There is improving awareness of the need to recycle mobile phones, but what about the charger? Some commercial recyclers are only interested in the handset and will not accept the charger, so what happens to them?
There could be around 20 million redundant chargers sitting around in homes and over a million new chargers are purchased every year. Sainsbury’s and Valpak are working in partnership to increase the recycling rate for chargers during the month of August with a collection campaign. People will be able to deposit chargers in banks at the entrances to all Sainsbury’s stores during a 4 week period from 31st July.
The aim is to collect 150,000 chargers, equating to 40 tonnes of material, to achieve at least a 50% increase in UK charger recycling for the period. If this target is met it will be impressive given that the annual total for the UK is just 250,000. It is also hoped that the intiative will create greater awareness of the need to recycle chargers and it will also draw attention to the existence of local recycling centres where chargers can be recycled. The campaign will also prevent 40 tonnes of hazardous e-waste going to landfill.
The chargers will be collected by Valpak and transported to Wincanton’s WEEE recycling facility in Daventry, Northamptonshire, where they will be broken down and the plastics and metals will then be sent for recycling.