WEEE awareness campaign launched

The department has teamed up the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) to launch the initiative in the lead-up to Christmas, with a focus on small WEEE such as kettles, cameras and coffee makers.

Announcing the initiative, business minister Ian Pearson said: “The WEEE regulations have created a nationwide recycling network in the UK, but for the system to maximise its overall effectiveness it's down to each of us individually to get on board as socially responsible consumers and businesses.

“With over 154 million small electrical products bought in the UK last year alone, there's a huge opportunity to increase the recycling rates for unwanted goods, particularly in the run up to Christmas.

“This campaign will be an important factor in raising the consumer awareness needed to lift collections levels and reduce the amount of waste going to landfill,” he added.

Target

While the UK comfortably exceeded the WEEE Directive's 4kg per head of population collection target it had to reach in the 2007 compliance period (see letsrecycle.com story), a consumer awareness campaign had been long-expected in the sector.

BERR had originally said that a campaign would be launched this summer (see letsrecycle.com story), but it is believed that it was postponed until the lead-up to Christmas in a bid to increase its exposure, and to avoid cross-over with June's 'Recycle Week' initiative.

A spokeswoman for WRAP confirmed today that, while the campaign was focused on “Christmas WEEE”, it will “continue to work on raising awareness of recycling electricals (i.e. through local authorities)”.

The need to increase the UK's WEEE collection rate in the long-term was highlighted by last week's EU announcement that it plans to change the way it works out a country's WEEE obligation to more directly reflect the amount of EEE it places on the market (see letsrecycle.com story).

Figures supplied by WRAP show that 154 million small electrical products were brought in the UK in the 12 months to the end of September 2008, equating to 551,000 tonnes, but that only 56,000 tonnes of small WEEE was recycled.

Research

Research published by Recycle Now to accompany the launch of the campaign has revealed that on average each UK household has three old, broken or unwanted small electrical goods stored around the house.

The research also discovered that two thirds would find it “useful” to have more information on how to recycle WEEE.

Recycle Now's Laura Underwood said: “As Christmas shoppers hit the high streets in search of this year's hot gadget gifts for loved ones, it's the idea time to think about recycling old electricals lying about the house to make room for the new ones.

“If every household returned just one item for recycling, we could reprocess more than 24,500 tonnes of unwanted small electricals into new goods,” she added.