The councils’ in-house teams will pick up kettles, toasters, irons and other portable items with plugs or that are powered by batteries as part of residents’ weekly waste collections.
The councils have told residents to leave broken small electricals next to their recycling bins on the day of their collection, having removed any batteries.
A spokesperson for the councils told letsrecycle.com they would store the items in cages attached to vehicles in their current fleet.
Adur and Worthing will then store the items at their sites before transferring them to West Sussex county council for disposal at specialist metal recycler Light Brothers’ facility near Lewes, East Sussex.
To help publicise the service, the councils’ refuse and recycling teams have been attaching brightly coloured tags to bins when emptying them. The tags give details of the types of items that can and cannot be left out for collection.
Recycling levels
The councils estimate that each year households in Adur and Worthing respectively throw away 82 and 77 tonnes of WEEE.
The councils hope the kerbside service, combined with efforts to encourage people to reuse items that still work, will halve that amount within 12 months.
Cllr Emma Evans, Adur district council’s cabinet member for environment and leisure, said: “Thanks to the hard work of local residents, we’ve made real improvements in recent years in reducing the amount of household waste produced while increasing recycling levels. But we can and must go much further.
“This new free weekly service will support that work, making it easier for residents to recycle broken items while promoting alternative ways for appliances which are still working to be reused.”
Adur & Worthing
Adur & Worthing councils have operated under a joint management structure with a single chief executive since 2008. Combined, they represent a combined estimated population of more than 175,000.
Adur district council had a household waste recycling rate of 41.1% in the 2020/21 financial year, while Worthing borough council’s rate was marginally better at 41.5%.
Kerbside WEEE
Research published by Material Focus, the not-for-profit organisation funded by the WEEE compliance fee, in 2021 suggested a kerbside service for all UK households could collect 99,000 tonnes of WEEE each year, 64% of the 155,000 tonnes thrown annually (see letsrecycle.com story).
Mid Sussex district council is another local authority to have launched a kerbside WEEE collection and also sends small electrical items to Light Brothers (see letsrecycle.com story).
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