October 14th 2023.
Have you ever thrown away an old pair of headphones, or a frayed charger cable, without a second thought? You're not alone - thousands of Brits discard their technology without knowing that a lot of it can be recycled.
Fast Tech is the term used for items that are often discarded and sent to landfill, such as headphones, cables, mini fans and single-use vapes. As these items often have a short lifespan and cost, on average, £4, they are seen as disposable, even when they are not designed to be.
This emerging issue is a part of a bigger challenge of electrical waste in the UK, with valuable materials such as gold, aluminium and lithium being lost forever when thrown away. The Recycle Your Electricals campaign, conducted by Material Focus, has revealed that nearly half a billion small Fast Tech electricals were sent to landfill last year - that's 16 items every second!
Joanne Batty, a self-proclaimed technology enthusiast from Leeds, admits she was part of the problem until recently. Although she was aware that it wasn't right to throw away her tech items, she wasn't aware that there was another option. She told Metro: "It never felt right to do it, but I just didn’t realise there was another option. We threw away so many cables – endless chargers for laptops and mobile phones went in the bin."
The research has also found that 880 million household electricals are lying unused in UK homes, a 67% increase compared to three years ago. Joanne is now making amends by taking her two daughters to a recycling centre near their home. She said: "To know that the unloved items can have renewed purpose and become valuable items for a second life is so rewarding."
Material Focus are encouraging people to recycle Fast Tech and anything else with a plug, battery or cable. To demonstrate the amount of valuable materials contained in these items, they have created 3-D CT scan images and video clips captured by Neptune industrial CT scanner.
Scott Butler, executive director of Material Focus, said: "People should think carefully about buying some of the more frivolous Fast Tech items in the first place. But as Fast Tech items are quite cheap and small, people may not realise that they contain valuable materials and will just pop them in the bin, meaning we lose everything inside them instead of recycling them into something new. We want to get the message across that anything with a plug, battery or cable can be recycled and there’s somewhere near you to do it."
International E-Waste Day is here to help us all become conscious of our tech waste. To find out more about the Recycle Your Electricals campaign and how to recycle your tech, click here.
[This article has been trending online recently and has been generated with AI. Your feed is customized.]
[Generative AI is experimental.]
