezers due to the cost of decommissioning and making safe.
What happens to the waste once it’s collected?
We operate an Authorised Approved Treatment Facility (AATF) with a 97% recycling target; so almost all of the previously “lost” WEEE is recycled.
On reaching our AATF, any items that can’t be reused are broken down into components. For security reasons (identity theft) all PC hard drives are shredded. The plastics and large metals are sent off to specialist recycling companies. The remainder is shredded and separated out into component metals for reuse in the manufacturing industry.
Our AATF is Environment Agency audited and our operating licences and certificates are all on our website www.midex-rt.com. So, no waste ends up in overseas landfill – which has been highlighted as a real problem in recent press.
All midexcollect.IT waste is processed in the UK and treated safely and ethically.
The way forward
Our trials started in November last year and have been fully funded by our WEEE business services (Midex Reverse Technologies). It was a way of proving to ourselves that it could be done.
We are delighted that Basingstoke & Deane have now come on board as our first Local Authority partner. We applaud their vision and encouragement.
Working together with a Local Authority enables us to jointly assess any impact on fly tipping, volumes going to the tip, and generally look at cost savings for doing this on an ongoing basis.
Our aim is to ultimately make this a sustainable “zero cost” national solution.
In order to achieve this we need to do wider trials (ideally at County level). As a company we have the infrastructure in place, we have a proven working model and we have the passion, energy and enthusiasm to do it. We just need support and trial funding to make it a reality.
Money is being made available for a National WEEE awareness campaign. Our vision is that in the future some of this budget could be used in a scheme that not only educates but also removes WEEE from the waste stream and creates local jobs too.
Please support our vision - book your FREE WEEE collection now
If you have a business you too can support us by choosing us to collect and recycle your commercial WEEE. Go to www.midex-rt.com or contact Sam Prentice on 01252 338 414 or sam@midex-rt.com for more information.
For all enquiries about midexcollect.IT please contact Alison Hull on 07733 977 709 or alison@midex-rt.com